Dealing with your own Son on outings

[OR Pioneer 10]

Id like to present the Troop 204 50 foot rule of thumb. We taught this to all parents of first time scouts. But with everyone understanding that it was not a hard and fast rule, just a good idea.

 

In Scouting, parents should stay at least 50 feet from any of their own children unless the contact/conversation is initiated by the Scout. (And, what rich and wonderful experiences those were!). If a parent sees that his son needs direction he should point out the need to a fellow Scouter. In fact, many of our Scouters traded sons for this purpose. Thus, if I saw that Eric was into something I thought he shouldnt be, Id talk to Dave Riggs and if he thought Chris Riggs needed me, hed send me. Mostly we'd work through the youth leadership but if one of the boys WAS the youth leader involved, we would offer to listen and counsel with him on the situation.

 

Eric still often chose to sit next to me at campfire, and although he is now 26 years old, he still lists Dave Riggs as someone who knows him well on background investigations for positions in his police career.

 

It worked for us.

 

OR Pioneer

Newberg, OR