Discipline Action

[Second Class 49]

Some boys re trouble and need scouts. The issue becomes when you start losing other scouts because of the one you are trying to save. Been there.

Because of this we have 4 pages of how we handle it. The meeting between parents and leaders must happen before he comes back.

Sliding scale, the parent attends all events , suspension, up to ejection. Have a sentence which allows ejection without warning, if the action was intentional, premeditated, and injurious. Yes, been there.

 

Deal with it, strongly, or your inaction will reward you with greater trouble.

[ssovnivek 10]

I am the SM of a Troop that has seen our share of discipline problems ranging from foul language to physical assault. We have gone as far as to remove Scouts from events (Summer Camp) to expelling Scouts from the Troop. Each time we have had to resort to "extreme" levels of discipline, we have involved the SM, CC, offending Scout(s) and the parent's of the Scout involved. In the one instance when we removed a Scout from the Troop, he was allowed to rejoin the Troop about 6-months later with a written apology and the assurance that a parent would be present at each event/meeting that the Scout was on.

 

We're now experiencing enough "minor" discipline problems that we are considering implementing a 3-strike policy for minor infractions (name calling, insubordination, etc.). Does anyone have any experience with this sort of approach? I'm curious as to how well it has (or hasn't) worked for others.

[Lisabob 13]

I think a 3 strike policy for minor infractions like language/minor name calling/insubordination would be tough to enforce and cause more problems than it would solve.

 

I can easily, easily imagine a boy goading another one into saying something stupid, or an immature youth leader (say, a youngish PL or APL) throwing around "insubordination" at every turn. Do you want to end up the judge on just how insubordinate the boy was actually being, whether he had a good reason, etc? I don't.

 

What will you do when a boy claims that another called him a name or used bad language, and the boy denies it? He said, he said. How many witnesses must there be? What specific names or words are ok and not ok? My son had a teacher in middle school who got all worked up when a kid would say some *thing* (not even some *one*) was stupid or dumb. Meanwhile others didn't seem to notice or care when kids directed racial slurs at people. Where will your line be?

 

Would this apply to adults, too? I know a few who have challenges controlling their use of expletives.

 

And when you say "3 strikes" do you mean you'd send a kid home from the event? Boot them from the troop? What?

 

Please understand, I'm not saying you ought to ignore or condone bad behavior. I just am not certain that a rigid "3 strikes" kind of approach to minor behavioral issues is a good way to go because you'll end up with a troop full of mini-lawyers (and parents playing lawyers) who want to argue about every called or perceived "strike" rather than dealing with the actual problem.

 

Find a more flexible way to deal with the minor behavioral issues so you don't end up in arguments about what constitutes a "strike" and you'll probably get better results.

[Eagledad 2779]

The problem with three strikes is you have two strikes before the third. If we can't in some way understand the wrong of the first bad decision, then we are just delaying the lesson of the first strike until after the third.

 

Typically several small bad decisions occur before the big one. You need to change the behavior with the small bad decisions, so that the big one was never considered.

 

Barry

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[dkurtenbach 348]

For the most part, we aren't counselors, social workers, clergy, or other kids' parents. We're just volunteer leaders, here to do the best we can for the boys who are here to play the game of Scouting.

 

The game of Scouting has rules -- we call it "Law." When someone breaks the rules of the game he is no longer welcome to play. The individual circumstances of the breach, thoughtfully considered, will usually lead the adult in charge to a reasonable determination. Can the boy stay at the meeting or activity (likely to be quickly recalled to play again once he decides to follow the rules)? Or does he need to go home -- to be welcomed back to the troop at such time as he shows that he (himself -- without a parent keeping him on a leash) will follow the rules (and makes good any damage he may have caused)?

 

That's all. We're not in the business of setting penalties such as suspensions or expulsions, or enforcing "three-strike" rules or "no tolerance" rules, or doling out other punishments. Such things are the realm of the boy's own parents. We're simply umpires. We're here to maintain a safe, healthy, and fair game of Scouting for those who want to play.

 

Dan Kurtenbach

Fairfax, VA

[Beavah 205]

Yah, dkurtenbach, that's a lot of nonsense, eh?

 

When someone breaks the rules of the game, there's just a penalty within the game that is accepted by everyone, and assigned by the game's referees.

 

Use your hands while playin' soccer, the other team takes possession and gets a kick. Travel while playin' hoops, the ball changes possession. Commit a foul while an opponent is shooting, the shooter gets a free throw. Commit a penalty in hockey, get put in the penalty box for a specified time. Ordinary stuff that happens for breaking the rules of the game while it is being played.

 

Evicting a player from the game is a level of response reserved for rare, unusually egregious infractions. Some sports even have stages of "yellow card" warnings beforehand.

 

Yah, yah, we all accept that there are some kinds of infractions that merit a "red card" and being sent home. But as scouters our job is not to send lads home, it's to teach 'em the rules of the game, eh? And that requires that there be all manners of responses to minor infractions of the rules that occur while playing.

 

That's what we're talkin' about in this thread, I reckon. Normal within-the-game-of-scouting responses to the sort of minor infractions that players will commit in the course of being boy scouts.

 

So I agree with Lisabob, eh? Yeh don't create 3-strikes policies for minor infractions. Yeh need penalties within the game. Maybe pushups. Save your yellow card / serious warning / "strikes" for fairly serious breaches. But like Eagledad says, in the vast majority of games you'll never need such responses if yeh have "ordinary" responses in place to handle the smaller stuff earlier on.

 

Beavah

 

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[dkurtenbach 348]

Nonsense? Hardly.

 

Let me reiterate: "The individual circumstances of the breach, thoughtfully considered, will usually lead the adult in charge to a reasonable determination. Can the boy stay at the meeting or activity (likely to be quickly recalled to play again once he decides to follow the rules)? Or does he need to go home -- to be welcomed back to the troop at such time as he shows that he (himself -- without a parent keeping him on a leash) will follow the rules (and makes good any damage he may have caused)?"

 

In other words, the period between a lad being called for breaking the rules, and his acceptance of responsibility for the breach, could be a matter of seconds, or minutes, or perhaps the remainder of a meeting, or an afternoon -- he may never get sent home, if the adult, knowing the boy and the circumstances, determines that the lad's thought process might be aided by seeing the other Scouts having fun.

 

It's about teaching a boy the rules -- the Scout Law. Individual responsibility for his own conduct in the troop, individual responsibility for knowing and agreeing to the rules. The threat of punishment by the troop just calls on a boy to think about his own personal discomfort, nothing more. Taking a lad out of the game until he is ready to play by the rules requires him to decide for himself whether he wants to continue Scouting.

 

Comparing the game of Scouting to competitive sports? In competitive sports, the penalties are largely designed to compensate the other team (or other players, for individual sports) for the competitive advantage gained by breaking the rules. Scouting is not a competitive sport. To the extent there are competitions (such as patrol competitions, or competitions at camporees, for example), those competitions have their own internal rules and penalties related to the subject matter of the competition. That's not what we're talking about here. Though if we were, we'd want to include sports like hockey (penalty: sit down) and basketball (penalty for x number of fouls: sit down).

 

Dan Kurtenbach

Fairfax, VA

[FScouter 24]

Three strikes. Kinda like cutting the corners off the 'ol Totin' Chip card - three violations with no consequence - a free pass - then finally deal with it on the 4th.

[Beavah 205]

Comparing the game of Scouting to competitive sports?

 

Yah, it wasn't my comparison, eh? It was yours when yeh started talkin' about scouters being "umpires" and kids "playing the game". It's not one I would have used myself, but it sort of fits.

 

The point I'm tryin' to make is that we don't start from a position of removing a lad from activities or scouting. We start from a position that the boy is us. He's part of our patrol, our troop, our community and he has a place there. It's not a place that is compromised by minor behaviors. He is a member of the community. He can screw up, he can goof up, he can trip and fall, but he is a part of da patrol and troop regardless. Not because he "follows the rules", but because we care about him. Scoutin' is a family in that way.

 

To my mind, yeh compromise all that scoutin' should be with da premise that "if he breaks the rules he's no longer allowed to play". That takes it away from being a community. I think it's a bit like sayin' "if he breaks the rules he's no longer a part of our family." Let his parents deal with him. To me, that's nonsense. If he breaks the rules as a scout, yeh deal with it together with him and his peers. That's what caring communities do for the folks they care about, eh?

 

Yep, down the road for very serious things, yeh have to deal with suspensions or removals. Those are happily rare, and rarer still if yeh build a sense of community and caring and deal with da little things with humor and grace. I'd just never recommend anybody start out thinkin' about things the way yeh framed 'em.

 

Could, of course, just be me.

 

Beavah

 

[dkurtenbach 348]

Yep, in the system I am describing, membership in the "community" is not treated as a right that is so precious that members can abuse it over and over again and only have to do a few pushups. Rather, membership is the benefit of a contract that the member makes -- in exchange for the ability to participate in Scouting, he agrees to live by a certain code; indeed, he swears an oath on his honor. If he doesn't hold up his end of the bargain, he's out. Whether he stays out and how long he stays out is up to him, because all he has to do is re-commit himself to live by the code, to make up for his breach. Because the point of Scouting isn't to build a community; it is to build individuals of character.

 

Dan Kurtenbach

Fairfax, VA

[Beavah 205]

Yah, hmmm...

 

Well, I had a snappy reply all typed out and then realized this isn't the push-ups thread. Clearly I'm gettin' old and goofy.

 

My apologies, dkurtenbach. I jumped to da last page of the thread and saw your comment, and thought we were talkin' about the sort of actions that a lad might get push-ups for. Didn't that thread have some title like this one?

 

Ah, well, in da context of this thread my response was perfectly ludicrous.

 

Yes, I agree completely. Though the original poster has never returned, my view is that "verbal warnings about his behavior" are silly. Boys who are learning need consequences for their behavior. The consequence is its own lesson, and it can conveniently convey a message without a whole lot of blah blah blah that boys brush off anyways.

 

I agreed with Eagledad on page one which is why I never responded in this thread, until I got myself mixed up.

 

Again, my apologies.

 

Beavah

 

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[dkurtenbach 348]

Whether what you had to say belonged in this thread or not, your comments really caused me to think and re-think about my views, and I appreciate that very much.

 

Thanks a lot!

 

Dan Kurtenbach

Fairfax, VA