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When should scouts stay home?


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I tend to agree with Nike on this point. When the activity is too dangerous it should not be a part of the program.

 

Yet, what appears to be dangerous may not be dangerous at all.

 

I have done white-water canoeing/kayaking for many years and have had hundreds of hours on many different rivers in our part of the country. When I pick a river to suggest to the boys, it is one that I can, with my limitations, insure a reasonable amount of risk with a very low probability of disaster connected with it. Yes, the boys could be killed in a car accident going to or from the white-water activity. There is a certain amount of risk in life itself.

 

However, I take all my boys every year on a white-water trip and even those that have had no experience are given the opportunity to go. Are parents concerned? Yes, they are! They will ask, "what if they tip over in the fast water?!" My standard answer is, "They stand up and get their knees out of the water. What sounds terribly dangerous and adventurous is not at all. TF boys always get paired up with an experienced boy and are always in the front of the canoe, (mostly for ballast so the older boy keeps the front of his canoe down!). :) No one tries kayaks until they have had a trip or two down the river and understand the dynamics of white-water. Are the newbies terrified? Yep! Do they want to go again? Yep! Do the older boys want a more challenging river next time? Yep! Do I take steps to insure that they are trained, experienced and safe before I make the next step? Yep!

 

I had one instance where when we pulled out of the river near the campsite which was a few hundred yards away. I told the boys to haul the canoes up on their shoulders and hike them back to camp. They were really ticked off I didn't go get the trailer. But they did it and were fuming for the rest of the weekend. 2 months later we went to the BWCA and after the longest portage of the trip, 3.2 miles, I asked the boys again if they were still mad at me for making them carry their canoes back to camp 2 months earlier. They all laughed!

 

Push the envelop whenever the parents allow it. Over the years, even they begin to trust in your judgment when they eventually see that what you are doing is in the best interest of their boys.

 

I even have some parent talking to the other parents who have reservations about a scout activity we have planned and even they emphasize that what appears to be very dangerous isn't a problem because the SM is basically a safety freak in the first place. So do I have newbie scouts terrified of some of the activities we plan? Yep! Do they want to go again? Yep!

 

Your mileage may vary,

 

Stosh

 

 

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As a youth I passed up going on three trips, two with the troop and one with another troop because I wasn't sure if I was up to it. I think I probably made the right call about one of those, and the wrong one about the other two, but it was my choice to make.

 

When I first joined my troop a long trip to Wyoming was planned for that summmer in addition to summer camp. I went to camp, but I wasn't sure I was ready to take a trip half way across the continent with a bunch of people I had just met. I wish I had, but I have always been the rather reluctant sort that has plenty of doubts all of my own making.

The next was a troop trip to Philmont a couple years later. I would have just barely met the minimum requirements to attend, but as I did not have any backpacking experience I thought that Philmont was probably too much, and I was probably right on that one. The next was about a year later, a troop from the next town was trying to fill a group to Boundary Waters and somehow got my name and invited me to come. I wish I had gone, and I knew at that point I could handle the trip, but I wasn't so sure about signing on with a bunch of people I had never set eyes on.

 

Today if any of those three came up I would do all of them except Philmont, and if I had about a year of prep time I would do Philmont again, too. (I had a chance to take a last minute spot this past summer, but after a mile on the trail at the local park with a 50 lb pack I knew that wasn't a realistic option).

 

So sometimes Scouts do know something about their own limits, and sometimes the Scout will even limit themself more than needed. See I well understood the limits of my conditioning, skills, maturity, etc. What I didn't rightly understand back then was that some opportunities only ever come once in a lifetime, and once missed, are gone forever.

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As a youth I passed up going on three trips, two with the troop and one with another troop because I wasn't sure if I was up to it. I think I probably made the right call about one of those, and the wrong one about the other two, but it was my choice to make.

 

When I first joined my troop a long trip to Wyoming was planned for that summmer in addition to summer camp. I went to camp, but I wasn't sure I was ready to take a trip half way across the continent with a bunch of people I had just met. I wish I had, but I have always been the rather reluctant sort that has plenty of doubts all of my own making.

The next was a troop trip to Philmont a couple years later. I would have just barely met the minimum requirements to attend, but as I did not have any backpacking experience I thought that Philmont was probably too much, and I was probably right on that one. The next was about a year later, a troop from the next town was trying to fill a group to Boundary Waters and somehow got my name and invited me to come. I wish I had gone, and I knew at that point I could handle the trip, but I wasn't so sure about signing on with a bunch of people I had never set eyes on.

 

Today if any of those three came up I would do all of them except Philmont, and if I had about a year of prep time I would do Philmont again, too. (I had a chance to take a last minute spot this past summer, but after a mile on the trail at the local park with a 50 lb pack I knew that wasn't a realistic option).

 

So sometimes Scouts do know something about their own limits, and sometimes the Scout will even limit themself more than needed. See I well understood the limits of my conditioning, skills, maturity, etc. What I didn't rightly understand back then was that some opportunities only ever come once in a lifetime, and once missed, are gone forever.

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In response to "Horsehockey"...

 

I should kindly remind the writer that for roughly the first 200 years of our country's existence you had to be 21 years old to vote...that changed in response to the Vietnam War.

 

There is still a minimum age to be a Representative, Senator or President (I can't recall the Judicial Branch if it has an age minimum.)

 

Maybe the Founders knew something...

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ProudEagle: Not everyone is willing to push the envelop. :) I didn't go to Philmont as a youth, but had the opportunity at age 50. I had the time to prepare and had many miles of hiking under my belt. The troop I went with took the most difficult trek of them all! All 5 major peaks of Philmont! It was a personal challenge for me and maybe I have become a wee bit foolish in my advanced years. I survived, it was beyond my abilities, I wish I had been 18 and full of spit and vinegar, but I don't regret having stepped up to the plate. I cannot expect anyone around me to do it unless I'm willing to put it on the line myself. Would I do it again? Heck NO! But my boys are planning to go in 2013.... Somewhere in the back of my mind there's a little voice asking over and over again, can a 63 year old man make another trek? Do I have yet another trip to the BWCA in my life? Every time I go out to the garage and see the canoes and kayak hanging there, the temptation looms larger than life.

 

What if I die of a heart attack on some trail miles from any help in the mountains of New Mexico or on a portage between a couple of unnamed lakes in N. Minnesota? Is it better to die of pneumonia in a nursing home safe in my hometown?

 

Hopefully I will become even more foolish as I age. I'm thinking it sounds like Philmont and/or BWCA might be a good idea.... I'll just make sure we have 3-deep leadership. :)

 

Your mileage may vary,

 

Stosh

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Engineer,

 

May I remind you that women also didn't get the right to vote nationally until the 6-14-1919, after WWI.

 

Also Slavery still existed in the US until 12-6-1865, after the Civil War. Freed slaves only received citizenship on 7-9-1868, almost 3 years after the 13th Amendment and almost 8 years after the Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the states that succeeded form the Union. They didn't get the right to vote until 2-3-1870,, almost 2 years after slavery was abolished in the US.

 

So do you still think the Founders were correct in everything they did?

 

Also a few FYIs about some of our founders

 

Ben Franklin

at 20 was gainfully employed

at 21 created the Junto, which was first tradesman organization in the US.

at 22 had his own printing business

at 25 created the first subscription library in the US

 

George Washington

at 17 was a colonial government surveyor

at 21 was a Major in the Virginia militia.

at 23 led British forces in retreat from the Braddock Disaster.

 

ALSO at 23 became a Virginia militia Colonel AND was placed as commander in chief of Virginia's frontier forces.

 

More later

 

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Yah, I'll agree with Eagle92,eh. Engingeer61, you're just not understanding da research properly, because you're probably readin' da popular press accounts rather than the real stuff. There was a good Scientific American article a year or so back that explained that da MRI brain studies show the outcome of learning, eh? The more a lad learns, the more brain development they show, until age 25 or so. After that, things get "locked in" and it's harder to learn.

 

Some things, of course, get locked in much earlier, eh? Like language skills. If yeh don't learn a first or second language fairly young, those parts of the brain get "locked in" and it's much harder to really learn an accent-free second language. But if yeh do experience multiple languages early on in life, yeh can become truly proficient, eh? As anybody who has traveled and talked to kids in other countries learns. I met a street urchin 7 year old in Morocco who was fluent in at least 7 languages, even though da language centers of his brain were not done developing.

 

So kids are very good at reasoning, eh? Da age of 7 is the traditional "age of reason", and for most of da history of the world an adolescent has been treated as a functional adult, and properly so. If yeh travel in countries where kids aren't mollycoddled yeh will be truly amazed by what young folks are capable of.

 

What da research really warns us of is how hard it is for adults to learn new things because our brains have stopped developing', eh? We tend to misapply our experience from areas we do know to areas we don't know, and overestimate our competence. Leastways, that's what my colleague in cognitive psychology tells me ;). It's also an issue for kids who are overprotected or who get into drugs, eh? If they make it past certain cognitive development points without having learned important things, they may be handicapped for da rest of their lives, because their brain structure got "locked in" without learning.

 

There's a reason why most great advances, from Alexander the Great to Einstein, came from people who were younger than 25, whose brains were still learning. That didn't make 'em less capable, it made 'em more capable.

 

Beavah

 

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Okay back to the OP --

 

Here's an idea: why don't we require training for the PARENTS? Think of the problems we would solve if parents hand some modicum of understanding of what the program. There's now the push to officially register folks as "Scout parents" so why not have training to go along with the position.

 

But from a liability/health/safety standpoint, any true waiver of liability or assumption of risk must come from informed consent. So let's inform them. Here are the activities your son will participate in. Here's the level of training the leaders have. Some of these activities will take place in locations well more than an hour from medical help.

 

If parents have such a poor understanding of what their sons' are doing and are working under the mis-assumption that all SMs are NOLS trained and have trained and equipped ALS paramedics with them, we have a responsibility to educate them.

 

Parents need to understand they have a responsibility to ensure their son is in shape for the activities they send him on. The parents need to be prepared by having the right gear, showing up for prep meetings and even drinking lots of water the day before. You know, engage. I don't mean this to undermine the Scouts' responsibility for these things, but as always with minors, the buck stops with the parents.

 

Think that will scare off a bunch of parents? Okay. Don't let the screen door catch you in the butt. Will parent buck at the idea of sitting through a class before their boys can become a Scout? Welcome to our world. In another related thread the talk is of requiring Scouters to have 2-day wilderness first aid training and the advisability of troops having EMTs on board.

 

Actually, our troop is working toward this, although we haven't considered including the risk information. (Frankly, I think developing that syllabus would be beyond us.) Right now the parent training would include a troop-developed introduction to the Scouting program then standard modules on Youth Protection, troop committee training, merit badge counselor training and board of review training. The idea is that at the end of the day (hopefully half day) the parents would all be fully trained to step into any of the roles we would ask of them.

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I think EMT training would be great if some of our scouters wanted to take it and get nationally registered. I hate to throw water on the fire but is is going to happen? No.

 

Why?

 

1)The course fee starts at $500 in my area.

2)The course is 110 hours long = two nights/week at four hours/night @ 13.75 weeks, in addition to 12 hours of ER clinical and 5 documented emergency runs in an ambulance.

3)the independent study time involved

4)the national registry test

5)the cost to be nationally registered

6)the cost and time of keeping up with 48 hours of continuing education, healthcare CPR/AED re-cert, a 24 hour refresher course and national registry fees every two years

 

 

 

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Need to do more research on founders, please give me time.

 

In refrecne to other countries, ask anyone who has gone to a WSJ, participated in an international activity, did European Camp Staff Program, or talked to a participant of the BSA's International Camp Staff program at a camp using it. BIG differences.

 

Also look at some the non Scouting and Scouting Affiliated programs in otehr countries. Duke of Edinburgh's Award

 

http://www.dofe.org/

 

For the Gold Award they do a trip on their own without adults.

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here's the link to the expedition requirements

 

You must plan, prepare for, practice and do your Expedition. Simply you need to form a team and go on an unaccompanied journey with help from your Supervisor and your Leader. emphasis mine.

 

 

http://www.dofe.org/en/content/cms/Doing_your_DofE/Your_DofE_programme/Sections/Expedition/requirements/requirements.aspx

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