Too many parents?

[alpineer 10]

Our troop has about 25 active youth at our weekly meetings. In addition there are about 12 adults at our meetings as well. Most of the parents that come are registered leaders (assistants or committee). The problem is that I think we have too many adults standing around at the back of the room blabbing while we're trying to conduct our meetings. I was a scout myself and in my opinion the boys can't loosen up and have fun because of the presence of all the adults. I would love to have three to four engaged leaders present and would prefer not to have the other inactive adults present at all. Anyone have any input here? If the boys aren't having fun at the meetings then something is wrong!

[anarchist 10]

If you have another room available put them there...give 'em chairs and a pot of coffee suggest someone rotate cookies or cake and give them little jobs like long range planning, summer camp research, trek possiblity research, and BoRs...(you can have them just to check in with the boys...not necessarily for rank advancement...as in "getting to know boys" and progress checks. You can also use the excess adults with your younger scouts during patrol time to work one on one for skills training when you need your older scouts for planning (etc.)

 

Anarchist

 

 

[t158sm 10]

Ditto. Good advice Anarchist.

If a separate room is available try to use it.

BTW, welcome to the forum Alpineer.

Lot's of good people and good information here.

[scoutldr 732]

Anarchist said,"give them little jobs like long range planning, summer camp research, trek possiblity research,..."

 

Just make sure they don't fall into the pattern of doing the PLC's work for them.

 

We have this same issue with OA chapter meetings. Frequently we have just as many adults show up as youth, and they sit around the back of the room socializing. I find it distracting and a bit rude while the Chief is trying to conduct a meeting. The key is, if they are going to show up, make sure they have something constructive to accomplish....if they want to socialize and chit-chat, they need to be somewhere else.

[alpineer 10]

Thanks for the comments. I'm afraid I'll alienate these parents if I'm not extremely tactful about how I handle this but the troop is there for the boys and not for parents who didn't have the opportunity to be Scouts when they were kids. I guess I'll have to convince some of the parents that not all meetings are family events. Wish me luck and thanks for welcoming me to the forum.

[MaScout 10]

Got a gutsy yet tactful SPL? We had one who once stopped his meeting and asked (very politely) if the adults in the back could please be a little quieter because they were distracting the troop members from where their attention needed to be directed. Last time we had a problem. The adults were not upset, just embarrased they had caused a problem that needed corrected by a youth.

 

Ma Scout

[SueM 10]

I know a few troops who do not allow parents at meetings at all unless they put on the shirt and go to training! (i.e. there is then a purpose for them to be there other than being a distraction!) Yes, you definitely need them for resources sometimes and you don't want to alienate them but they need to also understand that this is not a social hour for either them or the boys. I had one parent who would continually come and criticize me because some patrols had nothing to do during meetings and ask me why they weren't working on a merit badge or something (this was back when we were just starting to transition into a more boy led troop) and continually try to tell me how to run the troop.

 

That said..I like the idea of having the SPL ask the adults to be quieter...though I'm sure that some adults would not appreciate being asked to do so by a boy!!

 

sue m

[scoutldr 732]

Parents are welcome to "observe" any BSA meeting or activity...that's BSA policy. They don't, however, get to impose their opinions or standards without being asked, unless they are registered leaders. And in no case, should an adult be distractive or disruptive.

[anarchist 10]

alpineer,

 

scoutldr, of course, is correct-(smart guy for an old F_ _t)... don't let them do the PLC's work but what we do with "excess parents" (we call them scouters), is have them start a lot of the basic research via internet etc., and give the info to the PLC for weeding out and selection and determination...Particularly, with younger troops or patrols it helps to lay out reasonalble choices (with a few "flyers") so they can learn to focus on the "big" stuff...

 

And The SPL idea does work... we "lost" our "adult play pen" (room) for a while and the "coffee Klatchers" would do a lot of "chatting" in the back of the meeting room - making for too much "Background noise"...a few "scouts signs up" by the SPL where they realized "THEY" were the "noise problem" worked wonders...now, we again have a play pen for adults ...so much better ...again.

 

Your second post does not mention having or not having an extra room? Not? if not, perhaps an Entrance hall to your meeting room?...have the boys line it with chairs?

anarchist

[EagleInKY 14]

We've got two sets of adults at our meetings. The "uninvolved" usually hang out in some chairs in the church foyer. I'm not even sure why they hang around. Most are only a few minutes from home. I've always had a suspicion that these were the parental types that tend to over-protect their sons. Not sure, just seems odd, almost like they don't trust us. Most of the adults at are meetings are the "involved" ones, most of them are ASMs or Committee Members. They usually hang out in the fellowship hall where we do our opening and closing. Sometimes a group of scouts will stay in there to do something, but they usually find their way to another portion of the church. When the scouts break out to the smaller rooms, they are usually on their own, unless they or I have asked for some assistance of some sort.

 

[firecrafter 10]

So any ideas for a group of parents who ignore the requests of the SPL & SM to please retire to the ajoining room? We have a few in the group who consistently refuse to leave the room or get quiet. We've tried the lead by example, and the keep 'em busy tactics. Short of wrestling them to the ground anyone have any other ideas? They seem to have no shame. Thanks!

firecrafter

[Lisabob 13]

We have the same problem. Earlier in the year the SPL actually came to a committee meeting to voice his concern that there was too much adult noise in the back of the room. It worked for a couple of weeks but that was it. (And it is, by and large, scouters and often the SM among them - not other parents - who are to blame in our case. We have almost as many registered, uniformed, active adults as boys. A blessing, to be sure, but it does raise some challenges.) To top it off, we don't have a second room available - but there's always the hall way.

 

One thing that seems to work, when our SM follows through with it, is to have a short "adult patrol meeting" in the hallway right after opening, while the boys are having their own patrol meetings. All adults, uniformed leaders or otherwise, are strongly encouraged to attend. THat gets most of the adults out of the room where they can be reminded to keep it down in there (if need be). Also they tend to loiter in the hallway for conversation when we do this, which is far better than loitering in the room where the boys are trying to work. Of course, the ones who actually need to be in the room with the boys (patrol advisors, for ex.) do tend to go back in but that's ok.

 

Just the act of getting them up from their chairs and out of the room to start with seems to create its own inertia and they stay (mostly) in the hall after that.

 

Lisa'bob

[firecrafter 10]

Lisa'bob,

Great idea! I think I'll pass that one along! Thanks.

firecrafter

[Lisabob 13]

How timely this topic is. Last night our ASPL (not terribly tactful, but he gets results) actually stopped the meeting to tell the adults to be quiet - not once, but twice! 95% of these adults are registered leaders, but there are just so many of them - if we had 35 boys there, we probably had 25 leaders present. Most of the other adults were parents of new boys who just crossed over last month. I can see why they'd stick around, they're still checking us out and trying to figure out what's going on. In fact a lot of the adult conversation was about scouts and answering questions about upcoming events - but the ASPL was right, we were too loud. Asking the adults to be quiet didn't seem to have much effect though - most of them kept right on talking. (how embarrassing!)

 

Of course...our SM held the adult patrol meeting in the same room last night - didn't make it into the hallway, which would've helped. Sigh.

 

Here's another thought - you tell me what you all think. Maybe there's an SM minute here, except let's make it an SPL minute instead since the SM is one of the worst offenders (and I think he realizes it). How would that go over?

 

Lisa'bob