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Adult leaders often say things like;
“I don’t override the boys decisions at all. ”
“I asked them what they wanted to do.”
“This was their decision.”
What most of us fail to recognize is that many of these ‘boy led’ decisions were probably coerced, at least in part, by the presence of adults when they were discussed.
It’s not that the adults shined bright lights in their eyes or twisted their arms behind their backs – it is much more subtle than that.
When adults are present youth leadership – the Scouting way- is not happening.
Say what? You mean when I am in the room listening and not talking I am somehow affecting the outcome of their decision making process?
Yes! So I want to suggest that you lead by walking away. Let Me explain:
When adults are listening, watching or talking Scouts are instinctively looking for the assent and approval of the adults. This is a result what they do at School and at home; listen to adults and seek their approval.
So even if you say absolutely nothing at all your presence is somewhat coercive. It’s not that you are a bad person or anything – it’s just the way things are.
So if we are not supposed to be around and not supposed to talk to them and not supposed to watch what they are doing, how do we do our jobs as adult leaders?
Excellent question.
We use very specific, scheduled, regular, and commonly understood opportunities to interact with youth leadership. Otherwise we leave them alone; alone enough that sometimes we cannot see them or hear them.
I have found that one good opportunity to exercise this concept is when patrols go grocery shopping. The Scouts create a menu, estimate how much money they need, schedule a time and place, their parents drop them off and leave them to shop. No adult leaders or parents accompany them into the store. They work totally autonomously until they exit the store after successfully shopping and paying.
Are you comfortable with doing something like that? What do you think would happen if you did?
No adult is assigning, watching, checking, offering oversight or any other means of interference or intervention. Drop them off at the door and pick them up when they exit the store. Only the patrol leader works with his guys to get it done.
A patrol leader given this opportunity is leading; if adults are present he is looking for their approval. In my experience his is true of all Scouts up to around age sixteen or so.
Here’s a few of the times when adults and youth leaders talk with one another:
1. Occasional reflections with a senior patrol leader or patrol leader after a Scout meeting.
2. Scoutmaster Conferences.
3. Scoutmaster senior patrol leader two-minute chat before a patrol leader’s council.
4. Scoutmaster’s minute.
5. Troop Leadership Training. This is the Scoutmaster’s show.
6. When a senior patrol leader or patrol leader walks over and asks the Scoutmaster a specific question or asks for help.
Here’s times when you should refrain from interacting with youth leadership:
1. During patrol and troop meetings.
2. During patrol leader’s councils.
3. During campouts.
4. During the troop annual planning conference.
5. During summer camp at meals/around the picnic table during the day/etc.
6. During patrol shopping trips.
7. During patrol and troop activities when a Scout is in charge.
I cannot overemphasize how important it is to realize that when adults are physically present Scouts are looking for approval – not leading. Think about this, think about it a lot;
When adults are physically present Scouts are looking for approval – not leading.
Start observing how this happens and change the way you do things; I’d be interested to hear the results!
Hi Jim
Yep, you are correct, it “does not mean no adults involved”. As I clearly pointed out above, there are many times when the adults are involved. There are, however, other times when the Scouts are not with the adults.
“Boy led” means we, as adult leaders, help them with ideas, encouragement, and suggestions for what to do and how to get it done”. Encouragement is good. Ideas and suggestions, not so much, unless asked. They can discover quite a bit when left to their own devices.
“These boys, especially when they are starting scouting, are not ready to make all the decisions.” That’s also true. That’s why they have leaders (Patrol Leaders, Instructors, SPLs) to teach them. Now, of course if it’s a brand new Troop with only brand new Scouts, you might have to modify that slightly. But in the average Troop they learn those decision making skills from their Troop leaders.
“Get them involved in the decision process”. This is where I would veer off somewhat from your conception. There are decisions that they should own. Completely. Not just involved, but own. This is how they learn those skills they need for when they leave home.
The goal of Scout leadership is not “helping them to make good decisions”, but to give them an environment where they can make their own decisions. By making their own decisions they learn many things.
1. They learn how to evaluate their decisions and determine whether it was a good one or a bad one.
2. They learn how to work within a group of peers (NOT adults) to achieve a goal.
3. They learn to plan and then implement. They learn when too much time is spent planning and attending to every detail. They learn when not enough time is spent planning and attending to details.
4. Learning how to come up with their own “ideas”, evaluating those ideas, discarding some, and then taking off and doing things.
5. What they learn, they own. It becomes something ingrained inside their experience.
I once had a dad who kept wandering over and giving his son advice on campouts. He was “helping”, “teaching” and “suggesting”. So one time, when he returned back to the adult camp area I asked him, “Joe, where is your dad?” He looked at me funny and asked what I meant. I said, “Well, how do you manage out here without your dad around to “help”, “teach” and “suggest” things?”
Of course he answered that he was an adult and knew what to do. So I asked him, “How did you get from the stage in life where you needed your dad’s help to the stage that you’re at now where you don’t need him around?” We had a lively discussion then about how young men transition from 10 year old boys to 18 year old adults. He is starting to “get it”. Do you think it’s important for the young men in your Troop to have opportunities to make those decisions on their own and then practice them, succeed or fail, before they leave home? Just asking.
My emphasis in Scouting has always been to get Patrols and Troop leadership into the hands of the Scouts. All of the other elements of Scouting are important, vitally important. But that’s my emphasis. That’s probably obvious by now.
The ideal Troop, to me, would be one where the Patrols check in occasionally and then head back out to do things on their own. Sort of like Sir Robert Baden-Powell’s Mafeking Cadet Corps.
Why? At Christmas in my seventh year I was presented with a brand spanking new Schwinn full sized, 26inch bicycle. It was red. Over the next 5 years I rode that bike to school every day and rode it all over Southside Jacksonville Florida. If you look at a map of Jacksonville, that would be everthing east and south of the river, north of the current Butler Blvd and west of today’s SR-9A. I had more freedom at 8 – 10 than most kids today have at 16 or 17. Swamps, creeks, the river, subdivisions, highways and dirt roads. Sand mines, lakes, ponds and parking lots. The only rule. During school, be home by dinner. Summer time, be home by dark. Bye bye, I’m outta here.
I was ahead of my fellow Scouts in certain ways when I first joined, but then I learned how to do the same things as part of a group. As part of a Patrol. Our Patrol met regularly in the Patrol Leader’s house. No adults around (maybe mom, but she did not pay much attention to us). We distributed stuff around several neighborhoods as part of our Troop’s fund raising. No adults around. Just us and our wagons full of flyers. My Patrol camped as a Patrol (no adults around). We also camped with the Troop. Troop campouts were great because we got to go somewhere further away that we had never explored before. River fronts, creeks, hills, forests and swamps. It was great.
I’m liable to take a slightly different tack on some things, so Jim, as a Scout leader I would possibly make you a little bit nervous.
Here is a comment I received from a committee member after I shared the article in preparation for a “how are we doind check” or maybe an awareness test.
This certainly was an interesting blog. I however disagree with Mr Geiger’s comments. To me “boy led” does not mean no adults involved. “Boy led” means we, as adult leaders, help them with ideas, encouragement, and suggestions for what to do and how to get it done. While Mr. Geiger may consider that to be coercion, I consider it to be teaching. These boys, especially when they are starting scouting, are not ready to make all the decisions. Our goal as leaders should be to equip them with the skills necessary that by the time they are leaving scouts, they can make intelligent, wise decisions. It is the same way in our own families. Would we leave our children to make all the decisions for the family? I think most of us would say no. What we do is teach them how to make good decisions, and get them involved in the decision process, so that when they leave the family they are equipped to live on their own and make wise decisions.
I think our scoutmaster and troop committee do an excellent job of maintaining that balance of letting the boys lead and helping them to make good decisions. I don’t think we need to do anything differently and feel that our troop is very well run by both the youth and adult leaders. Just looking at many of the scouts who have gone through our troop and come back to be adult leaders would tend to support that. Thanks for listening to my opinion.
What Larry points out is that we often unknowingly influence the decision making process and the way Scouts lead when we are around. There’s plenty of talking about what ‘boy led’ means. I think it means that boys lead. Not that they are co-leaders with adults, but that they lead.
“These boys, especially when they are starting scouting, are not ready to make all the decisions.”
Actually they are. From the minute they walk through the door and call themselves Scouts they are ready. The quality of their decision making will improve over time as they practice.
Scouting is decidedly not the same as a family, Scouting invests the scouts with the responsibility to make decisions and plans for themselves. The adult role is keeping a watchful eye and lending a hand when asked.
I have no doubt that troops who depend more on adult involvement can have outstanding results. I certainly don’t want to denigrate the work anyone does in Scouting – there’s a lot of great people investing their time to help boys the best they know how. What you read here is what we have found effective and feel is useful to share with the Scouting community. It’s not the only way things are done out there nor is it the only possible way to succeed but it’s the best we have found.
The reason I’m wait is because the scouts don’t have a clue as to how to do anything. From set up a Court of Honor to when and what to pack on a camp out. The plan is to give them an idea and leave to let them work out how they want to do it. For instance we have a Court of honor next Friday, I gave the Spl a script of how it can be done and told him to fill it out the way he wants to do it. Each week I’m giving them more and more control. By the time we go to summer camp the troop will be totally theirs! And they can run it the way they want to!
Hi Thomas
Good for you. You are on your way.
Just one question. Why wait six months? The best way to do this is to do it. Sit down. Think. Take a week. No longer than a week to decide what you want to do, then do it. If you need to have elections, have elections at the next meeting. If you need Patrols, then tell them that they need to form Patrols. If you need an Annual Planning Conference, then tell them to have one. Remember, everything that you are telling them is already in their Boy Scout Handbook.
Waiting won’t accomplish anything except that you might get used to the current system. You don’t want to do that. Scouts are there for just seven years. You would be waiting 1/14th of their potential tenure to put them on the right path. You don’t want to do that. The other adult leaders will just continue in the current system another six months. You don’t want that.
Your Troop has a cancer. You are the chemotherapy. Start pumping that stuff in their veins!
Absolutely!
Larry, once again you’ve hit it right on the head.
Thomas, do it now!
I did the hesitation step in our troop, we gave them the reins and they fell firmly and hardly on their faces and we tried helping and coaching and mentoring and eventually took back the leadership to “give them more time to learn.” Big mistake.
Youth and adults fell into a WEBELOS 3 sort of program that was losing everyone’s interest.
In retrospect, the advice I would give myself is “do it now, stick to your guns, don’t look back, keep moving ahead!”
It sounds like you understand the program, that is huge, do it now, work the program.
The program works, have faith.
We are now 1 year into boy led and the program is taking off. Enthusiasm is high because they own the program. Yeah, it was rough along the way, but what trail isn’t?
As of the January 18, I became the Scoutmaster of a troop that the Scoutmaster ran everything. And this summer we went through the SM course and learned that it is boy scouts not man scouts and that is what I’m trying to implement by showing the scouts how it should be done. I’m relying on the leadership training I received in Army , a lot of reading , anyone that has sound advice and assistant Scoutmasters. I told the scouts in six months when they vote on new youth leadership, this troop will be boy led. I have looked high and low and I have found a lot of different sites to help a long this journey but this is the best so far. Thanks
The mere presence of adults is enough to change the youth dynamic. Unfortunately, many don’t grasp just what “presence” means. You are still present even if you are sitting quietly in the back of the room.
This is a great list of example behavior to follow (along with hints to some of what should be taking place).
Train ’em, trust ’em, let ’em lead!