Scoutmaster Podcast 229

Hi, this is Rob Thasian. I'm the Scoutmaster for Troop 18 in Muskega, Wisconsin. This edition of the Scoutmaster podcast is sponsored by backers just like me.

And now to you, Scoutmaster, And something I really enjoy about my troop is that you know we'll be going along and the scouts will just break into song. And they really do have to break in because they don't have the key. Oh, if you have a better one, please, please, send it along.

Hey, this is podcast number 229.. Hey, Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green. Let's take a look in the mailbag and see what's been going on since we last spoke last Monday.

I'm in the chat feature that we have on the ScoutmasterCGcom. John Nelson checked in. I talked with Stu Jackson and Scott Green a little bit. Scott Green said little.

Do my scouts know that your voice is in the backgrounds of our meetings and outings? They can't hear it, but I can, And I guess, Scott, there are worse voices to have in your head. But check in on the chat feature.

If I'm working at my desk I'll turn it on And there's a banner at the top of the page. It's at ScoutmasterCGcom.

Hey, and we can chat Over on Twitter. This week I heard from Mihalos Mihalos from Greece. He said: thanks, you got such a great blog. I really enjoy it. Many warm scout greetings from Greece. Thanks for getting in touch, Mihalos.

I always appreciate hearing from folks And I'm glad that you're enjoying what we're doing. Ramana also checked in via the chat feature from India. If the chat isn't live, there's a way to send a message and that's what Ramana did.

So come back and try again. We probably have a bit of a time problem between here and India, but you know we'll work it out one way or another Over on the blog.

This past week at ScoutmasterCGcom, we just published a new quiz- Do you know your bugle calls? And people have been having some fun with that. Brian Spellman checked in to say that he was the troop bugler. He knows his bugle calls and he still has his bugle.

So good for you, Brian. I know the quiz is challenging a lot of people and bringing back some memories And I should say Happy Independence Day belatedly, but we had Independence Day Friday, July 4th, Published a quick blog post about celebrating independence days And if you want to find out what that's about, check it out at ScoutmasterCGcom Last week, also on Green Bar Life, which is a post that are intended for your youth leadership, for patrol leaders, senior patrol leaders, any scout that's involved in a position of responsibility or who aspires to win. Enoch Heisey authored a great post on the patrol's journey which talks about the developmental steps that a patrol goes through, And a very worthy read.

Sam Harley checked in about that post and he said: do you ever hear the stages of team development, forming, norming, storming, performing and that type of thing? And Enoch replied: yes, Sam, thanks for the comment.

I based the article on those stages of group development, Same principle but a little more hands-on than what I remember when we went through that in national youth leadership training. This week's infographic was Scout Necrochiff Knotts and Folds, which was actually something that I drew up many years ago And I found it and I thought, hey, let's share this. Libertyville Boy Scout Troop 72 noted that the cattle rustler's knot in that infographic is also called the friendship knot and it's in common use in a lot of the rest of the world. Yes, Libertyville, you're right, The friendship knot. That particular knot has several different names. I chose cattle rustlers just because I did.

Cory Needleman said: Minneapolis, Troop 1 still wears square necrochiffs. A generous volunteer and committee member makes they're more potentially useful when they're squares, and I agree with you, That's the way necrochiffs started out.

They started out to squares right And then somewhere along the way they became triangles. Stephen Brindle said I remember I wore a square necrochiff when I was a scout.

Now that I'm a leader, I'm a square that wears a necrochiff. I get it.

I get it, I think. Also, last week we posted an article about common scouting mistakes and how to fix them. One of the mistakes that we talked about was over-emphasizing metrics, The numbers and things like that, and getting caught up in them. Robert Owen commented on that. Whenever I get lost in metrics, I remind myself that scouting is about individual youth, one at a time, with different needs, capabilities and circumstances. Yes, amen, Robert Tom said.

I agree that metrics should be a small part of what a scoutmaster does, with the exception of, maybe, the journey to excellence, numbers that provide good benchmarks for using the patrol method, as long as you don't make numbers the focus of the troop, I agree with you, Tom. Metrics can be useful, but we're not aimed at affecting the numbers. The numbers can tell us that we're doing a pretty good job of things, but we don't want to spend a whole lot of time over-involved in trying to affect numbers as much as individual scouts.

Now we got a couple of replies about last week's podcast. Bill Daniel, who is the scoutmaster of Troop 132 in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, said I enjoyed the way you distilled down the benefits and essence of summer camp. I'd like to see you publish an essay or an open letter that I can give to new parents each year.

Well, Bill, we'll give that some thought, See if we can put something together for you. Steve Cottrell said another good episode. I'll have to remember to dust this off each year to present to parents when it comes time to talk about camp And in the continuing saga of unit numbers and podcast numbers. He said: I'm looking forward to what you have planned for January 2022, when you reach episode 623.. My son will be 16, hopefully still a boy scout. As long as we don't move or pick a different troop, that'll be our episode.

I don't expect to be involved with the Cub Scout pack when you finally reach episode 3,623.. Maybe we'll still be around by then. We'll take it a week at a time until then, okay.

So before we get going here, let me remind you of a couple of things. First of all, the Scoutmaster CG app is available both at the Google Play Store for your Android device and on iTunes for your Apple devices. You can use the app to keep all the resources that we create right there at your fingertips. And, speaking of those resources and the creation thereof, if you are getting something from the podcast and the blog and all the other stuff that we're up to here and you'd like to help support the creation and publication of those resources, go over to scoutmastercgcom, click the support link right there at the top of the page and find out how to become a scoutmastercgcom backer.

And I want to make sure to take the time to thank Scott Allen, John Kane and Steve Campanella, who became backers since the last podcast. Thank you so very much for your support. Without the growing number of Scouters who decided to become backers, Producing and publishing all this stuff would be very, very difficult.

So thank you. Thank you once again.

Hey, this week I've got a pile of email questions to answer that's going to take up the rest of the podcast, So let's get started, shall we? Six, five, four, three, Two, one. Let's start the fun

Email that is folks. And here's an answer to one of your emails, Don Fowler. Don Fowler is the scoutmaster of Troop 95 in Spartan, New Jersey And he wrote in with this. He said: the Troop committee came to me about being the new scoutmaster.

You know it's a lot easier being an assistant scoutmaster and just giving advice than staring into the abyss from the top position. Yes, you are right, Don. You are right. Thank you for all your help.

Without your blog, I think I would really be far more stressed about taking on this position. I did have one question.

Normally we have patrols elect their leaders, but we kind of ran out of time in June and we appointed patrol leaders so they would be prepared and leading their patrols during summer camp. Not all the patrol members will be at camp, so we didn't want to have elections with only part of the patrol voting.

Do you think it's okay to appoint patrol leaders in special circumstances? Well done. First of all, congratulations for becoming a scoutmaster. Out of the frying pan into the fire, into the volcano- Way to go, You're going to love it.

Now, do I think it's okay to appoint patrol leaders in special circumstances? Well, my watchword here is always rigidly flexible.

What works well works. What doesn't doesn't.

I think we only end up making mistakes about these things when we extend special circumstances to normal circumstances, And so that's what to watch for. I can't really fall true for appointing patrol leaders. I'm not going to say that it's out and out wrong, And I can certainly understand getting to camp and wanting those guys to hit the ground running- It worked in this case- but it's a special circumstance And, once again, we only make mistakes when we expend special circumstances to normal circumstances.

So that's what we want to watch out for. John Vaughn got in touch and said: I love your stuff, Even bought your book.

Well, thanks, John. I hope you enjoy the book. Thanks for everything you put out there. As a new scout dad, it's very helpful. My son is a first year scout. He was set to go to Boy Scout Camp starting Sunday but he's got pneumonia and the doctor said he should miss it because Boy Scout Camp and pneumonia don't mix well.

Yes, Yes, Very smart doctor. You found there, John. I'm wondering if there's still a way to get him to camp this year when he heals up.

Is it possible to go to camp without your scout troop? Can they jump in with another troop?

Can they go on their own? How does it work?

How would we even go about locating an opportunity to do that? Well, John, I want to answer that in a second, but I also had this message from Steven Siruti. He said my son's age 10 and a half and 12 just got back from camp. I'm thinking about letting them go for a second week in about a month. They would have to go as part of a buddy program at our council and that is scouts attending without troops.

Do you think two weeks of summer camp at that age is too much? Are there pitfalls to sending them without their troop? John and Steve, here's my answers for both of you.

First off, I've hosted scouts from other troops at camp who had scheduling conflicts or something like that before, so it's certainly a possibility. Here's what I would suggest that both of you do: You call the camp, speak with the program director or the camp director- and this may take a few tries because they're usually pretty busy during the summer season- Explain the situation and ask them to suggest some troops that you can contact to host your scouts when they're at camp.

Camp directors and program directors, they get to see lots of troops in action and they'll be able to suggest ones that function well at camp. Once you have their recommendations, contact. A couple of possibilities: Talk to someone with the troop who's going to camp and you'll get a feel for which is the best fit for your scout. If it's all possible, you can even try and set up a visit with the troop ahead of camp. One last check that things are going to work out for your son As far as age goes. You know.

If they want to go for a second week, by all means go ahead. Of course there are pitfalls and problems that are possible, but that's really true of anything, isn't it?

I think the X factor is who they end up with, and I refer you to my previous advice. Check up on which troops are willing to host scouts that aren't in their troop, and you should have a pretty good idea whether or not your scouts are going to fit in. And finally, maybe you spend a little time talking to them about what they would do or how they would react if they found that they really didn't like the troop or maybe they felt a little overwhelmed.

And then you agree how you are both going to react to those situations And that relieves a little bit of stress from you and a little bit of stress from them because they know what to do if they get in a situation that, like I said, where they feel a little bit overwhelmed. And then you can always check in with them while they're there and you'll be able to get a read on how they're doing. I'll repeat: I've hosted scouts like this before with our troop and they seem to do fine. If the troops ready to do this and they have a good attitude about it, it can be a very successful thing.

So do a little bit of homework, get your scouts ready, send them off to camp and they'll have a great time. I had this anonymous question: who do you think should choose where a unit goes to summer camp?

Should the scouts research and select, or do you think the Scoutmaster should do this so he can find a camp to deliver the program as he sees fit? Well, yes, I think both ways work, but that's not to say that you have to go absolutely one way or absolutely the other way. The Scoutmaster could certainly suggest a list of camps or a specific camp that he feels would best serve the interest of his scouts, to the patrol leaders council and they could take a look at it and that way they're in on the decision. If you have a patrol leaders council that has the initiative to study different camps and do little research and select one for themselves, that could certainly work too.

I think it's more of a cooperative enterprise than somebody having to have absolute responsibility for doing it. So in the end, yes, the patrol leaders council opinion matters, the Scoutmasters opinion matters, and they sit down and they work it out. It should go fine.

And then I'm going to combine a couple of emails here that have whose senders will remain anomalous, because there's a couple of uncomfortable situations that they deal with. The first question deals with the unfortunate incident of possible theft on a scout trip. I'm the Scoutmaster of our troop and on a recent trip two scouts approached me to tell me that their money was missing from their wallets. Both insisted that it was taken rather than misplaced.

We were in a remote area, so someone from the troop is believed to have stolen it. Both scouts think they know who did it and have circumstantial evidence, but no proof of kind of at a loss.

What to do? I don't want to resort to anything other than a scout is trustworthy. I'm pretty disappointed by this behavior and I'd welcome some advice. Here's another question that I received. I've been listening to your podcast. I'm almost caught up, Unless I've missed it.

I haven't heard you speak about resolving a fight between two scouts This past weekend. Everybody was having a blast until we were breaking up a physical fight with punching and a kick to the head- Thankfully no injuries, but it was kind of ugly. I really did try to have the scouts work this out, but it's not going to happen. The parents of one of the scouts was looking into pressing charges. The parent of the other scout is withdrawn from the troop.

Things really kind of spiraled out of control and I think the parents are being irrational. They're dictating terms to the troop committee and threatening to take their sons out of the troop and encouraging other families to follow them.

So two difficult situations, two difficult questions, but I think- and I want to give an answer that I think applies to both of them- How do we resolve serious misbehavior problems like these incidents reflect? I want to say that these types of incidents, in my experience over 30 years as being a Scoutmaster, have been thankfully rare and I've tried lots of different ways of handling them, and the advice I want to give you is based on that experience. Think of this type of thing in the terms of first aid.

Okay, Just bear with me here for a second. So if a scout gets a scratch, alls, that we need to do is make sure it gets washed out and it gets a bandaid- No big deal, We treat the scratch and we move on right.

If a scout is using his pocket knife and he slips and he slices open his finger, well, we're going to administer first aid and stabilize the situation, but we're going to get him to a doctor because we don't stitch up wounds right. We don't carry a suture kit with us, We don't do stitches. That's something that a doctor needs to do Now. Once he's been to the doctor and he's been treated, once the wound is healed, he can return to participating actively in the troop again.

So what I want to do is draw a parallel between that kind of first aid situation. Some misbehavior we can handle pretty simply, just like the scratch, wash it out, put a bandaid on it- no big deal, We treat it and we move on. Some misbehavior- serious, just like that wound- that requires stitches and it's not within our power or expertise necessarily to resolve serious behavior issues. When scouts seriously misbehave, they're handed over to their family to handle things. And once things have been handled, then the family can send them back to the troop and tell us that the behavior's been fixed. That's the basic, simple approach that I recommend to you.

We're volunteer scouters. We're not medical doctors.

We can treat scratches, but we don't stitch up wounds. In the same way, we can deal with some minor misbehavior, but we don't address serious misbehavior with corrective punishment. That's the responsibility of a scouts family.

We can counsel and do what we do to help scouts live by the scout oath and law, but when they misbehave seriously, it's time for their family to take over and correct the situation. When parents send their sons to us, it is with the understanding, the very clear understanding, that their sons are going to obey the scout oath and law while they are in our care. We aren't there to fix serious behavior problems. Once again, that is a parent's responsibility, It's not the responsibility of a volunteer scouter.

Now, happily, I have only had to deal with three or four serious fights in 30 years. Repairing things with the scouts is usually easy. They're usually able to calm down, shake hands and let bygones be bygones. Parents, they can be a little bit of a different story and I'm going to tell you you can't control the way that they're going to react, and if they want to make a federal case about things, there's no way you're going to stop that. It's unfortunate, but thankfully rare that things get out of hand like this. Theft is another problem that I've had to deal with, but thankfully a extraordinarily rare occurrence.

If something shows up missing and it's pretty clear that it was taken rather than misplaced- which you know is a whole other kettle of fish, making that determination and that you have to do on an individual basis, What I do is I speak to the scouts and I tell them that something is missing. And this is my turn to speak. It's my job as an adult leader to resolve serious situations like this. I may have the senior patrol leader standing right there with me and active in what's going on, but I'm going to take the lead on this.

So I speak to the scouts, I tell them something is missing, that it's unlikely it was lost, but that someone had indeed taken it, and I tell them two things are now going to happen. When I finish talking, I'm going to step away for 15 minutes. When I do, you're going to go back, look through your things and see if it's possible that somehow the missing item is in your things. If you find it, you can hand it to me and I will return it to the owner.

Now that's the first thing that's going to happen. If, after 15 minutes, the items aren't returned, well, we're going to do another 15 minutes. We could do what we came here to do, or we could spend the rest of the day looking for this missing thing. It's kind of up to you, scouts.

So once we've gone through this and we have the missing items, or once we've stopped the fight and things have calmed down, the next time I'm going to spend time talking to the scouts involved. Their parents are going to be present- And you know, if we're on a weekend camping trip, that could be the next day or something like that- and I will simply tell them.

I said I'm expecting you to be on your best behavior from now until then, but the next time that we're going to sit and talk about this, your parents are going to be with us. So when they come to pick you up, you need to tell them they need to stay and we need to have a little bit of a discussion here.

So when I meet with the parents, the scout in front of me and with their parents explains what happened. I tell the parents that the scout is permitted to continue participating in scouts once they can assure me that this sort of behavior won't be repeated. But until then, no meetings, no events. He needs to go home with his parents. They need to sort this out. They need to tell me it's sorted out.

Then he's back, no problem. Now parents could get upset and offended, but usually if I can get everybody to calm down and think, we do fine and this works. If parents want to bull you around or demand that this or that happen or dictate terms to the troop committee about what they think should happen, my advice is to show them the door. If that's your attitude and the actions that you want to take, that's just not something that we do in scouting. Thanks for your time. There's the door.

Now. I am giving very broad advice. It's very, very simple. I'm not going into a whole lot of detail in the content of the discussions and things like that. I don't think it's going to be very helpful. Of course you're going to approach all of this in the best scout spirit and the best attitude.

No doubt this type of things can make you really angry, it can make you disappointed, but you have to calm your own emotions and you have to deal with it and, like I said, this is very broad advice based on a few principles that are easy to remember. One is is that when it comes to serious misbehavior, we don't try to resolve serious misbehavior. Parents do that. They're the ones who need to deal with their son. They can apply corrective punish if they see fit. We're not going to be dealing with that and all I need is a word from them that this is resolved.

We spoke with our son, we've corrected the behavior and we consider that he is able now to begin participating in scouting again and that he will obey the scout oath and law while he's with you. We're not going to have any kind of set suspension. We're not going to have any kind of quasi judicial proceeding.

We hand them over to his parents and then they hand them back to us when they consider that things are taken care of. The scout law has to mean something. It can't be a scout is trustworthy. But no, a scout is trustworthy.

Full stop period at the end of the sentence now, when you're 11 to 17 years old, you get a break your brain and your character is fully cooked. You make sometimes very serious mistakes and bad choices.

As much as we'd like to try, we can't save our scouts from making bad choices. We can't save them from making serious mistakes.

We can't adopt extreme protective measures that absolutely assure that these things will never happen. When we are functioning based on trustworthy, we're vulnerable. That's just the way that it is, and everybody needs to understand that.

What we can do when we are dealing with difficult or serious misbehavior, we react with fairness, compassion and empathy. We'll get it right or as close to right as is humanly possible. My best advice again is avoiding any kind of quasi law enforcement mindset. As I've said many times, we don't prosecute, we don't punish. We make parents aware of what's going on. We let parents do their job.

Now, if you find yourself in a situation like this, you're going to be disappointed, you could be furious or you're going to be discouraged. I can tell you that it gets better. That sounds right, but it's true. You simply have to rise to the occasion and base how you respond on the scout oath and law. It is actually that simple.

I want to be clear that what you've heard is my best advice based on my experience. This isn't in any way an expression of official policies or procedures or anything like that. This is just the way that I have learned to handle these types of situations over time. I hope it helps.

Scott Green- who incidentally is no relation is with Troop 1000 in Richmond, Texas, and Scott wrote in to say: I'm stepping in as the new Scoutmaster for a very active troop that's relatively large and well run. After listening to so many of your wonderful podcasts, I've gleaned the following truisms. One: scouting overall, and our troops specifically, is full of traditions.

Many are good, some not so much. Two: improvements, such as better patrol method implementation, are needed in our troop. Three, change can be stressful and is best done incrementally. Four, change should preferably be pushed by the scouts rather than the adults. I've been thinking about how to merge all of those concepts. My plan is to challenge each senior patrol leader, shortly after he's elected, to do two things during his tenure.

One is to pick out a tradition or method that we use and question it. Why do we do it?

Should we continue doing it or not? My second is to start a new tradition that improves the way that we do things. My hope is to help each understand what it's like to have some long-term vision and to learn from your personal troop history and your personal perspective.

What are your thoughts on this? Your advice is always appreciated.

Well, Scott, welcome to the volcano that is being a Scoutmaster. The biggest challenge for all of us is empowering scouts to run their own troop. Everything else follows on that simple change and attitude and perspective. I'll argue a little bit about your thought that change is stressful and is best done incrementally. I'll say that change is easy and instantaneous. It's adapting to change that causes stress and takes time, and I'm going to say probably most of the stress will come from your fellow adult volunteers.

Scouts usually adapt pretty easily and quickly to change. With that in mind, don't do change incrementally.

Do an instantly and then help everybody catch up. I like the idea of getting scouts to raise questions about how things are done. I suggest that it's a little bit more than a two-point plan. It's just kind of a new way of doing business. Everything gets changed, not just one or two that you pick out.

Why are we doing this? Is this working?

Should we try something else? That's the stock and trade set of questions for every Scoutmaster. It's what you'll ask all the time, because by asking those questions like broken record, you'll reveal not only what needs to change but how and why things work. Knowing how and why things work is how you train your youth leadership, by getting them to think their way through, rather than just habitually repeating the things that have always been done, thoughtlessly. What the scouts do, the content of their activities, is going to remain pretty much the same. You're going to be modifying approaches.

Be careful not to throw the baby or the good stuff that the troop is doing right now out with the bathwater and think that everything has to change. And five years from now, what you'll agree on is that we cover the same ground over and over again, but to our scouts, there's always new territory.

It's not so much having new and innovative activities and destinations and entertainments. It's about focusing on unique experiences. Each individual scout has doing them. If you visited my troop 30 years ago, you'd see we're doing the same sorts of things and scouts are having the same sorts of experiences.

There may be a minor alteration here and there, but it's pretty much the same stuff. In short, I think a good Scoutmaster keeps things simple. Reduce your vision to as few words as possible, something like scouts become scouts to do some fun stuff with their buddies. They lead themselves. They do.

What scouts do? We observe and facilitate. We achieve the aims of scouting. Make it your job to understand the basics and you relentlessly focus on them.