Scoutmaster Podcast 171

This edition of Scoutmasters podcast is brought to you by the folks of Conahoe Creek. Out there They know camping and they know scouts. They are scouts And they know how to get you quick here at Green Crisis for all your camping adventures.

So go visit them at conahoecreakcom- That's C-O-N-O-H-O-Creakcom. And now the old Scoutmaster, Ron Herrera, is the Scoutmaster of Troop 97 in Harbor Creek, Pennsylvania, And he tells me they were out on a weekend camping trip and they were focusing on cooking and the patrols were busy cooking for a couple of hours and they made a pretty elaborate dinner As the adults watched quietly.

Well, you know, adults can't watch scouts cook quietly. I mean, sometimes you have to laugh and sometimes you kind of cringe. Ron said that after about two hours one of the cooks got done and yelled to his fellow scouts. He says: hey, guys, it's time to eat.

And Ron said: you know, that's great, What's for dinner? And the scout said: I don't know What are we having for dinner. Don't ask, Just hear it in. Thanks, Ron. Hey, this is podcast over 171..

Welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green. Let's take a look at the mailbag here. Remember, if you're listening to the podcast and you're driving along in your car. You want to avoid this problem. That I heard from Steve Fox, who's an adult volunteer with Scout Troop 1434 in Potomac, Maryland.

He said I hooked up my iPod to the car radio system. The other day I was listening to your podcast. Bad move, I almost drove off the road when you led by quoting my email. I did it again, Steve, I hope you're all right. Bill McMahon is with Glen Falls Troop 6 and he wrote in to say I just wanted to say thank you for the podcast and the webpage has had a real impact on my tenure as Scoutmaster And, out of all the resources available to us as scouting volunteers, has had more impact on my style of leadership than any other. My assistant Scoutmaster, a fellow Bob White- a little shout out to the Wood Badge world there- Also credits Scoutmaster CG with helping him be a better leader.

Your common sense and boy-centered content is the fuel we use to keep the spirit of scouting burning bright here in the Adirondacks. Thank you for all you do, Gosh. Thanks, Bill. I'm really happy to hear that people find all of this useful And I certainly appreciate your kind words of encouragement. A Eliah Kumar volunteers with a Scout Troop in Cheetah Baram town, which is in the state of Tamil Nadu on the east coast of the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula. He wrote in to say: very, very useful resources.

Thank you and keep it up Well. Thank you, I am pretty sure you're the first Indian Scouter I've heard from. It's great to know that you're finding what we're doing useful And we certainly appreciate hearing. Thank you very much. Scott Gaeta is with Troop 651 in San Marcos, California, And he said: hey, Clark, I just wanted to say: great sight and podcasts. I really appreciate how you deliver useful and valuable information in a laidback and entertaining way.

Thanks, Scott, Thanks for being in touch and thanks for your kind words there. Pat Lays is with Green Bay Troop 1093. And he wrote in to say I started following you about a year ago and I've got many useful tidbits of information I've used to provide a better program. Thank you, Pat. Thanks for getting in touch. Bob Case is in Corning, New York, with Troop 61.

And he wrote with this sad news a 12-year-old youth in my community had taken their own life as a result of being a victim of bullying. He was not a Scout, but he had many friends of Scouts in our troop, Bob writes the unit newsletter and included this in a recent issue.

He said: what can we do as Scouters if bullying has seen? We have to act immediately.

We can't become bystanders. We need to teach our youth not to become bystanders either, but to be a friend and lend a helping hand to others. Scouting teaches us to be morally straight, trustworthy and to help other people at all times. Bullying is not acceptable and it needs to be addressed by youth adults and peers immediately.

We have to accept that our Scouts are susceptible to the peer pressure they see every day and it's our duty that Scouting be a safe and happy environment for them. Bob, unfortunately that's a story that gets told all too often And while it's sad, I do appreciate you bringing it to our attention. Bullying just has no place in Scouting.

I know that it's a topic of discussion in schools and in youth groups all over the country and all over the world And I think Bob's advice is spot on: We can't be bystanders. We have to make sure that we eliminate all forms of bullying from Scouting and we keep Scouting a safe place for boys. Curtis Dorbert is Scoutmaster of Troop 238 in Welcome North Carolina. He wrote in about a recent article on ScoutmasterCGcom dealing with homesickness and he said: you're spot on.

So many parents set up their Scout to fail with rescue plans. It's important to coach parents on what to say should they get a call from a homesick Scout.

Cell phones are everywhere now and I've had Scouts borrow a phone from a passing Scout so they could call home at camp. If the parent is on board and they encourage their Scout to hang in there, both the Scout and the parent will be proud of their accomplishments. I also ask that if a parent gets that kind of a call they get in touch with me as soon as possible. Scouts that leave camp early often don't stick with Scouting. We haven't had that issue in our Troop, although we've had some pretty challenging situations dealing with homesickness.

I think it would be a great thing to talk about on the podcast. Well, Curtis, your wish was my command and in Scoutmastership, in 7 Minutes or Less, we're going to go ahead and do that. Dave Richardson is from Western Australia in the Waqiki First Warm Bros Sound Scout Group and he wrote to say good day mate. And that's how he wrote it. It sounded like a bad Crocodile Dundee imitation, Or at least it does when I read it. I just finished listening to podcast 170 with the chair of the Australian Youth Council and I was wondering if you have any objections If I put the podcast on our website.

Well, not at all, Dave. Go right ahead And I'll take the opportunity to remind everybody that anything we produce at scoutmastercgcom is freely offered to help support Scouting and to be a benefit to Scouters. If you want to post an article or a podcast or an infographic or anything that we've produced, you feel free to go ahead and do so. All's we ask is that you let folks know where it came from. That's all. Ryan Beebe is the Training and Development Officer for the National Rover Council in Scouts Australia, where he works with the.

We Are a Rover crew in the Mentone Scout Group And he wrote in to say: hey, we love the latest podcast with Chris. I've been lucky enough to spend some time in San Diego during my university studies and have been hosted by a troop out there. I've been rovering and training in Mexico and Canada and hoping to come and visit your national jamboree this year.

Well, thanks so much, Ryan. I'm glad that you got in touch with us, Boy. It seems like you Australians are pretty well-traveled and it's great to hear from you. Arlam Ward and I made it a little difficult for you to keep up with Scout Circle this past Sunday. I do apologize. We had a technical difficulty called Mother's Day.

We had to postpone our May Scout Circle and what we're going to do is we're going to do it on May 19th. This coming Sunday. It'll be between 9 and 10 pm and our plan is to talk about summer camp. Stop by scoutscircleorg this Sunday, May 19th, 9 to 10 pm, Eastern Daylight Time, and be part of a live presentation where you'll be able to ask questions and things like that. It's great fun and we look forward to having you be a part of it.

In this podcast in Scoutmastership in 7 Minutes or less, we're going to talk a little bit about homesickness, just like we promised, And then we've got an email question to answer and a belated Mother's Day card. Is there any other kind For all the mothers involved in scouting out there?

So there's the podcast this time around. Let's get started, shall we? Scoutmastership in 7 Minutes or less.

If you're taking your scouts to summer camp this summer and you're going to spend a week out there away from home, it's likely you will be dealing with one or more homesick scouts Now. I come from an era when homesickness was regarded as a weakness or something to be ashamed of, But I want to make sure that we all understand that preventing and treating homesickness needs to be approached like administering first aid for any other illness or injury. Homesickness is not an imaginary thing. It's not an indication of weakness or a lack of character. It's not a symptom of bad parenting or bad leadership And, thankfully, in most cases it's pretty easy to prevent and pretty easy to treat.

Scout leaders and parents of scouts should consider following a homesickness prevention plan well before scouts are headed to camp. There are things that scout leaders need to do and things that parents need to do. For scout leaders, I would suggest making a discussion of summer camp a regular feature of unit meetings leading up to your stay at camp. Talk about the program and the accommodations, the games, the events and the daily routine to help scouts familiarize themselves with the experience, Share pictures and patches and awards from past camps. Just talk it up real good, and this is something that is best done by scouts who've been to camp before right. If it's possible, you may even be able to arrange to have a camp staff member visit a unit meeting and talk to scouts about camp.

If you can arrange this, maybe you can also get them to welcome your scouts when they arrive at camp. We need to very consciously work with parents to establish a contact plan while we're at camp. Most experts agree that real-time contact like phone calls or texting and email can complicate rather than alleviate homesickness if the stay away from home is less than several weeks long. Letter writing, it turns out, is a better alternative. If you're going to sit down and write a letter home, it's going to require a scout to reflect on what he's doing, and these reflections often aid in alleviating the anxiety that causes homesick.

With a parent's role, they need to make the stay at camp visible at home well ahead of the time a scout's going to leave to go to camp. Mark it on the calendar or post it on the fridge and show your scout how long they will be away. That can lead to a discussion of any anxiety they may have about it. When the scout's ready to head off for camp, provide your scout with some pre-stamped, pre-addressed envelopes and paper or postcards or both, and you might even have them practice writing and sending a letter at home.

Sending a letter through the US mail has become less and less common and I don't think we should assume that all of our scouts know how to do that. Parents can also encourage scouts to include a few transitional objects or mementos while they're packing for camp, and these could be, you know, a family picture, or maybe there's a stuffed animal or any object that evokes a feeling of home.

Explain that these are symbols that his family is safe and well and they're excited for him to be at camp and they look forward to hearing from them when camp is over. Parents should discuss any plan for contact with their scouts and they should both agree to abide by that plan. And, of course, you want to discuss how camp will be a great opportunity to strengthen their growing independence and their ability to look after themselves. It's perfectly understandable that parents are going to be anxious about any extended separation from their scout. That anxiety sometimes makes the scout anxious. Sometimes parents are anxious that the scout will be homesick and that kind of creates a feedback loop that will ultimately make the scout homesick.

So if you sit down and discuss with your son that homesickness is a pretty natural reaction that some people have to being away from familiar surroundings and they shouldn't be frightened by it. You can talk about different ways to manage it and you can express the confidence that your scout is going to be able to cope, should they feel homesick, and help him with these specific coping strategies. If you feel homesick, you need to talk to your friends and you need to talk to your scout leaders. Don't feel like you're alone in feeling the way that you do or you're ashamed of saying how that you feel. You want to keep busy and have fun and participate in the camp program, even if you don't feel like it at first, and you can always write a letter or a card home to us and let us know how you're doing Now. Those are good coping strategies for scouts, but there are also ways that parents can complicate the issue and they can make homesickness more likely.

If they indicate their own anxiety with the pending separation. By saying things like we don't know what we'll do without you, they can unwittingly undermine their scout's ability to cope with the situation. By no means should parents discuss any kind of a rescue plan Like if you don't like it, we'll come and pick you up or you can always call us and we'll come and get you. That sets a negative expectation that's difficult for a scout to overcome.

You're basically telling them: well, we know you're not going to like camp, so if you get there- and that's true- that kind of a rescue plan undermines the experience for your scout and it's pretty good guarantee that you're going to get a call and you're going to have a homesick scout. Now, in the cell phone age, parents and scout leaders need to think through a parent's response should a scout manage to contact home. Let's remember that real-time contact is not a good thing for alleviating homesickness. They tend to make it worse, and this information comes to me from both from my own experience and from several studies that I've looked at dealing with students and with campers who are away from home for different periods of time. It turns out that up to several weeks away from home, these real-time contacts aggravate homesickness. If the stay away from home is going to be more than several weeks, real-time contacts help alleviate homesickness.

So what happens if a scout somehow gets to a phone and calls home? A parent should be prepared to say something like we agreed before you left on how we'd be in contact. If this is an emergency, you need to go to a scout leader or another responsible adult there at camp and I will contact the camp later today to check in and make sure that everything's okay.

But right now I'm going to have to go because we agreed that we wouldn't be doing this. It's almost always a mistake for a parent to insist on talking to a homesick scout or that a scout have a cell phone at camp. This often accentuates the anxiety for everybody involved- for the parents and for the scouts and the scout leaders involved. If a parent insists on checking in, they should discuss precisely how this would happen and talk only to the adult leaders who can give them a progress report on how the boy is doing.

So what happens if we take all these measures and we have the contact plan and we've done all these things and a scout still gets homesick? Well, that's a pretty natural thing, that's going to happen and you should expect it to happen. Should a scout come to you and tell you that they're homesick, you need to respond with a great deal of patience and caring and kindness. Being dismissive or abrupt with homesick scouts is not going to help them listen to what they have them say and help them cope again by staying busy having fun or writing a letter home or talking to their friends. Chiefly, it's important that we send the message that there's no shame in being homesick. Everybody feels that way at some point in their lives, but we get over it and we get better.

Homesickness is common. Good prevention can make it less powerful. By familiarizing scouts with the camp experience and building transitions between home and camp and establishing a contact plan, you'll prevent the most common causes of homesickness in scouts.

We received this email from Jeff Zook, who is with troop 228 in Oxnard, California. He wrote in and said: I'm not really sure if this is a problem. I have many adults attending our outings, sometimes equal to the number of scouts attending. I have been very diligent making sure the adults stay in the adult camp and put their hands in their pockets. Most of them do. I do have a couple of dads that step in because their sons, who are patrol leaders, bring a problem to their attention and the dads swoop in to help out.

I'm working on this, but any suggestion would be helpful. Many of the other adults simply enjoy the outdoors and getting away from it all one weekend a month.

Do you see this as a problem now or in the future? Well, Jeff, thanks so much for getting in touch. What you're talking about can be a bit of a problem. It's obviously creating a bit of a problem for you now. You have a couple of dads who are very concerned about making sure that things go smoothly. That's to be expected.

It's a very natural reaction, but it's not always the best thing for scouts. With that many adults getting used to scouting in hand for scouting events, it can become a problem in the future.

I think that you may sit down with your troop committee and establish some rules for adults who are going to go camping now. We know that adult volunteers are a key element of scouting, but they also have a distinct role that differentiates them from youth leaders.

In my experience, scouts need the independence to run their own program and solve their own problems, and, this in mind, here's what I suggest the committee and you should get together and draft as an understanding. Number one is that registered volunteers have a standing invitation to attend camping trips and meetings and events. Attendance of adults may be limited to preserve a workable ratio of scouts to adults. A maximum of one adult to three scouts should be kind of like your rule of thumb and just as an aside policy statement, that is not something that I have derived from scouting literature. I'm saying that one to three maximum. In my experience that seems to work pretty good, not to say that one to three is a minimum in any sense of the word.

Number two: parents who are not registered as volunteers may attend only camping trips and events by invitation of the patrol leaders council or the Scoutmaster if sufficient registered volunteers are unavailable to support the trip. Naturally, any activity you have in scouting is open to observation by parents and arrangements can be made to attend if there's a specific concern from a specific parent or something like that.

But the idea, I think, of an open invitation to all parents for every camping trip, anytime they want to go, is going to tip that ratio of adults to scouts. And as you said, Jeff, you're having some trips. You have an adult to scout ratio of one to one, having the understanding that parents are welcome, they can observe any time if they need to.

But for camping trips it's going to be by invitation of the patrol leaders council and then you may encourage the patrol leaders council to establish one weekend, that is, a family camp or, you know, a parent and son kind of camping experience. And then, finally, what I would have in your little memorandum of understanding that comes from the committee is that all adults- volunteers and parents are too cheerfully and obediently follow the directions of the Scoutmaster.

Now, while we're on a scout camping trip, it's understood that adults should be camping in a specific section of the campsite in their own tents, so no adult shares a tent with their son, and that adults will agree to remain in the adult area throughout their stay or to at least remain in respectful distance from the scout and the area and the distance is determined by the Scoutmaster. So other than the Scoutmaster or those adults that he designates will be directing or instructing or advising or otherwise really communicating with the scouts. That's kind of a quick take on what I would have as an understanding. It gives the Scoutmaster pretty much carte blanche to direct and define what goes on without having to explain themselves constantly.

I think you're right that adults do enjoy camping once a month and getting away from it all. That's great, but what's going on a weekend camping trip has nothing to do even remotely with adults getting to go out and have a relaxing weekend, getting away from it all in the woods. It's about the scouts and it's only about the scouts.

Adults are there, so scouts can go camping. That's it. My favorite way to explain this is to use a sports metaphor.

If parents go to watch their son's play at some kind of athletic contest, what are they doing? Well, they're sitting on the sidelines. They don't call the plays. They don't run out on the field to solve problems. They don't surround the bench where the players are sitting or waltz into the dugout or talk to the players. They don't follow their boy into the locker room.

You know. They don't ride on the team bus, they are spectators.

Now you describe an instance of patrol leaders asking their dads for help, and I would suggest that you put this to a swift and conclusive end. Their first stop is the senior patrol leader, and if the senior patrol leader can't help them figure things out, then the senior patrol leader needs to come to you as the Scoutmaster and then you know, if you choose to, you can have a dad help out. You're not playing the game by the rules if a patrol leader is just kind of going to his dad and having him figure things out. The sports analogy usually works and adults do get that. You're the head coach, the volunteers are the assistant coaches and the scouts are the players, and parents are spectators, and we don't let spectators on the field or in the dugout or in the locker room right, they're on the sidelines watching.

So the kind of problems that this can cause is a hard one to see it first. But when you as an adult are physically present, scouts defer to adults and the adult is immediately in charge. There's really, there's just no way to change that. Don't even try. We've conditioned our youth to accept the direction of adults almost unquestioningly and really kind of instinctively. They spend the lion's share of their time in school being taught by adults.

You know, when adult enters the room everybody has to listen to the adult. The adult is the default leader. I always suggest that adults need to stay away from scouts. When the scouts are- quote unquote- playing the game of scouting, it's not that adults are a bad influence or trying to consciously undermine what's going on or have anything but the best intentions. They just often don't understand the dynamics that are happening there. They have to stay a good physical distance away from scouts and let the scouts themselves do the work of scouting.

I do see troops come to our summer camp with a one to one ratio of adults and I've even seen a couple that come with more adults than scouts. I have to ask: what in the world do I know there's no way, even with the best behaved adults, that the scouts have anything like a fighting chance to exercise much in the way of leadership or independence or initiative if the ratio is that high. It takes some time and observation to understand that it really just simply doesn't work. Jeff, I hope that helps. If you have a question or need advice about a situation you have, you can get in touch with me. You're going to find out how to do that in just a minute.

A couple of weeks ago I asked three youth candidates to find their parents and to get them to come to a side room in the church where we were about to have an eager board of honor. Once we had everybody in that little side room, I handed each family a familiar velvet covered box that contained the eagle award. I told them that first we'll have mom, practice pinning the eagle metal on their son's left pocket.

And so three moms open the little box and they have to fiddle around and we're getting all the pins and the metal loose from the cardboard backing. And then the moms have a chance to practice pinning that eagle metal onto their son's pocket flap.

And there's a little bit of nervousness and laughter. One mom says: well, it's not as easy as it looks, is it? And her husband bends down to pick up one of the pin backs that she dropped. And I say: no, it really isn't as easy as it looks.

That's why we have this little rehearsal: not as easy as it looks. Well, hearing that from a mom, that's pretty much an understatement, isn't it?

The road to that room where those boys are standing right now with their parents started years ago when a little boy came home excitedly talking about something that his friends did called Cub Scouts. From that point on it's just a blur of dead meetings and packed meetings and overnights and trips.

And then there's that tear that gets wiped away as the little boy stands on a stage somewhere and gets his first badge. Then he gets his second, and his third, and his fourth and his tenth and he brings those badges home, and all of them gotta be sewn somewhere, right?

And it just as soon as you get them all sewn on one shirt- well, it looks like he's outgrown that shirt now and it's time to sew them all on a new shirt, right? And then, as he gets old enough, people start talking about Boy Scouts. Boy Scouts,

Yeah, and Boy Scouts go camping him. But wait a minute, where are they going camping and who's going with them?

When is this happening and what will they be doing? Wait a minute, you have to get food for how many other Scouts for this weekend? At that point, it seems like months have passed rather than years, and that little boys grown up into this big, gawky teenager who tramps through the house in his muddy hiking boots, reeking of campfire smoke, and tosses a backpack full of clean clothes that he never wore on the kitchen floor before he opens the fridge.

Sure, you know, every family has some arguments and some fears and some disappointments and doubts, but there have also been moments of pride and, for mom, moments of stark amazement. He did what?

How come? I can't get him to do that at home? And naturally there's been lots of love and lots of support. Somehow, though, they made it through somewhere along the way.

That cute little boy grew into this big person standing there who's now taller than his mother and she's practicing pinning an eagle medal onto his shirt. I then tell them to look in the box there's a pin for dad and we'll have the scout practice pinning that on dad.

And there's a little more fumbling around and a little more nervous laughter and I tell them: we save the best for last and I gotta tell you there's usually a catch in my voice when I say it- there's a pin in there for mom too. Within the next hour or so there's a lot of smiles, some of them are a little nervous and there's a few tears.

But then the moment approaches when all these families will be standing on this stage and there's this big, lanky kid, who used to be a little boy, haltingly pinning a small token of his appreciation- which is really a token of all our appreciation- on his mom and then, to her utter amazement and in spite of the fact that his friends are all looking on, he'll give her a hug and a kiss and he'll say: thanks, mom, from all the scouting sons out there for all you do. Thanks, mom, and happy mother's day.