Scoutmaster Podcast 122

And now it's the old scout, master Larry. What is?

What is? A million microphones called a million? Millie calm, I don't know.

One megaphone Megaphone? What's two?

What's two thousand mockingbirds? That's a tough one to kill.

Two kilo mockingbird, Oh, Okay, do you want to record this? It's recording, think you just did it's recording- to kilo mockingbird, To kilo mockingbird.

What is a millionth of a fish, a micro fish, got it? What are?

What is two wharfs? You know, like on the beach?

What are two wharfs? A paradox pair of dogs.

You remember that one? No, No, I, honestly. This is. This is one of the benefits, One of the one of the advantages of age. One of the benefits is is that, even with really good jokes, You forget about them and you get to enjoy them over and over again. Yes, yes, every day is a new, just like you say with the kids, every day is a new, new thing, Every day really is a new day, because you can't remember whatever happened yesterday.

Hey, this is podcast one twenty two.

Hey, welcome back to the Scott master podcast. This is Clark green Looking in the mail bag this week over on iTunes, another five-star review. Thank you, Solier a. That's right, Solier a said short, sweet and to the point.

It's a nice podcast, Very focused on the topic of Boy Scouts, generally short and to the point, enhanced with musical intros So you can hear what you're hearing- good sound quality. I even find myself looking forward to the bad joke in the intro.

Well, bad joke in this. In this podcast intro, our courtesy of Tom Gillard down in Tahle, home of Tennessee. Good old Tom and Olson from Plymouth, Minnesota, wrote: Hello Clark, my husband and son crossed over from Weevillos to scouts this March and today He was asked to take on the Scoutmaster role in our new troop.

We can't help but feel a little well scared. As the unit commissioner for the troop, I told him his first assignment is to listen to your podcast every week and I can't imagine a better prescription. Hey, I hope you have a lot of good luck with that. It's great fun being a Scoutmaster. Tim Roses wrote in and said: I'm a new Scoutmaster. I've enjoyed your podcast.

I have a question about software and what you've heard about how useful it can be in organizing a troop. Kind of find it useful, Not the silver bullet for anything, and there's so few options out there.

To tell you the truth, We all know what the big giant BSA approved Software program is, and, and you know, that's about it. So if you know of anything bigger and better, get in touch with me at scoutmaster cgcom. Tom Linton wrote in.

He said: I love your stuff and here's an article on brain development from Scientific American. And Yeah, I, Tom. Thanks for pointing that out. I did read that article as a part of my research for a recent set of posts on the podcast Trying to contextualize Decision-making in our scouts from the standpoint of brain development.

You know it's a reasonably important thing to think about that. All that science is still emerging and nobody's Positively absolutely sure. There's some things that really ring true and that have helped me get around it. Go to scoutmaster cgcom and read those posts on the podcast.

I think. I think you'd benefit from that.

In this podcast we have our Scoutmaster panel discussion and in that panel discussion We're going to talk about parent issues. Now, if you hang around long enough, you're going to run into issues with some Parents somewhere and maybe even a fellow scouter, and this is just a little bit about how to recognize and resolve those issues, What organizational structure we use. Tom and Larry, join me for this podcast. You'll hear that Walter Needed to be away to a graduation ceremony. Congratulations, Walter.

As we were having this discussion about parents, There was a few things that Larry said that I thought needed to stand alone as their own piece about the way that parents relate to the scouting program and the way that Your troop and the way that you present the program relates to parents. I think it's an excellent bit of wisdom from somebody with a great deal of experience, from insight into scouting, And so it is going to be in Scoutmaster ship in seven minutes or less. We'll go from there on to the Scoutmaster panel discussion and that's going to fill the whole podcast.

So let's get started, shall we

Scoutmaster ship in seven minutes or less? You know we've been talking about parents and I guess I tell parents, I tell them when they come in, I say you know what this program is for you. It's not for the boys.

You know, 11 year old has no goals. He may have some kind of clue about fatherhood or college, but he doesn't really. He doesn't know.

You know, and his parents know what his abilities are and I tell him, I say you know what your child's abilities are. You know what kind of- if you're objective, you know a little bit about what kind of future he has.

You know what kind of preparation you believe he needs. This troop is here to be part of your family to help you achieve that goal.

When that boy Gets to 18 or 19 and he's ready to leave home, What do you want for him? If, if you believe that we can help you with parts of that, along with your church and your school and your parenting and your grandparents and your community, we want to be a part of that, and If we can provide that and we work for you, We are here for you and we're gonna do the scouting program. We're not gonna do something else.

But you know You've got to get on board a little bit with scouting. But you know we will do everything we can as volunteers in this program to help you and your son achieve the goals that you want for him.

You know I've just had so many parents buy into that. They're like that's what I wanted to hear, That's what I'm looking for.

And then They know how much time. You know they know that you're going to. These may hear through the grapevine.

You know you went to training and you went to wood badge and you went to round table and you know They start doing the math, unless they're just really ornery or just really not very bright. They know, They know and the parents buy in to that.

They buy into you and they buy into the program because The ideals of scouting, the oath in the law and what we do, you know, even if they weren't scouts as kids, There's something that they want for their son and then you try to convince them That the scouting program- taking them out in the rain and not feeding them enough- is what they need, But that this chaotic, crazy, muddy, kind of disjointed, sometimes falling apart Activity actually is a good idea. Appreciate you saying that it's about them.

That you know right, sometimes parents feel like the school Occasionally is about the school. It's not about them, you know, Or they feel something else is about them and and I don't feel that way, you know about parents and scouting.

You know I want to achieve the parents goals and hopefully by the time the kid gets to 16, 17 or 18, It's about him achieving his goals, you know. But with an 11 year old, You guys know as well as I know.

You know that I heard a lot of patriotic music in the background with that, I could find patriotic music for that. Okay, No, that's, that's good, That's very well put, very well put. Yeah, it really, it really was.

Hey, I need you to remember that the Scoutmaster podcast is a conversation I need to hear from you so that we can talk more about scouting, talk about things that affect you in your unit, Talk about the great ideas and the inspirations and their formation that you have. So be in touch, And you can get in touch with me at scoutmastercgcom.

It's time for another Scoutmaster panel discussion. Well, welcome back to the Scoutmaster panel discussion, and joining us this evening are Larry Geiger, from down there in Viera, Florida. How you doing, Larry. Good evening, Clark doing good. And from Tallahoma, Tennessee, It's Tom Gillard. Hey, Tom, Hey Clark.

And you know what Walter's doing. Walter is apparently at a graduation of some kind. Walter's listening to the band to play pop in circumstance 43 times, and he's about ready to fall out of his chair at this time. Maybe you can put a pomp and circumstance in the background at this at this point.

Well, can, can you hum it for me, Tom? No, Okay, so we've, we've, we've acknowledged that Walter is at a graduation ceremony somewhere, and this time around. We're going to discuss something that, as far as I can remember, guys- and you tell me yes or no, This is not a subject that comes up a whole lot in any leadership training that I've ever attended.

No, I, we have a university of scouting session on communicating and working with parents. I've seen that. I don't know that it's ever been in the past. I've seen that I don't know that it's ever been in the basic leader type training. I can't remember. I haven't heard a cursory mention.

So you're in the right place if you're listening to the podcast right now, because we're going to talk to you about dealing with parents and also we'll touch a little bit on dealing with your fellow Scouters and resolving conflicts and just a little basic etiquette about My guess, over 28 years, maybe about three or four hundred Scouts. Of that number of Scouts, Maybe, if I had to sit here and list them out, maybe six or seven real difficult parents.

So pretty small percentage. What about you guys? Not three hundred, I would say probably ten or twelve.

I've only had a hundred and fifty or so, and it's it's been very few, one or two or three maybe. I think what happens if you run into a problem with with the parent.

I think it kind of takes you back. I know it did me the first couple of times around. I was a YMCA director, Oh okay. Or I was a Scoutmaster- No, I had two thousand kids in soccer. No, a scout troop is a pretty minor thing.

It kind of threw me back because they've got the book, They they're in there, they sent their, their son, to Scout, So you would think they would understand what they're sending them to and how it's supposed to work. And then the stuff starts happening and you can't understand what what's going on.

You know parents need to be, need to be awake and aware of what's going on around them And they some are maybe a little more protective of their sons than others. I want to make sure that everybody understands. We're saying this in all in the nicest possible terms, Because we don't hate the parents of our scouts by any stretch of the imagination, Even the problem ones. But you are going to run into- if you hang around for long enough And you work with enough scouts, you're going to run into a bit of a rub with somebody's parent.

Recognizing what what's going on and then having some idea of what to do can be kind of helpful. So the first kind I was thinking of, guys, where parents who are kind of pushy are always pushing their boys To achieve or to get badges and things like that.

But you've, you've all experienced that, haven't you? Yes, the parent that has my son come to talk to you yet.

No, well, he wants to tell, he wants to tell you about this. I'll wait for him to. I'll wait for him to come tell me.

Is that the one you're talking about? Yeah, that kind of one, And the one it's that that collects their son's book after every meeting and kind of thumbs through it And then talks to somebody, but usually not the Scoutmaster, And that's that's frustrating. Because they have an agenda And scouting is advancement, scouting is badges, that's all they see. My son isn't either competitively keeping up with all the other guys that came over in his den Or he must make Eagle Scout.

You know, it just kind of becomes a problem after a while. Well, they, they start wanting to do the merit badge thing, really manipulating the merit badge process.

Right, yeah, going, going through the book and saying, well, he needs to do these by this period of time. Now they're, they're doing the planning for their, for their scouts so they can get the next rank or Eagle or whatever it is. Pushy, parents can be kind of manipulative sometimes. My response to this just kind of talk about why we're doing what we're doing and how advancement works and everything like that. I might have to have that conversation several times with any given parent, but they seem to get it after a while If they'll stay with it that you're right, they, they will. They will eventually get it that you've got the best interest of their child, just like they do That.

I have had two scouts. You know their parents, you know they just already had the plan And their son was just you know he made Eagle by 13 and a half or 14 and and promptly disappeared.

Well, I think one of the concepts that I want to make sure- hopefully maybe we'll repeat it several times- Is we never make a scout suffer because he's got a difficult parent. In other words, we would never do anything reactive with a scout. Yeah, because we feel like we're having a problem with his parents.

Well, it depends like this one kid dad kind of wanted to be an assistant Scoutmaster And you know I had to draw this guy back because he really wanted to be the patrol leader. Maybe it wasn't clear, but what the point I was trying to make was is that a scout is doesn't get to choose who his parents are. We never want to. You don't take out your frustrations with the parents on the kids just because you're having having issues with the parents.

Well, you wouldn't. For instance, you wouldn't deny a boy anything advancement related because his parents were pushing him. No, no, no.

If he wanted, if he wanted that 13th blue card, you know I'd say why don't you try to finish this? No, I really want that.

Okay, here's, you know, go. I've always been that way about it.

It's like okay, Because I think it's tempting sometimes, but because the boy can have just as much attitude as parents. But we have to make sure that we understand that he's pretty innocent And he has to deal with what he's dealing with at home and in dealing with his parents, and we don't ever want to make it any worse, Don't want to make him want to choose.

The other thing is I've had some parents who seem to complain more than other parents about, I don't know, rain and the food that the boys ate And whether or not we're communicating effectively with them. They just seem to have. I don't really want to say whiny, but I'm going to say whiny. They might be kind of whiny about stuff. You guys ever encounter that, Yeah, your troops not perfect, Clark, your troop is less than perfect, and and even if it was perfect, it wouldn't be perfect to them.

You know, some people have a picture of scouts. It's, it's spit and polish, it's- I don't know exactly how to say that- But and and you're not there, you know, and Tom's not there and I'm not there, it they're not reconciling their expectations And so they can get pretty wound up about that. It's, it's hard for them. A lot of what you're describing is the, the Rockwell Scouts, the right, that's what the parents think of scouting.

Is what? Now?

The Rockwell scouts you're talking about, the ones that live in the Norman Rockwell paint? Yes, that is the perfection of scouting.

You know, that's that, that's the way scouting should be and that's what the parents think. And then they get out and it gets a little messy, gets, gets muddy, and they don't eat right, and and they go. This isn't exactly what I had in mind, And things can be a little chaotic and plans can be a little strange and they hardly ever line the tents up just the way they do in those Rockwell. Yeah, if you, if you've got a parent, and- and I'm gonna pick on somebody here- I'm gonna get slapped.

But if you have a parent That sends their, their kid, to that camp in Maine for four weeks every summer, You know you might have a problem, because, boy, I tell you what at that camp, You know they got clean shorts and they play tennis and you know whatever. And- and the word camp doesn't mean A Boy Scout weekend in their minds, Yes, and so they would like us to do something like Club Med for boys, Yeah, yeah, and plenty of food and white tablecloths and and clean forks.

And With this with like the pushy parent, the whiny parent, a lot of times we can explain things to them and they'll, They'll be able to come along with us after a bit. It can be a challenge, But they just need to learn a little bit more about what scouting is doing. And one of the one of the newer types of parents that you hear about these days are helicopter parents. Helicopter parents are described as being a little over involved what their children are doing. This is where you have a committee member or an assistant Scoutmaster And basically he and his son are patrolling. He's the patrol leader, Right, they're helping them pitch the town and spread out the sleeping bag.

And That's just where the Scoutmaster has to just grab them by the collar and say, come on over here. But it has happened.

And you just have to sit them down, maybe with the committee chairman on a camp out, and say how's it going, And you know, what were you doing. And they're like: what do you mean?

What was I doing? Well, you know you're not supposed to be in the patrol area.

Well, I just went by to check on them and and helping them, you know, straighten out their tents, and we don't do that. Their patrol leaders and SPL's do that.

Well, the patrol leader is not, you know, whatever. Well, that's okay, you know it's his job to learn how to lead. That's the. The crossover we had last year, the dad was was very much like that. He was very involved, he wanted this, he wanted this kid to do.

Well, Okay, very understandable, but he was doing stuff for him and being being around and and I had to keep calling him over, calling him over, And he had a good attitude. We were he's, he was learning.

You know, it was a Cub Scout way and he was learning how to do stuff and he had a. He had a good sense of humor about the way I would call him over sometimes and he, he has got it. He does not do that anymore.

So it's, it's. You can train that out of them.

Yes, do you ever have this happen? Do you ever say so? You're camping and you ask a scout: where is your X rain jacket, flashlight hat, gloves, something like that, and they say my mom didn't pack it for me. No, I never say that. But I hear scouts asking other scouts that. Of course, that is exactly what I meant to say.

I never asked a scout: where is rain jacket? He stand there cold and wet in the rain.

I just like, hey, dude, how's it going? All right, I'm gonna go get in my tent bye. Oh, I've got to ask him. No, I don't know, I've got to. Larry already knows the answer.

Well, we do too. But you're not rubbing it in, but you're reinforcing the fact that you know.

And then you can ask him: what would you do different? Well, mom didn't pack it.

Well, what would you do different? Yeah, I'll pack it myself.

So again, helicopter parents, direct approach. Don't mince words, but don't be impolite and just say: step over this way for a little bit And let let the guys do what they're supposed to be doing. I use the animal park analogy that when we're out camping it's kind of like driving through one of those wild animal parks.

You need to stay here and you can watch from a distance what happens, but you don't want to get close to them so that can cause problems. I told you the story about this, the same guy and tying a rope to his ankle into my ankle so that he couldn't go any further than the rope. That whole thing is very familiar.

Where do most of your assistant Scoutmasters come from? We blows, Yeah, and they've had some involvement, usually, yes, in cubs, and this is a whole new world for them and they need they, they have to find their feet. I'm usually pretty direct about it. I don't, I don't have a problem, But you got to do it with a good sense of humor too. Oh sure, Yeah, that's the big, that's the key.

Well, I remember one camp out we went on: brand new assistant Scoutmaster, brand new son and I was doing a pretty good job of keeping dad down in the adult campsite But the boy kept on wandering over and so the boy kind of wandered down, had a couple of different things that he needed to ask his dad about. And I would always say to the: I said to him a couple times: I said where's your patrol?

And he said, well, they're over there on the hill. I said that's where you need to be off.

He would go to his patrol And I would talk to dad about it and say you know this, he's got to do his thing and we're gonna stand out. Yeah, I get it. I get it. I'm a little nervous about it, but I get it.

Third time the boy came down, dad looks at him and what does dad say? Where's your patrol? Yeah, yeah, that was high five time, that was handshake time, pat on the back time.

So The other one that I came up with that can cause us difficulty sometime- and this is the rarest of the difficult parents Are ones that are kind of bullies, and when I say that I mean they come and tell you how they want things done And if you don't do things the way that they want them done, they may- I, I- I guess the only way to put it is- threaten, say: well, we'll just take our son elsewhere, or we'll call the council office, Or we'll talk to the other parents and we'll get this sorted out, because obviously you can't see reason. Has that ever happened and am I?

Am I describing something that you guys have any experience with? There's two situations. The one situation is where your troop is off track and the scouting program is a little bit deluded And they're using that to their advantage. The second way is where you're basically on track and they don't get it And they want to push the program. You need to be able to say with full confidence: this is the scouting program. No, we're not going to do it that way.

Here's the blue card and I have to sign it, period. Or you know this is how patrols work. No, we're not going to appoint patrollers and I know you don't like your son's patrol leader.

You know he can move to another patrol, whatever. But no, we're not going to appoint patrol leaders. Patrols elect patrol leaders.

But the point is that if you're doing the scouting program, then then you you hold the program up as your shield. If your troop is really not doing what a troop ought to be doing, then you're kind of on some shaky ground Because it always, in a perverse way, seems to end up somehow hitting you in a weak spot.

And so if you've got the program, the scouting program, and you're doing it like it's supposed to be done, Then it's between them and the program, it's not between them and you. A lot of things with bully type people become personal, no matter what. I agree, I agree with what you're saying, but thankfully I guess I have not had anything like that happen And I don't want anything like that.

So Now you may have a parent who has more knowledge of the scouting program than you do, who challenges you on something That's not necessarily being a bully, that's asking a question, No, no, no, Right, So you can't look at anybody who challenges the way that you're doing something as a bully. But what I'm talking about- and, like I said, it's very rare- but people who want to try and make a Boy Scout troop Into some kind of voting democracy for parents to decide what's going to happen Again, that's that's having your Changing the program And your committee chairman and the Scoutmaster all on the same page working the scouting program.

You know, if you three aren't all on the same page, if you're all thinking scouting is Scoutmaster think, is this, the committee chair that and the co are that Two or three of those aren't really the scouting program, then, yeah, that person's going to come in and raise havoc. That's why, occasionally, we'll go to one of the local, the local coffee house, on some off night, The assistant Scoutmasters and myself, and and we'll we'll just talk about stuff, because we don't ever get to do that at the meetings, Not not to this extent, but we'll. That way we know that we are all on the same page and and if they have any concerns about one thing or another, We bring them up at the, at the coffee house and and they get worked out.

Well, I had a guy that we had a uniform issue and I don't remember all the circumstances, but I ended up standing in the sidewalk. He leaped out of it through his car into park, leaped out of his car and and he was nose to nose with me and he was bright red and his veins were standing out And he was getting ready to haul off and wail on me and we all looked him in the eye.

He had just gone off the handle and he, you know, he was going to tell us what for any. He back down and it was really ugly there for about 30 seconds And it was very, very unpleasant. He and his son disappeared. They didn't come back, unfortunately for his son.

But it was not just manipulative or whatever kind of you know Bully ish. This was.

You know I'm going to push my weight around, kind of thing. Yeah, it was pretty close to calling 9-1-1, you know. I mean it was. It was that far gone. We found out later he was the type to escalate things. It was actually a little scary for a moment.

This was pretty straight on. Isn't that something that?

What I've heard about like bullies anyway, is they're used to getting their way So they just keep bullying, bullying until somebody stands up against them and then they normally, or a lot of times, will back down. Yeah, these kind of extreme reactions or these kind of extreme situations can be rare, but they're possible And knowing a that they're possible and having at least some idea of what to do if this happens is going to be useful.

What I hear so far, when we're dealing with somebody, you know, with a, with a difficult parent who decides that they want to call some of the shots, And the way that things are going to happen, that if we know the program and we know the policy and we know how scouting works, that we stand our ground And we just don't allow them to push us around with that Right and we've got the, we've got the policy behind us. So that's that's our- like one of you said, that's our shield and that's what we're standing behind, That's what we're standing for.

So I think that's it. I think that's pretty standard procedure with bullies is that if they push And they're waiting for somebody to push them back, so I guess one of the sayings I think of is: get down in the mud with them And fight with them, then they, then they're kind of in their glory. But if you just stand your ground and you say, look, you're not, You're not going to come and tell us how to do business here.

If you want to discuss something, we have people you can discuss it with, But we're not going to, we're not going to acquiesce to your demands just because you're making them. If it comes to the point where Someone has to have a discussion with a parent about this, who in the unit structure is supposed to be doing that?

Is it the Scoutmaster? No, the, the COR and the committee chairman should deal with parents.

When the Scoutmaster calls up and said: look, you know, you guys have got to take over, Then they need to take over. And it doesn't mean the Scoutmasters totally uninvolved, but the Scoutmaster job is to work with the scouts And and the committee chair and the COR and perhaps the head of the institution they had- it's their unit- and and the adults in the unit, The leaders, whether this person's a registered leader or not. They're responsible for them, not the Scoutmaster. The one time that we had to bring in had a big problem with it was really with the child, but it was with the parent. The, the Committee head and the COR were the ones handling and I was there but I didn't, didn't say anything and just to demystify, The COR is chartered organization representative. A strong organizational structure following the program is going to be able to deal with situations like this.

However rare, they might be going to be able to deal with situations like this pretty effectively. Let's say, a parent emails you with some pretty serious. They call your honor or your heritage or your personality into question.

Is that an email that we want to answer? No, especially not that day.

Don't if you, if you see where it's going sometimes, if you know this person has this kind of history, Stop reading it and figure it's them being them. Emails tend to get out of hand real quick because people read into them sometimes what's not really there. They don't start a flame war: yeah, yeah, no, I'll do that. One of the interesting things about email- as useful as it is- Is that people will say things in an email that they would never, ever say if they were talking to you face to face. True, And answering back. Those types of things are trying to reason with people who are maybe being unreasonable, and creating a trail of emails That can be analyzed and sent around and talked about is probably not a good idea.

I would, I would forward it on like, say, to my committee chairman, and then then I would eventually respond or he would respond, You know. Thank you for your input.

If you would like to speak to somebody, you can speak to the committee chairman and the pastor Some evening in the pastor's office and then just say thank you and goodbye. So you're not arguing and answering back, you're just oh, no, no, no, and I think that's what's really. I agree with that.

I think that's a really important concept because I do get emails from people who are in the middle of conflicts or difficulties, Either with their fellow scouts or with, you know, somebody's parents, and things have just gotten blown out of proportion And I a lot of times think that happens because they exchange these emails back and forth. Well, emails, phone calls, you know, whatever it's that's going to happen. Phone calls are probably better because you can, you can hear the inflections that the person has, whereas an email is just- it's just words And I don't know. Sometimes people are very innocent. They get blamed for something very innocent and they didn't mean it that way, But that's the way it comes across sometimes. We've had some pretty effective advice on how to recognize when there's a bit of a problem and some things on how to deal with them.

Do we discuss this type of thing with the other adults involved, with the troop? That depends.

You know, sitting around the campfire we discuss almost everything. You know the scouts have gone to bed.

You know there's been one or two incidences over the years where you know basically it's been something that we don't talk about. You know this committee chairman dealt with it or whatever.

But otherwise, you know, we kind of review things like that And I've often had my committee chairman on camp out, so maybe a couple of committee members, and so we're usually all in the same page. How about this kind of discussion getting within earshot of the scouts? No, you never gripe down, you always gripe up. You go up the chain for griping the kids. It could be the worst campery in the world, as long as you don't gripe to the kid about it being bad.

They love it And so you never gripe about this kind of thing in front of the kids. And, like Larry said, almost anything is fair game on camping trips and you don't have to name names. But you can have- I've been getting this problem and just sort of bring stuff up and they'll figure out who you're talking about. Going back to one of your original points, I don't think that a scout should ever know how the Scoutmaster feels about his parents.

Well, we don't want to involve them in adult arguments. What's going on?

Yeah, Right now, what they say at home. You know you can't control that. Yeah, he gets to be in scouts and be with his friends and have a good time, despite any difficulty his parents might be causing.

Yeah, arguments over the budget or how we're going to do stuff in the committee, or you know whether a mom lets her kid go to camp, Or you know, yeah, that's off limits around the fire when the kids are there. I think there's an element of professionalism- even though we're volunteers and even though that might be not the best term- But there's an element of etiquette and professionalism that we need to bring to this work And where we're not complaining about parents, we're not complaining about arguments that adults might be having, And bringing that into the realm of the scouts. That would be a bad thing to do. I did say in the introduction that we would see if we could talk a little bit about any difficulties that arose between scout leaders, Either in the same unit or maybe in different units. We just discussed one solid rule for that. It doesn't get into the realm of the boys dealing with it.

How do we relate to somebody who's been a bit difficult, the troop across town who's talking about you, or Maybe you've left one unit and gone to another because of a difference of opinion, or something like that? Have you guys ever had any experience with that? I've had that when we formed our own troop. You have to be the bigger person at some point. If they get snippy with you, You have to be the bigger person and just let it roll off of you. I don't look back too much.

You know there's people that look out, that you know. Let's watch the back door.

How many scouts did we lose? You know I just keep moving ahead most of the time.

And how many new scouts am I getting this year? What can we do with them, guys?

And not looking back? These things happen. Things come up and you have to deal with them.

I've had Scoutmasters say, well, looks like you're getting all the Webelos again this year. What can you?

How can you? You can't, you can't apologize for that. Oh no, Oh yeah.

So you just sort of look at them and say, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, You know, thankful for it, but there's no way to apologize and you shouldn't apologize for that. They vote with their feet and they chose: Go ahead, Tom.

They chose you and so that's, that's good. Yeah, I'd forgotten about that.

I? Um, that was ugly.

You know, in a community of about seven troops, I picked up almost all the Webelos one year. It was almost 30 and it was ugly and it wasn't on purpose and it wasn't something that we did.

It wasn't, like you know, like in baseball, going out and pulling the kids out of the you know all the good kids. It just happened. They just all showed up on our door one day. I know that's.

Yeah, I can see we only have three troops and and only about, You know, maybe, maybe, ten kids to ten Webelos crossover. So when you lose ten, you've lost them all And they have holes. They have big holes in there in the program And sometimes that causes some hard feelings.

When this happens, we have to be unfailingly polite And we need to be, as Tom said, be the bigger person. You just gotta. You just gotta be proud of the, the, your true paths and be very thankful for the program. That your true paths I never I talked to. I talked to the parents as to, sometimes on, especially on camping trips.

Why did you pick us? Because I don't go around spying on the other ones.

Why, what was? Because if, if we're heading off in the wrong direction, I want to know about it before it gets too far.

So you know, you got to talk about this stuff and hopefully I'm very thankful for what I've got. Well, the what, what happens if you're on the other end of that equation.

What if you're one of the troops that doesn't get the 20 guys that year and somebody all sweeps? I'll get them next year. Work a little harder next year. Difficulties with parents are reasonably rare and they are going to happen if you hang around for long enough. You're, you're going, it's, it's going to happen and it can kind of knock the wind out of you, But it's something that we all end up having to deal with at some point or another.

So knowing what to do is going to be helpful, hopefully, and hopefully what we've been talking about In this podcast is going to give you- at least get you- thinking about things. Is there anything else you guys wanted to add? If you're having lots of problems with parents, It might be you- some of us are better leaders at other things. If you are having a lot of problems, you might want to look at that. This it might be. If you're running into constant trouble like that, You might need to look in the mirror and grow up a little bit or learn something, Or think about a different job, Or, yeah, it might be a better treasure than a committee chairman.

Thanks, fellas, for being part of the panel discussion. Again, I sure do appreciate it. Thanks, Larry. You're welcome, Clark And Tom. Thank you, You're welcome, Clark and I. Walter, I hope everything went well.

We'll catch up with you next month. Good night, Walter. Good night, Walter, Wherever you are.