Scoutmaster Podcast 208

I'm John Nelson and I am an assistant scoutmaster with Truth 947 in Westchester Ohio. This edition of the Scoutmasters podcast is sponsored by backers like me.

And now it's the old scoutmaster. We had an event with the Scouts this weekend. I thought it was a little bit like being at the Olympics. We had no electrical power and the water was a little dodgy.

And you know the facility. No, really. Three-time Olympian and 1998 gold medalist, competitive skier Peek-a-Boo Street. You'll remember that name from past Olympics.

Now she's broadcasting from the Sochi Olympics. She's done a lot of charity work in her retirement from skiing, Perhaps most notably helping establish an intensive care unit at a local hospital. I love to see people do things like that.

You know what they call the intensive care unit, don't you? Yeah, it's the Peek-a-Boo ICU. Sorry, I just couldn't help myself. Hey, this is podcast number 208.. Hey,

Well, welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green. Let's take a look at the mailbag. This Chaplain, who is the advisor for Venture Crew number 1833, sent me this saying: Scout troops are like a pair of shoes. A scout needs to find one that best fits. But even the best fitting shoe can give you blisters every once in a while Nice thought James.

Nice thought Frank N is a Scoutmaster with Albertus Troop 86. And he wrote in to say: like yourself, I was never a boy scout. I became involved as a result of my two boys enrolling in the program.

I'm currently on my third year of scouting, having served as a committee member, assistant scoutmaster and now da-da-da Scoutmaster. As I navigate my way through scouting, I look for websites that provide useful information and help me maintain the momentum we've created. I have found that website at scoutmastercgcom. Keep up the good work. Thanks, Frank.

I'm glad you're finding what we have available useful to you And good on you for volunteering for scouting. Bob Taylor wrote in to say I really enjoy your blog posts and podcasts. I recently purchased the iPhone app and I'm starting to work through the archive podcast. Thanks for what you do. That's right.

We have the Scoutmaster CG app that puts all of the blog posts and the podcasts and all the information that we share right there at your fingertips. It's available at the iTunes store And it's also available for Android devices through Google Play. Randy Green wrote in to say I'm glad I found your site. I have it bookmarked. There's a wealth of information there. I'm always trying to educate young people I come in contact with by getting them to think analytically and to show them skills to be self-sufficient and help others.

I was looking at your top 10 fire starters infographic and I have one to add: a bottle cap-sized piece of sap that can often be found on evergreen trees. You can dip a few twigs in it and they'll burn longer. Keep up the good work of assisting, raising responsible young people. Thank you, Randy. Thanks for the idea. I'm going to give that a shot.

I'm going to check that out. Last week on podcast 207, we started talking about difficult behavior and I had a couple of responses to that.

One listener asked to remain anonymous, wrote in to say I think I have a pretty good handle on my ex-games type of guy, But you shed even more light that will help me as a parent. I can't tell you how much I look forward to part two: Consequences that work and that fall within BSA guidelines. I know my kid. He needs boundaries, he needs consequences, but mostly he needs something to do and to feel a bit important.

Well, I have to agree with you. I think that's true of all of our scouts. They need boundaries, they need consequences, but they need meaningful things to do that build them up, And we're going to be talking about that a little bit later on in the podcast. Also, this past week in our green bar life section we published a series of three articles by Enoch Highsey about dealing with scout chaos. Scout chaos is one of my favorite subjects.

I couldn't help but as I was going through those articles, of thinking of you know the old get smart show, But that kind of dates me and you too, if you just giggled at that. So anyway, Dan Nudeswig left a comment about that series. It says many times a disruptive scout is a boy trying to get attention and show others he's knowledgeable and able. I try to give him a platform to do that in a constructive manner. If we're working on skills, we ask him to demonstrate them and to help the other scouts with them.

Dan, excellent idea about channeling that kind of chaotic, maybe sometimes disruptive energy that we see so often. It's a whole lot better than stopping it.

I think one of the big messages we get out of those articles is channeling that chaos, managing it, leading it, not trying to stamp it out- to accept that really powerful energy and put it to work. We also heard from Bill Stoll, who said great series of articles and always an important subject. The reason some troops have retention problems is a stale or adult run, boring program. I'm always looking for good ideas myself. Make sure you take the opportunity, if you haven't already, to read the Managing Chaos series that Enoch prepared for us.

I think you're going to like it a lot. Well, over on ScoutMasterCGcom this week we had a number of people sign up and start participating in the Scouter Forum that we have there. Do go and check it out. Right at the top of the page there's a link that says participate and under that you can get yourself to the forums, You can sign up and you can begin joining in the discussion. There's been some interesting things about working with youth leaders and about some high adventure ideas that you might find interesting.

This coming Sunday, February 16th, between 9 and 10 pm Eastern Standard Time, we're going to have a Scout Circle presentation with the author of that series of articles that we were just talking about, Enoch Hysie. Enoch was a patrol leader, senior patrol leader, youth leader in his troop. He's a very thoughtfully young man, a great writer, and he is heading up the Green Bar Life section of ScoutMasterCGcom. We're going to get him to join us on the February Scout Circle and discuss some of the things that he's been writing about, And this would be a great Scout Circle to have some of your youth leadership see.

So once again, Sunday, February 16th, 9 to 10 pm Eastern Standard Time. Come to ScoutMasterCGcom and follow the links to find our February Scout Circle. It'll be a presentation that's followed up by a question and answer period and discussion period with the people who are watching. The Scout Circle presentation, like everything else we're doing, is sponsored by our ScoutMasterCG backers.

Now, if you're a regular reader and a listener and what we are offering has helped out, you can return the favor by helping keep things up and running by becoming a backer. Funds from backers go towards the expenses of producing and publishing the blog, the posts, the podcasts, the videos, the presentations that are proving to be a valuable resource.

We want to keep them freely accessible for Scouters all over the world. I want to welcome Ty Schwerferger, Michael Smith and Patricia Koch as new ScoutMasterCGcom backers, Thank you.

Thank you so very much for your support Now in this podcast and ScoutMasterShip, in seven minutes or less, which will be much longer than seven minutes, as it usually is. Oh my, The second part of talking about Scouts and Difficult Behavior, and then we have some email questions to answer And that's going to take up the rest of the entire podcast.

So let's get started, shall we

ScoutMasterShip in seven minutes or less. Now, last week, in part one of this two-part series, we began discussing difficult behavior in Scouts. Just to catch everybody out, there are times when Scouts just kind of lose their way and they aren't aware of what's happening around them. They're kind of just walking underwater, And anybody who's been around a group of Scouts on a Sunday morning during a weekend camping trip knows exactly what I'm talking about. We know that Scouts sometimes unknowingly misbehaved. They're not aware of the rules or the right way to do things And they just kind of charge ahead and all that exuberance and energy that they have.

We know that Scouts sometimes deliberately misbehaved, That they are aware of the rules or the right things to do, but they make a bad choice And we know that every once in a while a Scout does something that is so just unaccountably foolish and reckless. We find ourselves asking how such an intelligent kid could do something so stupid.

Now we also discussed last week why they act this way. We know that physically our Scouts- especially when they're camping, they need plenty of sleep and plenty of food and plenty of water, And I would never, ever discount those physical factors as the source of difficult behavior. Those are a lot of times kind of easy to fix. We know that mentally they need some expectations and they need some boundaries and they need to stay engaged- And that's always a challenge. And we know that spiritually, they need to develop an internal standard of behavior that guides their actions, And much of our work as Scouts is aimed at forming and maturing that internal standard of behavior.

Now, any experienced Scouter or parent will tell you that asking adolescents to contemplate the trade-offs between risks and benefits is not going to be all that effective in a lot of instances, because we know that their decision-making capabilities are not yet developed And we're working hard to help them develop them right. But sometimes just this kind of logical statement of the facts and reasoning that adults try to impose on young people is not going to help Because, as we learned last week, the decision-making in those adolescent brains is skewed towards overestimating the benefits of an action and underestimating bad outcomes If they view that some kind of action or decision is going to make them look cool is going to improve their status in the minds of their peers. That's a very, very powerful benefit that they perceive, And sometimes no amount of rational thinking is going to overcome that, Because what seems rational and well-regioned to us is not going to have the same effect on them.

Now, experience is a good teacher, but experience based on negative results is not quite as effective in children and younger adolescents as it is in older adolescents and adults. These things all kind of converge and make risk-taking very attractive to adolescent boys. Remember that you're not dealing with a fully-formed, rational adult.

So how do we help our scouts make better decisions when it comes to risky or difficult behavior? Well, risky and difficult behavior is going to have less appeal if scouts see a direct benefit from the alternative, safer courses of action. The benefits of choices in their minds outweigh the negative consequences of choices.

So we can leverage that by making sure that we put a lot of weight on the benefit of good decisions, And one of the ways we can do that is make sure that we promote positive images of good decision-making. We can help them build confidence to recognize and reject risky behavior and to get themselves out of risky situations.

Our monitoring and supervision is going to limit exposure to risky situations, And that's a challenge in scouting, because monitoring is supervision, so that real responsibility is present on the part of the scouts and real choices are able to be made. And finally, one very important way we can help our scouts manage risk is making sure that they are occupied with positive activities.

I believe in downtime and I believe in sitting around the campfire, kind of hanging out with your pals, And I don't think every single moment of the day needs to be scheduled. By making positive activities attractive and keeping their time filled with them, We really cut back on the possibilities for poor decision-making.

So let's talk about rulemaking for a moment. I've never seen much use in troops establishing elaborate codes of conduct or disciplinary rules and regulations. We already have that. It's built into scouting.

We have the scout oath and the scout law. That's our code. If we use the scout oath and the scout law as our rules of conduct, then we are able to deal with scouts individually based on their understanding of the scout oath and the scout law. And we deal with scouts individually based on their understanding- not ours, but their understanding- of the scout oath and law. We counsel with them and we work with them, We build an internal standard of behavior that will not only apply to scouts but will apply to the rest of their lives. And when it comes to rulemaking, we also need to remember that scouts are much more motivated by the promise of rewards than they are discouraged by the threat of punishment.

Set rules and regulations for punishment, you know, zero tolerance policies and things like that Prevent us from doing the work that is most important, and that is dealing with scouts on an individual basis and thus building that internal standard. Baden Powell had a couple of things to say about this. He said it's risky to order a boy not to do something. It immediately opens to him the adventure of doing it. He also said the boy is not governed by don't but is led by do.

I think the scout oath and law are powerful tools for positive reinforcement. The only tools we have in our toolbox are positive. Try it. Instead of telling everybody what's prohibited, tell them what's expected. Remember negative reinforcement. Once again, it's a weak method for scout age boys and I don't think it's consistent with the values of the scout oath and law.

The scout oath and law is not a set of prohibitions, It's a set of aspirations And if we are consistently aiming at the aspirations, the prohibitions take care of themselves. So now we understand something about the sources of difficult behavior. We know some of the causes involved.

We know that we want to use strong, positive reinforcement whenever possible. We know that there are things that we can do to minimize possibility of bad decision making and risky behavior.

But you know what's coming next. Right, If we get everything right and we're still working very, very hard on all of these fronts, we understand that at some point we're going to be dealing with risky or difficult behavior in our scouts.

So how do we react? If we understand the way that things work with scouts, we know that reactive punishment is going to have little effect on their future ability to make better decisions, And that's what we're aimed at: building the internal standards so they can make better decisions. Anger or punishments are weak tools and may even make scouts even more recalcitrant and drive them towards more risky behavior or bad decisions.

Now, a boys will be boys attitude is absolutely not an option, But neither is reacting with anger or punishment. A more empathetic and compassionate and useful approach is learning about why they made a bad decision or why they participated in a risky behavior.

We do that by learning a little bit more about how they look at the world And then we apply that understanding to helping them manage risky situations and reacting rationally rather than emotionally when they make bad choices of action. When we run into problems.

We need to differentiate between proportionate consequences and corrective punishment. This is a really important distinction. Proportionate consequences are the direct result of misbehavior.

So sitting out an activity that you disrupted, or being restricted from using something like a knife that was misused, resolving a conflict caused by bad behavior, cleaning up a mess caused by difficult behavior- that's proportionate consequences. It deals with things that are a direct result of the behavior. Corrective punishment, on the other hand, is any sanction beyond those proportionate consequences A very important distinction, I am going to say. In my opinion, scouters and youth leaders should never apply corrective punishment. I talked about that a moment ago. Systems of corrective punishments, such as demerits or forced physical activity like pushups or the like, are completely out of place in scouting.

That kind of a system of rules and sanctions requires enforcement and policing, and scouters and youth leaders are not enforcers and they're not police. If we meet difficult behavior with constructive discipline that determines the appropriate consequences, we're going to be much more successful.

We need to counsel the scout and discuss the behavior And in that counseling we separate the behavior from the scout. We work together to determine what proportionate consequences there are.

Let's talk very specifically about some steps that we would take in response to difficult behavior. Number one: we intervene immediately to stop anything that is injurious to individuals or damaging to property. We just immediately stop that.

Number two is: once we've stopped whatever is going on, we have to take the time to quiet our own emotional response. I know I do and I'm going to guess that you do too. Of course, this is really difficult. A lot of the time, If we respond emotionally, it's likely scouts are going to view the consequences of their poor decision as something that upset us, rather than the consequences being a direct result of the decision that they made.

I want to spend a moment talking about quieting that emotional response. A lot of times you're going to need somebody to help you do that.

You're going to need to grab a fellow scatter and say I am really upset right now and I need you to talk to me for a moment until I get over this. A couple of things that will help you think your way through this is remember that what's happening is part of a developmental process.

We've all made plenty of bad decisions in the past ourselves, So it's important to understand that what's going on is not intended to hurt you, nor it is indicative of the quality or value of your service. As a scouter.

We have to be very careful not to take these things too personally. So once we've stopped whatever was going on and quieted our own emotional response, we need to start asking questions.

We need to get to the heart of the matter. We need to listen carefully to the answers.

And once we've listened carefully to the answers, we can help scouts discover the moral and ethical principles that bear on the situation. We're not going to do this when we're emotional. We're not going to do this without doing a lot of listening, And we're not going to do this by preaching to the scouts. We're going to do this by asking questions. We're going to reserve issuing judgment and we're going to ask the scouts to judge themselves. That way, we're invoking that developing internal standard of behavior.

Here's an example. Okay, Let's say a scout on a dare collapses a fellow scout's tent at summer camp. That's going to make me emotional and crazy. I'm going to make sure first that there's no more injury or damage possible. I'm going to step away. I'm going to take a couple of deep breaths.

I'm going to count to ten. I'm going to talk to one of my fellow scouters. Then I'm going to sit down with the scout and I'm going to ask the scout to come in there.

He's going to tell me something like: well, I knocked John's tent down. I'm going to say: well, why did you do that? He may be angry and upset and embarrassed at the whole situation. He might be a little recalcitrant.

He's going to say: well, I don't know. I'm going to reply. I have a hard time believing that you just suddenly decided that this was a good idea. Tell me what you were thinking. The scout's not going to be happy about talking to me. He's going to say: I don't know, Nobody suggested this would be a good idea.

It came to you on your own and maybe he'll allow that. The other guys may have edged him on a little bit. I'm going to ask him if what he did turned out to be a very good idea. He's going to say: I don't think so. I'm going to tell him that I agree and I'm going to ask him to think of what points of the scout law he may have forgotten for a moment.

And you know he's going to love this. He's going to look at me and he's going to say, well, I don't know, because he doesn't want to talk about this.

You know, really, You don't know. No, I don't know. I just kind of did it.

I'll say, all right, well, listen, you need some time to think about this. If you aren't ready to talk to me now, Why don't you sit right here and wait for a while? I can be back in 15 or 20 minutes. Usually, the idea of sitting there and waiting for me to come back is not very attractive.

So that might loosen them up a little bit and I'm going to get something like: well, I knew what I was doing was wrong, but it's no big deal. I won't do it again. I'm sorry, Leave me alone.

I said: well, you know, it's kind of a big deal. It's a big deal to me, It's a big deal to the guy whose tent you knocked over.

Can you understand that? That would be really upsetting.

Well, yeah, I kind of understand. Well, how are you going to make it right?

Well, I could apologize. Okay, Is there anything else?

Yeah, I can set the tent back up, All right, look, listen to me, I think you got it right. I know the last thing you want to do is be sitting here talking to me about this, but I can't ignore what you're doing. Need to apologize, Need to set the tent back up, But before we're finished, I need you to think about and tell me what part of the scout law you forgot when you did this.

Well, maybe I forgot to be trustworthy. Maybe I forgot to be friendly. Maybe I forgot to be kind.

Okay, see, that was easy, right, I know you knew that. Listen, we all forgot ourselves once in a while and we do things we regret.

Can I trust you to go ahead and make this right and not to repeat it, please? Well, yeah, I suppose.

So I knew I could count on you and the next time we talk, let's have something better to talk about. Now, that's an idealized conversation, Okay, and of course, I was perfectly level-headed and consistent all the way through it. It's not always going to happen. I work hard at trying to concentrate: getting the scout to think through the action, getting them to identify what the proportionate consequences of that action ought to be and getting them to analyze their decision in the light of the scout oath and law. A scout who behaves poorly is not going to be real thrilled about getting caught. They're going to be upset and angry.

They'll be reacting emotionally. Now, compounding that emotional reaction with my own is the way that we have really ugly scenes and difficulties. If we take the time we quiet the emotional reaction, we don't start issuing judgments, we start asking questions and we work by being empathetic and finding something complimentary to say about the scout, separating him from the behavior.

You know I expect more from you. I know I can expect more from you.

I know that this was a mistake, so let's not let it happen again. Okay, that can be really challenging, but if you work at it you'll make it happen.

If we learn how to be disappointed in behavior without being disappointed in a scout- and that can take some learning- we can start exercising positive reinforcement. We want our scouts to do better and we don't achieve that by making them feel worse. Bad behavior diminishes if we make a habit of looking for and recognizing good behavior, If we exercise positive reinforcement. A few words of honest praise from somebody you respect are a really powerful force for good.

So I know what you're thinking. That all sounds well and good. I'll give it a shot.

But what happens if a scout keeps misbehaving? What if that guy you're talking about went ahead and kept on knocking down tents?

What if the behavior was very serious and it damaged something or injured someone? Repetitive or serious bad behavior is something that now we're going to discuss with the scout and with their parent. We're going to go through the steps I described in: learning about what was going on and finding out what the proportionate consequences are and everything like that. But we're going to leave it up to parents to employ any kind of corrective punishment.

And you know, it's actually pretty simple. We had a little trouble on the camping trip. Your son needs to explain what this trouble was.

We have sorted it out as far as we're concerned. But any correction that you feel you need to do at home once you understand what went on would help back us up, and parents will usually respond pretty positively to that.

What happens when we go through those steps and we still have misbehavior? Well, we're going to go back to the parents and we're going to say this behavior hasn't been addressed properly.

We're doing our best, we've done everything that we can do, but it's time for you to step in and you're going to have to make whatever corrections you're going to need or your son's not going to be able to continue to participate until you assure us that that behavior isn't going to be repeated. So there's this kind of three-tiered approach.

A lot of behavior we can handle. We can handle it at the moment and we can resolve it. There can be proportionate consequences to it. If it's repetitive or really risky or dangerous, parents need to be involved. They need to impose any corrective punishment that they feel is appropriate. If, after those two steps, we're still having a behavior problem, it's very plain and it needs to be laid out to a set of parents.

Look, this behavior is still continuing and until you can assure us that you've corrected it and your son can come back and participate with scouts and not continue to misbehave, he's not going to be able to participate From right now. Until I have your personal assurance that this behavior isn't going to be repeated, he won't be able to participate in meetings or campouts.

And you know the discussion is probably not going to be quite that simple, but that's my opinion and my suggestion of how to proceed in that kind of extreme situation. So how many times do we come across a situation that extreme? I will tell you in my personal experience it's very rare: Not once a year, not once every five years. And the rarity of that is owing to the fact that we use positive reinforcement, that we use the Scout Oath and Law as our standard of behavior, that we don't have a big set of rules and regulations and demerits and whatever, And we counsel our Scouts to help them develop that internal standard. Of course we're not perfect, of course nobody's going to be perfect, but hopefully these things about difficult behavior will give you some tools to work with that will help you be a better Scouter and help you achieve the aims of Scouting.

Watching how they love to sing. There were mice- mice eating up the rice in the stores. In the stores there were rats- rats big as blooming cats in the quarter master store. My eyes are dim. I cannot see. I have not brought my specs with me.

I have not brought my specs with me.

Listener who has asked to remain anonymous writes: I have so many differing opinion amongst the troops- adults- that I can't decide whose ideas to go with. If I choose one group set of opinions over another, the other group isn't going to be happy.

I want to do what's right and good for the boys, but other adults think their opinions are better than mine. How do I deal with these opinions as a Scouter and maintain a program for my Scouts? Any input you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

I want to say this: let's first understand that the Scouting program is not subject to what everybody feels it ought to be. It's pretty well defined.

So that's the first standard. If the opinions are outside of what is the clearly defined way that Scouting ought to happen, that's pretty easy. But Scouting is also pretty flexible program and it can be presented in different ways. I liken it to the like making a cup of coffee. You can brew coffee in one of a dozen different ways and you can present Scouting in different ways when it comes to coffee. Whatever brewing process you choose, the end result is basically the same.

You're going to get a cup of coffee, a dozen different troops can present the methods of the program differently, but if they're presenting the Scouting program, results are going to be the same. The aims of Scouting are going to be achieved in individual Scouts.

So who gets to choose the way coffee is being made? Well, whoever is making the coffee and the Scoutmaster chooses how the program will be presented in a Scout troop.

That's why we have a Scoutmaster. If the committee was going to make every decision about how the program was going to be presented, or just a group of adults were going to get together and they were going to present it in the way that they thought was best, we don't need a Scoutmaster, right, but no, that's why we have a Scoutmaster. That's why Scoutmasters get trained and study about Scouting and understand the program. They make those decisions. Lots of people want to be helpful and, in the spirit of being helpful, they want to share their ideas with you, and some of them may insist that they know absolutely the right way to do things.

So when it comes to this, I like to think about the Scoutmaster as someone who trains and mentors Scouts to lead themselves, but leads adults. There's an important distinction there. Right, you train and mentor Scouts. You lead adults. Mentors, counsel and suggest. They respond to the initiative of the Scouts leaders, tell people what to do and how to do it and when to do it.

So when you're, if you're- a Scoutmaster and you're faced with this kind of conflict, you tell the other adults politely and decisively that, while you value their input, you're the Scoutmaster and you're going to do the best job possible to achieve the aims of Scouting, according to what you know and how you've been trained. You would appreciate it if they would get with the program and follow your lead.

Now, most of us are not going to like having that kind of a confrontation. We're going to be concerned about alienating or upsetting people. I'm going to say: do it anyways, in a polite but assertive and direct manner, and the message implicit in what you're saying is: back off, I'm the leader, follow me. In other words, you need to assert your leadership, you need to take direct action and you need to put people in line. That's part of being a leader. Sometimes, once people understand that you're leading, they'll fall in line.

If they can't follow, quite honestly, they need to get out of the way. If the majority of the people involved with the troop disagree with the way that you're applying the program, it's time for a new Scoutmaster.

It's pretty simple, right? If it's just a case of there being a lot of different opinions and people wanting to do things one way instead of another, and things like that. Hey, it's time to sit everybody down and say: I'm the Scoutmaster, I'm going to lead you, you're going to follow, and we're going to work with the boys to present the scouting program in the best way I know possible.

So that can be a tricky situation, but I hope that advice helps. Richard billion is with troop 298 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and he wrote to say: our scout troop is going to be growing soon. I have three Eagles and two former senior patrol leaders in a group of older scouts.

Do you have any good ideas for utilizing these scouts? I want them to stay on board as long as possible, so I'm looking for some interesting ideas that will interest them and help the troop as well. I was thinking about making them into troop guides, maybe even assistant Scoutmasters.

Well, Richard, here's my advice to you: go to them, sit down and ask them what would interest them. Now they may have no idea what you're talking about, so make some suggestions about how they can be heroes to younger scouts. Lay down a challenge, maybe. Hey guys, nobody's ever done it before, but I'll bet, knowing your skills, knowing what great scouts you are, if you team up and work in it, you'll have all of our new scouts to first class by this time next year.

How about it? Maybe you sit down and you ask them: if you are a Scoutmaster, what would you do?

What do you think the next year should offer our new scouts? How can you help make that happen? You can say: I really value you guys and the great skills you've learned over the past few years.

How do you best see putting them to use over the next few months? So that puts you in the role of mentoring and advising and counseling, instead of trying to make anybody try to do anything or making them into anything. Make offers, encourage, cajole, inspire and see how these guys respond. I have a team of four or five junior assistant Scoutmasters. They're between the ages of 16 and 17 and they do all sorts of things. For the truth, at that age they are having increasingly limited amounts of time they can spend with us, but when they are there they make a difference and they are pretty sharp guys.

The secret is letting them decide how they will be involved and letting them define what they want to do and then getting out of the way and letting them do it. Richard, I hope that helps. Hey, if you have a question or a concern, you can get in touch with me and you're going to find out how to do that in just a moment.