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I'm really for less parental involvement.

 

A friend's son recently crossed over into what he describes as a well run troop. Why? Because of parental involvement. There's a parent to do everything. There's a parent who calls all the patrol leaders to remind them of their job at the next meeting. There's at least one parent for each patrol to "make sure that the boys stay on track." Parents take roll. Parents take care of the troop library.

 

I asked what the boys get to do but the question went over his head. He's headed for Wood Badge so maybe he'll get some knowledge squeezed into his head.

 

 

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Sounds like they need a ScoutParent Coordinator to explain to them what their role should and shouldn't be, and to put their energy and resources to better use.

 

If they are doing something that they have been asked to do you can hardly blame them for a willingness to help. It would seem the probelem is with the person who gave them the assignment, he or she does not understand the parents role in the unit.

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Why are these positions even necessary? Because parents don't want anything to happen to their precious little boys! It's not the kids who have trouble cutting the apron strings, it's the parents who won't untie them!

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

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Heck, I guess thats why Emglish is the great language it is. When I saw Parent Coordinator, I saw it as a person who coordinates the parents, not necessarily as a parent. My son aged out a few years back, does this disqualify for the Parent Coordinator position?

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Like for most information on the Scouting program you can contact your local Scout Council, they will have the ScoutParents materials before the end of the month. In it you will find role definitions for parents. It will look like this... (taken from the ScoutParents resource Guide)

 

ScoutParent

A ScoutParent is a parent or adult mentor of a Scout who enthusiastically participates with their

Scout and also helps other volunteers to provide the best quality program experience to all youth in every unit.

 

A ScoutParent:

Leads their family in obtaining the values, benefits, experiences and rewards from their familys Scouting participation, and in sharing these with others;

Enjoys participating with his or her Scout and inspires their child to persevere in Scouting with their tenure, activity participation and achievement;

Helps enhance youth and parent-mentor recruitment, retention, enthusiasm, commitment and participation in the passionate GREAT Family FUN of Scouting!; and

Helps Make It SO!

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If it wasn't bad enough with the registered leaders interfering with boy-led, patrol-method, now they'll have the parents messing with it too.

 

BSA seems bound and determined to really foul this up one way or another.

 

Stosh

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What specific element of what I posted bothers you jblake?

They all seem to be very positive attributes: encouraging their scouts to live by the values, stay in the program, participate, persevere in their advancement. What part of that can you not like???

 

You ask scoutmasters why kids quit and they say "lack of parental support", now the BSA has a program to address that and then you and others now say "we don't want parental support for scouting"?

 

Very odd indeed!

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Whoa, BW, I didn't reference any of your posts. I simply made a comment that there seems to be too many adults aready, no need to formalize a program to do more.

 

As far as parents supporting the program. Knock yourself out supporting your boy! Help him grow up, IT'S YOUR JOB AS PARENT TO DO SO! But that limits the scope of their influence to their own children, not the unit as a whole! and they can do that, they have that responsibility, and I encourage them.

 

But if I'm going to work with these boys to have a boy-led, patrol-method program, I don't need to be spending any more time than I already am trying to keep adults from "taking over"!

 

I am fortunate enough to have a CC who's on the same page as I am and does that for me. I doubt whether or not he wishes to have someone on his committee who's a parent coordinator unless that person's sole responsibility is to do damage control PR, and to keep the parents happy and out of the way. That way the both of us can focus on our jobs in the unit.

 

And by the way, I've looked at the parent page website and I don't think it's a BSA program, just some outside organization wishing to get in and have some sort of "influence" in the BSA program. I didn't get the feeling that this organization wished to worry about their individual boys as much as they wanted to carry clout in the unit itself. One doesn't need a parent coordinator to have every parent worry about their own children. If they have a question, just ask, we don't need a MC position specifically for that.

 

Stosh

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ScoutParents is in fact a BSA natioanl program, hence the fact that it is a registered position in the unit and its designation PC appears on the newest version of the adult membership application, it also has a POR patch,it is not an outside company.

 

Whether you were refering to my post or not does not matter. I was asking what in the information from the ScoutParents Orientaion Guide which I posted bothers you.

 

If you do not want 'parents getting in your way' then I would think having a person designated to keeping them busy doing other things is just what you want?

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Stosh, I gotta agree with you here. When I first heard about this program last year, I said "Ooooo boy, this is going to be interesting."

 

I'm still confused about when this became a BSA program. Last year we were told that it was an outside program developed to help Scouting. Not part of BSA. Now it looks like things have changed.

 

"You ask scoutmasters why kids quit and they say "lack of parental support" "

 

What is parental support and how much do we really need? Why have things changed so much over that last 30 years that youth programs can't survive with the parents being involved at every step?

 

I was a Cub Scout in the 60s. I have no clue what went on at the pack level but in my den, the only adult involved was the Den Mother. My brother was a Boy Scout and the only parental involvement that my parents had was my mother sewed the patches on my brother's uniform and she took him shopping for camping gear.

 

Talking to others of my age who were Scouts, few had a parent who was involved beyond driving occasionally.

 

The same was true for sports. When I was a youngster, mom's job was to wash your baseball uniform. A couple dads were coaches and the rest stayed away until you made the play offs.

 

High school musicals? The kids did 90% of the work with the help of a couple teachers. Now I see professional lighting designers, contractors to build sets, and even acting coaches.

 

What's going on?

 

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Clingy parents that gotta be there running everything for their kids are now getting themselves organized into the BSA...the ultimate adult-led program? Spin it any way you want, still looks that way to me.

 

Stosh

 

 

 

 

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