Scoutmaster Podcast 167

This edition of Scoutmasher Podcast is brought to you by folks from Conahoe Creek. Out there, They know camping and they know scouts. They are scouts And they know how to get your gear and great prices for all your camping adventures.

So go visit them at conahoecreakcom, at conohocreakcom, And now it's the old Scoutmasher. Hey, I hope you were able to join us for the April edition of Scout Circle.

We had author Kevin Callan on with us And here's an interesting camping tip that Kevin had for us. Or, what I do is I go to those places where vlogger mats And I still lived from the dryers And I think I'm really breaking the law by doing it.

But really, who cares? Right? But you stay again and you get to live and you're like, oh my God. And a great thought that Kevin had too.

I want to make sure you hear this Too long ago that if I went out in the woods- and whether it was 10 days or one day, whatever- I would be myself. One nice thing about the wilderness: there's no facade out there. You are who you are out there, And if you want to take yourself or a group of youth out on a trip and get them to know their own character, take them on a wilderness trip, because we're all from wilderness, We all are, And once you're out there for a long period of time, you reconnect. That's magic will happen.

So make sure this season magic will happen too. Listen, we've got our May Scout Circle Plan is something you're going to want to listen to. Here's Arlen and I talking about it.

Arlen, what's happening next month on Scout Circle? Well, next month we're going to talk about Scout Camp actually.

So we're going to bring in a camp director from our council And we're going to talk to him about different types: patrol cooking versus dining hall, how to prepare new Scouts, how to prepare new families. You know what to do with the older Scouts that have been to camp for a while.

You know some of the challenges, the interesting parts of camp. So we're going to talk to Brian- Hyatt is his name. He's our camp director for one of the Denver Area Council camps.

So we're going to talk to him next month And that'll be Scout Circle for May, And that'll be the second Sunday of May, whenever that happens to be. Do you know the date? Off the top of your head, That would be on the 12th.

So do this, go to ScoutCircleorg And you can see this month's the April Scout Circle with Kevin Callan, And it's well worth listening to. Kevin was great.

The next time we get together is May 12, Sunday, 9 to 10 pm Eastern Daylight Time, so make sure you can join us. Hey, this is podcast number 167..

Well, welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green. Hey, let's take a look in the mailbag here for a moment. Steve Fox is an assistant Scoutmaster with Troop 1434 in Potomac, Maryland, And he wrote in to say this: I'm a veteran scouter but I just found your podcast. It's the best available practical advice for us in the trenches. 20 minutes of listening to the podcast is worth half a weekend of wood badge training.

I was working my way through the podcast in reverse order as quickly as my iPod will load them, And I have recently listened to podcast number 159,, your discussion with Jeff Kvistad, the Scoutmaster of Troop 965 in Kuwait. That really struck a chord with my scouting experience And I wanted to reinforce and expand on what Jeff said. Baden Powell said a goal for scouting that it be a force for international peace and understanding, And a few dimensions of scouting embody this more than Troops overseas. Thank you for the blog, the website and the podcast. They're all tremendous confidence builders and a warm shoulder for all of us.

Well, thanks so much, Steve. We're going to see if we can talk to Steve soon. I didn't read the entire message that he sent me, but he has some international scouting experiences that I'd like to be able to share with you.

So we'll be looking forward to having Steve on the podcast sometime soon. Rick Werner is with Troop 1659. And he wrote in to say this: wow, what a God send. I become a Scoutmaster in two short weeks, after a year on the commissioner staff and two years as an assistant Scoutmaster.

And this has so many nuggets of valuable information. If there's no objection, I'd like to use some of the content in my changeover ceremony. Most of the parents of our scouts have been in scouting a while. Our Troop is almost 40 years old and are cooperative, but there are a couple of newer moms that could use this information. If they will abide by it, there'll be fewer leader parent problems than we've had lately. Thank you, Clark, Thank you Rick, And Rick was referring to a popular post on the blog at scoutmastercgcom called What I Wish Every Scout Parent Understood, And if you haven't seen that.

Hop on over, give it a read. Naturally, anything that's on the blog or on the podcast is freely available, open, and you can share it, use it. Alls we ask for is that you tell everybody where it came from. That's all. Thanks again, Rick. As you heard during the intro, we had our April Scout Circle with Kevin Callan and we had a great time.

It's available for viewing over at scoutscircleorg and also on the YouTube channel for scoutmastercgcom. So set aside an hour, get a chance, sit down and listen to the discussion with Kevin Callan. We had a blast.

I want to apologize yet again to any of you who are trying to watch and to use the chat feature at scoutscircleorg. The whole thing with the site crashing is a good news, bad news, kind of a deal. The good news is lots of people were watching and they wanted to get involved and they wanted to get on the chat system that we had set up.

The bad news is lots of people were watching, They wanted to get involved and they wanted to get in on the chat system we had set up and there were too many of them and bang, it crashed. So if you were watching and things kind of fell apart, I do apologize.

We're just going to have to look into how we can accommodate a bigger audience and we'll be working on that between now and the May scout circle. So, once again, if you were watching and you had problems, I certainly do apologize.

I can't get too upset about it because it means a lot of people are trying to get in on the action, So, and that's good. So in this edition of the Scoutmaster podcast, in Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less, we're going to talk about discipline and punishment in scouting.

What's your role as an adult volunteer? And that's it's an important message.

It's one that we've talked about, not in the not too distant past, but well, you'll learn a little bit more about why I'm talking about it again in Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less. Then we've got an email question to answer for you and that's going to tie it up for this edition of the Scoutmaster podcast.

So let's get started, shall we? Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less.

This feature of the podcast, Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less, was intended to be a quick seven minute, five minute talk about some aspect of scouting, and it never really has been. It's always been more than seven minutes, but I'm working at keeping this one under seven minutes, and here's why This subject comes up very often.

I got an email from somebody this week dealing with it and I'm not sharing it here for obvious reasons, because it's a personal matter within a troop- and I actually spoke to them on the phone and I want to let you know. If you ever run into a problem or a brick wall, I will give you a call and all you need to do is touch base with me with an email.

We can't figure stuff out in an email. I would be more than happy to talk to you, give you a call, because sometimes we run into serious problems out there and I like to think I know at least how to tell you not to feel so bad, because we all are going to eventually run into some kind of discipline or behavior problem with our Scouts.

Here's the deal. Okay, Handling these kind of incidents, even though they're upsetting, is simpler than you think.

How do we handle incidents of bad behavior or bullying or something like that? Well, the basic idea is that you as a Scouting Volunteer, you as a Scoutmaster, Assistant Scoutmaster, Committee Member, Cub Master, you're not there to be a disciplinarian, You're not there to meet out punishment to Scouts. That's the job of their parents. We do Scouting in cooperation with the family and in cooperation with a Scout's parents. And if a Scout behaves badly we refer them to their parents for whatever correction or punishment their parents deem necessary.

Now there are consequences involved during a Scout activity. If somebody misbehaves- First, you know they stop the misbehavior.

Second, the nature of the misbehavior may kind of disqualify them for participating in the activity that they're participating in, probably have to step away from that and sit down somewhere and wait, you know, more or less time out. But the event that you have a behavior problem that you can't correct just as a matter of course or that you consider is serious enough that it needs to be dealt with, we're going to take the next available opportunity with a Scout and his parents.

Now if it's a meeting and parents are probably coming to pick the boy up, we need to talk to them. Then If we've been on an outing and there's been some kind of a problem and the parents are coming to pick the boy up, we need to speak with them. Then These are face-to-face meetings. We don't communicate these types of things through emails or anything like that. We talk with the Scout and his parent. We explain the situation and we tell the parent that this kind of behavior won't be tolerated in Scouts and they need to take whatever corrective actions they need to take to assure us that we're not going to be dealing with it anymore.

It's not our place to discipline Scouts by punishing them. The only tools in our toolkit are all positive, positive reinforcement and things like that. If a Scout misbehaves, we take them out of the activity. That's the direct consequence of their misbehavior. If they make a big giant mess, they're going to clean up the mess. If an apology is in order, we're going to ask them to apologize.

The direct consequences of the behavior. As far as punishing them by telling them that you know they can't attend a certain number of campouts or meetings or having some kind of disciplinary counsel or something like that, I don't think it's a good idea.

I think that's what parents are there for and I think we take the boy to the parents. We say this kind of behavior is unacceptable and you need to take care of it, and the next time we see him we need to be assured that this kind of behavior won't be repeated. Parents are much more effective at this than Scout leaders are.

Now, this isn't copping out, This isn't pushing your problems over to somebody else. This is putting discipline, accountability and punishment in the hands of the people who ought to have it: the family of the Scout.

So I'll repeat again: anything beyond the direct consequences of an action that we would identify as punishment, that's not scouting. That's not something that we do. That's something that the parents need to take care of. My final thought about this is: when Scouts misbehave, Scout leaders feel bad. They feel as if they haven't done something or they haven't supervised properly. Listen, when we're talking about a Boy Scout troop, we're talking about activities being predicated on the idea of mutual trust.

We have to trust Scouts to make good decisions. We have to trust Scouts to be able to supervise themselves. Yes, we're going to be there. We're going to be watching women not hear every word that's said and see every action that's taken. When Scouts breach that trust, that is not necessarily the fault of the Scout leader. You're going to feel bad because you're a big hearted person, you're volunteering for Scouts.

If you're wrong, you're going to feel responsible. You're going to feel as if you should have done something and you didn't do something In one wise and this is very counter-intuitive. These kind of problems are good. We've created an atmosphere of safety and trust. Boys sometimes will act out and act poorly when they're given that amount of trust and latitude. The corrective actions that we take are the consequences that flow directly from the act.

Any punishment or anything like that is left up to the parents. They're going to have the experience of growing up right.

There are going to be instances where this advice may seem a little simplistic, but I think it gives you a base for solid action when you encounter behavioral difficulties in your Scout troop. Hi, I'm Kevin Callan and I'm listening to Scoutmaster iPod. No, I can't, I can't.

I am Kevin Callan, the happy camper, and you're listening to the Scoutmaster iPod Cast. Ah, beautiful, Write me a letter, send it by name Email. That is folks.

And here's an answer to one of your emails. I got this email from Alan Shrivner and he is a volunteer with Raleigh, North Carolina, Troop 342.. He said I found your site about six months ago and it has become my go-to source for advice and ideas. I forwarded several articles to others like me who are stumbling through the woods trying to do the right thing. I enjoy your podcast too, Thank you. I have a question concerning the Totenship, but I can't seem to find any official answer.

Is the Totenship a BSA requirement or optional troop unit kind of requirement? I fully support the idea of the Totenship and the safety and the proper use of the knife ax and saw as an important lesson to learn and practice.

I'm just struggling with the idea if this is something we have to use or if it's something that is more or less optional. Alan, first of all, thanks for getting in touch and thanks for your kind words. It's always good to hear that folks are finding the podcast and the blog useful. The Totenship card and the program is an optional tool that scouts can earn once they have learned and demonstrated the safe use of a knife ax and saw, and it complements second-class rank requirement 3, C and D. And C says demonstrate proper care, sharpening and use of a knife ax and saw and describe when they should be used. And D says use the tools listed in requirement 3, C to prepare tinder, kindling and fuel for camping fire.

Now I will tell you that my troop does not require scouts to earn or carry a Totenship card to use a knife, ax or saw, We do require that they use these tools safely. In my experience, it's impractical and a bit aggravating to ask a new scout to be fully versed in the use of a knife and an ax and a saw and carry a card in his pocket for him to be able to use his pocket knife to open a can of beans or whittle a stick.

I think in order to do that, we better assure ourselves that that he understands how to use a pocket knife safely, and I certainly understand instances where carrying a Totenship card would be an indication of that, and this is a long practice in some troops. But to directly answer your question, a Totenship card is in no way a requirement. It does complement a requirement, but it's in no way a requirement. If it was, it would be right there in black and white. And if you think it is a requirement, folks send me the black and white statement that says a scout must have a Totenship card to do these things.

And you know, I'll talk about it on the blog and I'll tell everybody I was wrong. While we're on the subject of Totenship cards, there's a distressing and totally counterproductive traditional practice of cutting the corners off a Totenship card if a boy does something wrong. Things like that are just iminical to scouting. The only tools in our toolbox are positive reinforcement, not gigging scouts for mistakes by taking their card and cutting the corners off of it.

If you're doing that, cut it out, would you? Is it important for a scout to know how to safely use a knife, ax and saw.

Yes, Is earning a Totenship card a pretty good way to do that? Yes, Is it a requirement for you to be able to operate within BSA policy? No, I'm not saying that Totenship cards are bad at all.

I think they're great and my scouts do earn them. Thing is, you can get a little legalistic about them, go a little bit overboard. If we're not careful, they can be used not as a positive reinforcement, but they can turn into this kind of negative thing. I hope that helps. If you have a question that you'd like to have an answer to, you can email me too, and you'll find out how to do that in just a moment.