Scoutmaster Podcast 198

I'm David Wilkes and I am an assistant Scoutmaster with Troop 68 in Dallas, Texas. This edition of the Scoutmaster Podcast is sponsored by backers like me. Love what you do, and Clark, keep it up.

And now to you, Scoutmaster. Two venerable old veteran scouters, well into their 70s, are sitting on the front porch of the headquarters building at Scout Camp And one turns to the other and says I got a new hearing aid the other day.

And the other one says: really, what kind is it? And the other one looks at his watch and says, ah, about 2.30.. Yeah, yeah, OK.

Well, this is podcast number 198..

Hey, Welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green. Let's take a look in the mailbag. We heard from Benny Coe And Benny is with Direct Service, Troop 222 in Penang, Malaysia.

Now, if you don't know about the Direct Service offered by the BSA, this is for expatriates who are in other countries, either for work or serving in the military, And the BSA offers a program called Direct Service where you can have a BSA troop in another country. Benny wrote to say your podcast is amazing. I learn a lot from the podcast and the blog And I have proposed our library and Troop have your book for reference.

Well, thank you, Benny. I'm really happy to hear that, He said. I will have one simple question. I love the all time favorite Boy Scout song.

Can you tell me where to find it? Furthermore, I'm convincing our troop to pass more leadership to our youth using the patrol method. We've invited our patrol leaders council to meet with adult leaders and share the vision with them. Again, amazing job Is your full time job as a Scoutmaster.

Well, thanks, Benny, for getting in touch. I'm glad you're finding the blog and the podcast useful. The song you're talking about is called Scout Boy And it is available on Amazon. I'll make sure that there's a link to the song in the post that contains this podcast. But let's hear it. It's one of my favorites too.

That song always pops things up a little bit, doesn't it? Over on Stitcher you can listen to the podcast using an app called Stitcher Smart Radio. But over on Stitcher this week, Reed left us this review: Great podcast. I always learn something when I listen to Scoutmaster Clark. Keep up the great work.

Well, thank you so much, Reed. We're happy that you're listening. I'm glad you're getting something out of the podcast. Curtis Dorbort is with Troop238. And he wrote in to say thanks for another great scout circle. I just listened to it driving from Pennsylvania to North Carolina on the way back from the Thanksgiving holiday.

I will admit I felt better about what my unit is doing on Webelos Scout to Transition upon discovering we do many of the same things as you do. Thanks again for your hard work and dedication. It is most appreciated.

Well, thank you, Curtis, for listening in. And the November Scout Circle was a solo performance by yours truly about the Webelos to Scout Transition.

You can find that on our YouTube channel And there's also a post about it on scoutmastercgcom. Stephen Brindle is with Troop773 in Florida And he wrote to say it is always a pleasure to get a new Scoutmaster podcast in my podcast queue. I learned something new in each episode. I heard something from someone the other day that I hadn't thought of. Many of us get involved as adult leaders as we follow our boys into scouting. I do see some stay in scouting after their boys age out.

I've had someone question the role of adult leaders when they don't have any youth in the program. They felt that it was inappropriate. My feeling is I would rather have a trained adult over a parent any day.

What's your opinion on having adult leaders in your unit when they don't have any youth in the program? Well, short answer, Stephen. In April of next year I will have been a Scoutmaster for 30 years. I've had a child involved for seven out of those 30 years. Many of my assistant Scoutmasters and people who serve on our Troop committee have remained involved long past their child's active involvement in the program. I don't see any crucial plus or minus And I certainly don't think it's inappropriate for someone without a child to be involved as a scouter.

If you're the parent of a Scout, that's great. If you're not the parent of a Scout, not a problem. It doesn't seem to make a whole lot of difference. Some Scouters with an active Scout in the program find it a little challenging to keep a parent's perspective And some parents find being a Scouter and a parent at the same time can be a little bit of a challenge. But we're going to talk a little bit more about being a Scouter and a parent at the same time in Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less in this podcast.

So keep listening And, Stephen, thank you so much for being in touch And thanks for becoming a ScoutMasterCGcom backer, David Thompson, wrote in to say I was wondering if you could speak about what place quote voluntold, quote unquote has in Scouting. If you've never heard the term, folks, voluntold, that's kind of like volunteering because somebody told you to. We've all been in that situation before. I've been trying very hard to be liberal and to live 100%, boy led during my first year as a ScoutMaster And this has caused me a little bit of trouble with parents.

Sometimes I think I've been too accommodating to cater to the Scouts. Other Scoutmasters tell me I should not give them options and just tell them what to do. What do you think When you put real responsibility in the hands of youth leaders, there will be shortcomings and difficulties, And this is where friction starts with the parents.

We need dent chiefs and troop guides, but it doesn't seem that there are many Scouts that want to do it. I really don't want to force them into doing something they do not want to do And, by the way, I have dibs on the first graduate card of your podcast training program.

Well, David, I'll give you a couple of quick answers to this. Catering to the Scouts and being too accommodating of what they want to do, I don't really understand that.

I think that that's what we're all about. This is about Scouts. This is not about what adult leaders want. This is what Scouting is right.

Are they doing the things that Scouts do? Are they planning it for themselves?

Are they getting all those experiences We're doing? Great, okay?

So you're going to encounter a little friction caused by people not understanding exactly what's supposed to happen, And it's something that you have to keep explaining. As far as dent chiefs and troop guides and Scouts being reluctant to take on the responsibility, well, you're certainly not going to make them or force them to do something that they don't want to do, And whether or not you're going to fill those positions depends on your attitude.

If you encourage and you kind of paint a picture of the possibilities there, you know we don't want our Scouts serving time in a position of responsibility just to get a rank. We want them to take on a position of responsibility because they feel like it is something important for them to do, Find some fulfillment in serving others. It's not about just plugging them into an empty position, because we really need somebody there. Sometimes things like that go lacking when we don't have any boys and want to be a dent chief or who want to serve as a troop guide. It's not that we are going to look at the boys and try and figure out what's wrong with them.

I think we need to look at ourselves and we need to look at what's going on within the troop and answer the question: Why isn't anybody interested? Is there something that we can change that maybe make these opportunities, that make these opportunities understandable and attractive to Scouts? If they're not understandable and attractive, there's something wrong with the way that we're doing things And that's where we really have to look. I hope that helps, David.

Well, this is December 2nd and we have a giant pile of autographed books in packages ready to head out to scoutmastercgbackers who've generously offered monetary support to keep the podcast and the blog going, And our new backers who've signed up this week are Tom Gillard, Jim Apelli, Sue Ann McAvoy, Gary Thornock, Blaze Vitale and Stephen Brindle, And welcome new backers and thank you so very much. And, as I said, the premiums are packaged up and they are ready to head out this week, so you should see them on your doorstep soon. If you're interested in helping keep the blog and the podcast moving along, you too can become a ScoutsmasterCGcom backer. Go to ScoutsmasterCGcom and you'll find the information there and you'll get an explanation of the premiums that we offer for our backers.

A number of you have downloaded the ScoutsmasterCG app and I want to let you know that we're probably out of the beta stage now and I'm going to keep adding resources and archived podcasts to the app. If you have a mobile device that you can use an Android app on, go to Google Play. Search for ScoutsmasterCG and you'll be able to download the free app on Google Play. The app will also be available soon on iTunes for iPhones and iPads. We've initiated the whole process of doing that and, of course, it takes a couple weeks and I will keep you appraised of when the app will be available there.

In this edition of the podcast in ScoutsmasterCG in 7 minutes or less, we're going to talk about the dual role of being a Scouter and Apparent, And then we have some email questions to answer. That's going to take up the remainder of the podcast, so let's get started, shall we? ScoutsmasterCG in 7 minutes or less.

Now, as we noted earlier, most people get involved in Scouting because they have a child involved, And the dual role of being a Scouter and the parent of a Scout can be a little challenging. Those challenges are easily outweighed by the reward.

I want to note that I'm using the material that I have in this book, The Scouting Journey, to talk about this subject, And it is available now in both electronic and you know real book with pages and a cover editions. I would say that a good parent and a good Scouter both share similar goals for children, But Scouters aren't going to impose the same expectations or exercise the same authority they have for their own children on Scouts. And this is where the rub comes in, because your child is also a Scout.

So you have a set of parental expectations and you have a set of Scouting expectations, I think on average. I think you'll agree with me that parents are probably more demanding and critical and a little more emotional when they're working with their own child. Things will go much smoother for you if you prepare your children and yourself to observe the boundary between these two roles of being a parent and being a Scouter. You may do and say things as a Scouter that make your children proud. You may do some things as a Scouter that kind of make them cringe a little bit, And they will no doubt return the favor for you. Your child's reasons for being a Scout are different from your reasons for being a Scouter.

You want to spend time with your child and you want to help Scouts in general, but they are almost always more interested in spending time with their friends. They're not necessarily in Scouting to spend time with mom or dad.

We need to also understand that parents and children have what I call inside information on each other that can skew a Scouter's judgment and objectivity. Both parent and child both know what goes on at home and at school and at work, and they know each other's history and their strengths and weaknesses.

So having a trusted fellow Scouter who you can talk to frankly goes a long way to balancing the roles of parent and Scouter. Of course, you can return the favor by helping them in the same way when it comes to their balancing their role as a parent and a Scouter with their own child. As you balance these two roles, your child is also balancing the roles of being your child and a Scout.

So you really have to discuss this together. You discuss this with your child and agree on some boundaries and don't switch roles too often. Don't treat your child as a child one minute and a Scout, the next, Explain that they need to accept the same responsibility as other Scouts and you cannot be expected to treat them any differently than you're going to treat other Scouts.

Now, at times, of course, especially with younger Scouts, they're going to need some consolation or help. Only a parent can offer, and it may help to set aside time within a Scouting activity when you and your child become parent and child, rather than Scouter and Scout just for a time, and you walk away from the group and you just talk to each other and you address any concerns and you share your thoughts with one another and then you return to the Scouter and the Scout role. That helps balance things out a little bit.

As with just about everything else in life, I think, if we understand there may be some challenges ahead, that if we sit down and we talk to one another and we figure things out and, like I said, we set some boundaries and we don't switch back between the roles too often, that that will really smooth things out pretty well. I need a letter. Send it by name Email, that is, folks.

And here's an answer to one of your emails. Well, we've got a pretty full slate of emails to answer here. Christopher Remke is with Nashville, Tennessee, Troop 6. And he wrote in to say we are a growing troop and previously used the junior leader training program. Troop growth is adding to our desire and need to have the patrol method providing the foundations for youth leadership, While the adults also need massive amounts of patience. Many Scouts advancing into leadership are happily waiting to see if others will take care of business, both in planning and execution.

Of course, the adults often break down and provide the support. The newer BSA program for position education is apparently the Introduction to Outdoor Leadership Skills or ILST. I'm looking for suggestions for fun, creative ways to use this or a similar program.

Is this the latest program and do you have a best practice or successful program to share? Well, Chris, I'm happy to hear that the troop is growing And I'll note that your Scouts are waiting for adults to step in for one really simple reason: because adults are stepping in.

You know, putting the patrol method into practice means you've got to kind of draw the line and not allow adults to cross it. That's the real challenge and it's just that simple. Scouts are intelligent. If other people are going to do their work, they're happy to sit by and let other people do the work. If they're going to have to do it, they will pitch in and do it, But if somebody's going to come and rescue them, they're smart. They won't put any effort into something when they know that somebody else is going to do it anyway.

The only way that you get to the point where they're taking the responsibility is making sure that nobody else picks it up. It'll cause a little bit of difficulty and it'll be a little challenging at first, But once the idea spreads that hey, if you don't do this, nobody else is, they'll begin taking those responsibilities more seriously.

I think that the junior leader training syllabus and the ILST syllabus- I think they're all fine- I go about things in a little bit of a different way. My premise is that youth leaders don't need training so much as they need to know what to do next, Something that they kind of understand anyway, but they just need a little help with it. Hours of adult-led training sessions send a clear message that adults are in charge and get to decide who does what and how it is done.

Now some guidance and coaching from the Scoutmaster is a lot more effective, And we do this in small doses, In a few minutes here and there usually does the trick. Let them discover what works and what doesn't work. Give them a few basic guidelines and I would send you to a post that we wrote within the past several weeks about 15-minute patrol leader training, and work with them as they figure things out.

Now this will mean that at first you're going to move with glacial slowness as scouts begin to get the idea, And your fellow scouters may be incredibly frustrated and impatient when it looks like things are falling apart. But if you look hard enough, you'll see scouts actually leading things and actually making things happen.

If you are going to have a training session on youth leadership, I think it's better to spend that time training adults rather than scouts. I really don't recommend any training syllabus or having special training for youth leadership. As I said before, Do it a little bit at a time over a period of weeks, as they need it. Stick right with them. Show them what to do.

Sometimes you have to actually step in and do it and then turn around and say: did you see what I did there? That's what you do. Leadership is not something that you can train into somebody. It can only be developed over time. Adults tend to over explain and talk way too much about things scouts don't really need to know at that very moment.

So we're doing things as needed. What's happening next?

That's what they need to know, And then they need to know what to do and maybe a little bit of how to do it. But basically the idea is to let them go, coach them along until they begin to get the idea. Think about riding a bike. We wouldn't sit a child down and give them a long PowerPoint presentation about riding a bike. Nope, We put them on the bike, We stand right there next to them, We let them pedal it for a little while. We talk about balance and things like that.

We may even have training wheels on the bike, but we give them the chance to do that a little bit and then gradually let go and pretty soon they're riding the bike. That's the kind of thing that I'm talking about, And I will say again: leadership is learned by doing things, not by listening to somebody talk about what it's like to be a leader.

My best advice, based on my experience, is to work with scouts on the thing that's happening next, Help them through it, And then you can also begin to layer in the idea of: well, we need to not only talk about what's happening in the next 10 minutes, but we need to look at the next hour, the next day, the next week, the next month, the next year And they'll begin to get the idea. Thanks, Chris, for being in touch And I hope that helps. I had this email that I'm going to let remain anonymous because it's a bit of a ticklish situation. The listener wrote in to say I need advice on how to handle a disruptive parent.

The family has been recently divorced and it didn't go all that well And there is split custody. So I deal with the father every other week at a scout meeting. The father is disruptive. He answers his phone in the middle of the meeting, uses vulgar language allowed enough for other parents And I am sure children to hear, And he continues to question my ability. I have talked with the scouts mother and explained that if this behavior continues, dad is not going to be allowed to bring the scout again. Her response was that his behavior was not all that surprising to her, because the scout has been thrown out of other activities because of his father's actions.

I talked to the other adult leadership of our unit And the only advice they gave me was to tread lightly, because this is such a ticklish situation. We don't want to make it worse for the scout. I honestly feel stuck. This behavior is distracting and disrespectful and inappropriate.

What's the best way to approach this without the child's suffering? Well, this is indeed a difficult situation And you do have the right focus: Not trying to do more harm to the scout who is involved in this Now, not actually seeing or hearing what's going on, It's difficult for me to judge what direction you should take. If you decide that dad has to go, then the unit leadership, not just you, but you want the unit leader and the committee chair. They need to absolutely back you up and meet with this father face to face, out of hearing of the scouts, No emails, no phone calls. Face to face meeting. It may be at the next meeting where he brings the scout.

It may be that they need to set up a special time and go meet with him, but they need to tell him in no uncertain terms that his behavior and his attitude simply will not be tolerated. Naturally, this is a very unpleasant task for anyone, especially someone who is just a volunteer and is trying to be helpful, But sometimes we all need to have a little backbone and stand up for each other.

Now these folks who are going to address this with dad need to think through what they're going to say and then they need to make it stick. There's no argument to be had, there's no equivocation. They tell dad that this is unacceptable and that if he chooses to act this way, that's it. He won't be able to participate with his son Again. This is not very pleasant, but you can't let things like this go on. I have had to do this sort of thing in the past and I have learned that quick, definitive and authoritative action is what resolves the problem.

I'm sorry you find yourself in such a distressing situation and I hope that this helps, and do let me know if I can be of any further assistance. I also recently heard from Chris, who had this to say: I will be the Scoutmaster of a troop of nearly 100 scouts next month.

We have a wonderful troop and an active set of parents and scouts. However, our success and size is leading to some challenges. For example, we traditionally have had about five patrols.

That means we have a senior patrol leader, three or four assistance senior patrol leaders and five patrol leaders. Most of these are 13, 14-year-old scouts and our patrol size is pretty large. On campouts we only usually have 30 or 40 scouts show up.

So we do wind up with manageable patrols of about six or eight boys apiece. On campouts We can add more patrols to increase the number of patrol leaders and add assistance senior patrol leaders. But I was wondering if there are other strategies that large troops use to better handle the challenges of their size.

Well, Chris, if I'm reading this right, it sounds like you have maybe 15 to 20 scouts in a patrol, and that's a pretty big crowd. The idea of patrols is scouts working in the natural gang of friends on a scale where the real work of scouting is done, And honestly I can't imagine that happening that well if the patrol numbers 15 or 20 boys.

Now, since you asked, here's what I would do. I would tell your senior patrol leader and the patrol leader's counsel that they can arrange their patrols as they see fit and that they should aim for eight to 10 scouts in a patrol. That's a workable size.

Have a discussion with them about your concerns that you want to reduce the scale of things down to a level where scouts are getting the attention that they need from their patrol leaders so they don't feel as though they're lost in a big herd And that they feel that they're part of something that's important and vital. And then let them at it. Get out of the room and see what solutions they come up with. Once they've formed new patrols, they can elect patrol leaders and maybe you'll have a few more patrol leaders. Ask them how they would handle the leadership structure. I don't really understand what five or six assistant senior patrol leaders would have to do.

Maybe some of them actually just become patrol leaders if the newly formed patrols elect them. Let the patrol leaders counsel, sit down and sort things out. They may have a question or two for you, but don't start out by giving them directions.

Let them work things out and then discuss their plans with them. Do they think they have one big troop, Or maybe they ought to think about the idea of having two troops? Put everything on the table and see what they have to say. Then you respond to what they want and you do your best to make it happen. At the end of the day, they have thought things through, tried some new ideas and developed something for themselves. Older scouts stay around and stay involved when they actually get to do things like this, When they are really leading and making decisions.

Why we have patrols is so scouts get to do what they do with their friends. It's not about manageability or taking a giant group and cutting it into smaller groups making it easier to work with.

They ought to be able to figure out who their friends are better than anybody else and what they want to do as a patrol better than we can. Chris, I hope that advice answers your question and it helps you move forward.

I also received this anonymous question: Is the blue card for merit badges required? I've asked other leaders in my troop if they knew about blue cards and all I got was a blank stare. Apparently, our troop has never used them.

I looked in the guide to advancement 2013 and they are required, But how did our troop not even know about them? Well, I can't really answer how the troop did not even know about them, But blue cards are required and it is in the guide to advancement 2013 and I'm reading directly from that. It says- though it's not been clearly stated in the past: units, districts and local councils do not have the authority to implement a different system for merit badge approval and documentation other than the merit badge application or the blue card. My bet, I guess, is that someone in the dim, dark past decided that they knew better and dispensed with blue cards and they thought they had a better system. But the BSA is pretty clear in this matter in expressing policy that nobody has the authority to implement a different system for merit badge approval and documentation than the actual application for a merit badge, which is commonly known as the blue card.

So I hope that helps. If you have a question or a conundrum, get in touch with me and you're going to find out how to do that in just a moment.