Scoutmaster Podcast 254

I'm John Stirlmeyer and I am a troop order of the Aero Representative Advisor with Troop 55 in Houston, Texas. This edition of the Scoutmaster Podcast is sponsored by backers like me. Clark, thanks so much for all you do with the podcast. It certainly makes everything a lot easier. And now to you, Scoutmaster. So two fellows are out kayaking and they're getting cold, but they still have a long way to go. so they stop by the shore, they get what they need for a fire and they decide that to drive off the cold, they're going to build the fire right there in the kayak. So you know, they get back on the water, they build the fire in the kayak and, of course, you know exactly what's going to happen: The kayak lights on fire and they sink. So it only goes to prove what we all knew already: You can't have your kayak and heat it too. You can't have your kayak and heat it. Oh, Hey, listen. This is podcast number 254.. How about that? I'll get it. I'll get it, Hey. Welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is

Clarke Green. Let's take a look at the mailbag We heard from Rick Kolakia Jr, who's a Scoutmaster with Troop 750, and he says: Thank you for all the effort that you put into your regular postings. They work well for us as in-service training. I read the post about the Scoutmaster conferences. The Scoutmaster conference frequently asked questions and I was surprised you didn't include the content from a new Scoutmaster training syllabus specifically in the appendix G-N-H- the best official explanation of the Scoutmaster conference I've ever seen. Well, Rick, thanks for alerting me to that. I had kind of breezed through the new Scoutmaster training syllabus and I really hadn't seen those appendixes. but I went and reviewed them and you're right, They're very, very good. So I'll make sure, since that training syllabus is available as a PDF, I'll make sure to put a link to that in the post that contains this podcast. And, once again, if you're interested in what Rick's talking about, it's in the appendix G-N-H in that document. Paul Gilbert got in touch and said I saw your site mentioned on Facebook. I hope you don't mind. I downloaded, I downloaded. I downloaded your Woodcraft and not PDFs. Thank you very much. By the way, I was a Scout many years ago and enjoyed it very much. Well, I'm happy when anybody gets something out of what we've made up and anybody's welcome to use those PDFs. Jason Almeider is with Troop 370 in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. He said I just listened to podcast 123. as I binged my way through the archive I almost had to stop the car over the log story. Okay, so I had to go back and check up on that. I was pretty sure I knew what Jason was talking about. There's a story on podcast 123 from summer camp years ago and log, and if you're a Ren and Stimpy fan, you know the log song. And if you're not a Ren and Stimpy fan, well, you'll just have to give me a moment to talk to the other Ren and Stimpy fans out there. I was roughly college age when Ren and Stimpy was popular and now my wife and I still occasionally quote things from that cartoon show to each other. Oh yes, Ren and Stimpy, Thanks for all you do on the podcast. It's helping this new Scoutmaster tremendously Well, thanks for getting in touch, Jason. I really appreciate it And I'm glad that we share Ren and Stimpy in common. Hey, let's see, We had a live chat this week. Wow, we had a lot of folks on the live chat this week and I am really happy with the way that's going. We will go ahead and set up a live chat. Most of the time it's on weekday mornings. Watch the Scoutmaster cgcom Twitter feed and Facebook feeds. I'll announce when I'm going to be on live, And this week. wow, that's a lot of names: Terry Gerard, Ray Britton, Dave Smiley, George Z, Rob from Muskego, Randy Carpenter, Mike Meninger, Dale Austin, John Nelson, Adam Cox and Bill McFarland. all checked in And you know we discuss whatever comes up, So come on in, Say hi and join in the live chat this week. Hey, I mentioned this last time around. I'm going to keep pushing you on this. How are your high adventure trip plans coming along? You're going on a high adventure trip this summer, right? Every scout should have the opportunity to be able to do that, And I know everybody senses that. it's an experience that is really great for scouts And it's a lot of fun too. If you look at the numbers, most of us don't really even get started. We may think it's too expensive or we don't have the time or the skills or the confidence to get the ball rolling, But the open secret of it is many troops and crews do make their own plans And they have their own high adventure experiences with their scouts, and they do it on a regular basis. So I want you to think about that. There's lots of resources on the blog that will help you. go to the index, look for the outdoor program, look for high adventure, and we'll help you get started thinking about that, And I'm happy to help by answering questions or providing whatever direction I can for you to get your high adventure program moving. Every scout ought to have a high adventure experience. All they need is someone to make it happen, and that person is you. So let's get moving right. I will be at the Area 6 Spring Workshop on Saturday, March 21st at Cecil College in Northeast Maryland, And this workshop is designed for people at the district and the council level, So I'll be there talking about unit-based high adventure, And I also want to mention that Condorsteg, Switzerland, is one of the finest places in the world to have a great high adventure experience and a mini international jamboree at the same time, And I'll be headed there in the summer of 2016 and I would love you to come along with me. So get in touch with me and we'll start talking about exactly how we can make that happen for your scouts. So if you're a regular reader and listener and the resources that we've created at ScoutmasterCGcom have helped you, you can return the favor by becoming a backer. The money we get from backers goes to the expenses of producing and publishing the blog posts and the podcasts and all of the other resources that we create, and those backer funds help us keep them online and accessible for scouts all over the world. Now it's a pretty easy thing to do: Go to ScoutmasterCGcom, Click the support link at the top of the page. You can choose any level of support, including those that entitle you to an autograph copy of one of my books or all of my books. And this is the time where I thank people who signed up within the last week to become a backer, and we've had a really active participation in the backer program since the first of the year. But this week I don't have anybody who signed up since the last podcast. So do me a favor: If you've been waiting, go on over to ScoutmasterCGcom, become a backer this week and I'll be sure to thank you in our next podcast, podcast 255.. In the remainder of this podcast, we've got a couple of email questions to answer. I don't see anything preventing us from doing just that, So let's get started, shall we? There's a

quartermaster everybody knows. There's a song about him. This is how it goes. Just a little diddy doesn't mean a thing, But when the boys are marching 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 quartermaster's- Big as blooming cats in the quartermaster's store. My eyes are dim. I cannot see. I have not brought my specs with me. I have not brought my specs with me. Write me a letter, send it by name Email. that is folks. And here's

an answer to one of your emails. I had

this email from David who said I had a scout who submitted a completed merit badge application from a merit badge he had done at one of these merit badge exposer clinics. And in this situation, I knew that there were a couple of requirements that could not have been completed at the merit badge clinic And I'm not quite sure how to address that. Furthermore, I want to know if we can bar scouts from attending merit badge clinics like this or just review the requirements, Not that we would retest them, but that we would review them with them after the clinics, because this seems to be an ongoing problem. Well, David, if you think there may have been a problem with the counselor at the clinic. let's not make the scout responsible for something that an adult might have done improperly. Now I would say that 99.999% of the time when we receive a completed merit badge application with the counselor's signature on it, we go ahead and we get the badge and we give it away. This is a really rare occurrence where you understand, you have direct knowledge- that there was a requirement that could not have been completed in the context of the clinic. I understand that might happen occasionally. So we don't want to ding the scout because a counselor got something wrong. What we want to do is we want to make sure that the folks who are responsible for certifying counselors know that there was a problem in this particular instance. Those are the folks on your district advancement committee. They're the ones who certify counselors and it's their job to follow up on any concerns. Now there's a way of doing this. There is a form in the Guide to Advancement 2013 called Reporting Merit Badge Counseling Concerns. That way, you can take, fill that form out, make sure it gets to your district advancement folks and get them to follow up on that particular concern. The way the Merit Badge program is set up, the final word on completion of requirements is up to the counselor. They're not subject to our review. The counselor's signature is the final word on the completion of the requirements. Now, if you'll read the Guide to Advancement, Section 7 on Merit Badges, and specifically the part of that section which is 7.0.4.7,- the limited recourse for unearned merit badges- You'll better understand how those things are administered. I'll add that this should be a very rare type of thing that happens and I would never recommend that you restrict the scout's choice of counselors or venues like these Merit Badge clinics or things like that, and I would not recommend reviewing what happened there, whether you want to call it a test or not, because the counselor signed off and a review of what was done during the Merit Badge is really not a part of the process. What you can do if you have direct knowledge of something like you have described, is follow the procedure that I've outlined here and that you'll find in detail in the Guide to Advancement 2013.. And I heard back from David he's going to follow up on that with his district Advancement Committee and make sure that things get taken care of there. I also received this email. I need some advice on dealing with a scout who has been bullying other scouts. I believe the bullying is a desire for attention that he's probably not getting at home. His main outside activity is scouting and I believe it's something that he needs. but we just can't allow this kind of behavior. My game plan at this point is to consult with our troop committee chair and our former Scoutmaster first, but I feel that I need to have a Scoutmaster conference in order to let this scout know how to deal with this behavior. I'll also tell him I won't approve any rank requirement until he can display proper scout spirit and demonstrate that he's living by the scout oath and law. I'll also tell him if the behavior doesn't improve, he could be dismissed from the troop. Any other ideas or guidance you have would be much appreciated. Well, let's take a look at this. First of all, let's deal with the bullying behavior. Let's examine that for a moment. I think it's pretty easy to conclude that the scouts are not paying attention. they haven't been able to get by any other means. They're confused about it, as we are. They aren't really sure why they're doing what they're doing. they just know that when they do it, somebody is finally paying attention to them. They're also looking for the approval of their fellow scouts and their peers. They think that the best way to do this is by showing how superior they are or exerting their power over younger scouts and they are imposing in our minds: separate the behavior from the scout. I really doubt that any boy who is of scout age gets up one morning and decides: you know what? I'm going to try this bullying thing out so I can be, get a lot of attention and be popular. They're in this kind of tumultuous, difficult time in their lives. They may feel as though they're not getting attention. it's not necessarily that they're making a conscious choice to act the way that they do. it's just what happens. You're going to get a lot of attention from the scout and that's an important step because, going forward, you're going to need to sit down and address this pretty directly, and we're going to address it from understanding that there's a lot of potential for good in this scout that is being misdirected at bullying because he just hasn't figured out any better way to get attention at this point. So, as soon as possible, yeah, have a conference with the scout. just sit down and address the problem and attempt to do this without unloading on the scout or putting him in the position where he's going to get defensive against an accusation. So I would ask him to sit down and I'd say something like: it's come to my attention that there's been some troublesome behavior lately that I would have to call out bullying. to tell you the truth, I've seen you do this with some of your fellow scouts. I want to talk to you about it because I'm confident that you're a good scout and they have a lot of potential, but for some reason it's not coming through right now. so can you tell me what you may have done or said that makes me conclude that you may have a bullying problem and the scout may or may not give you a direct answer. and you know I wouldn't be surprised if he felt very defensive about it and was not willing to have this kind of discussion. and you know I've had these types of discussions with scouts and sometimes they just clam up and they're not willing to talk to you about it. but you really want to discuss this problem behavior. so the first step is, of course you would like the scout to be able to talk with you about it and counsel, but they might not want to do that. so the next step would be to say: listen, you know you and I can discuss and resolve this, or I'm going to have to get your parents to join the discussion. so it's really kind of your choice. if you want to discuss this with me now, that's fine. if you don't want to discuss this with me, I'll just have to have your parents about it. that may help him understand that this is something that we're going to end up having to deal with and may not want to have his parents involved in that type of discussion, so he might discuss it with you once you get going with this discussion, work your way along without offering much in the way of judgments or evaluations. so I'm asking him to answer the question: what may you have done or said that makes me conclude that you're having a bullying problem right now, that you're bullying your fellow scouts? let's get him to come up with something. so let's say that he comes up with an example of bullying behavior. you repeat that back to him and you say so. you're telling me that you feel like this is bullying another scout, right? so I'm not making a judgment about that myself. he's telling me what he believes bullying behavior is. and then the next step would be to ask what points of the scout law bear on the situation that you've described and help him figure out which ones those are and ask them to explain those points to you to see if you have a shared understanding of what trustworthy or loyal or helpful or friendly is- and there's a pretty good discussion right there- making sure that you have a shared understanding of what those points of the scout law mean. so we've separated the behavior- you see what I'm saying- from the scout. we're both sitting there looking at the behavior, not judging whether the scouts a good barrister or bad person or anything like that. we're judging the behavior separate from who the scout is, and we want to throw in as much encouragement as possible into this discussion to build him up, you know, because really, like I said before, he may, he's not making necessarily a conscious decision to be this way. this is, this is a bid for attention and it's working and this is what he's up to. I would tell him that we want you to be in scouts. we like having you around, you're a good guy, you have a lot of potential, but we really can't have that kind of behavior, and I can tell now, after we've discussed it for a while- that you understand that and from now on, you'll be careful to obey the scout oath and law. I know you're capable of doing that and I'll be here to talk to if you run into problems with that. so let's make sure that, before we get up from the table here, that we have an agreement between you and I that you understand what the problem is, you understand how to fix it and that's obeying the scout oath and law, and then if you run into any problems with it- because you know this is this could be really challenging- so if you run into any problems with it, we'll be able to talk to each other, just like we are now within this little counseling session. the idea is that we're getting the scout to set their own standard of behavior based on the scout oath and law. we don't want to dictate that to them. we want to encourage them to discover that for themselves and adopt that standard as their behavior. now the last thing I would tell him as a part of this conversation is: you know, before we go any further, it's up to me to tell you that if this bullying behavior continues, I'm gonna have to involve your parents in this and all of us will have to sit down and talk. and I'll tell you exactly what will be said in that discussion is that we've talked about this, we've been working on this, but the behavior is still occurring. and until you guys have worked on this, you can't be involved in scouts. until your parents assure me that you won't be behaving like that anymore. so remember, when we began the conversation with these guys, we gave them the option: the two of us can talk about it or I'm gonna have to involve your parents in this discussion. if he decides that that's what he wants to do. if he doesn't want to talk to you about it, then you need to follow up with the parents and the scout all together at once and you say: look, he's not interested in talking to me about this. we're having some problems with bullying behavior. so I have to leave it to you to sort this out. and until you've talked with your son and he's agreed that he's not going to behave this way again, he can't really be a part of any scouting activities. I think he's a good scout, I think he has a lot of potential, but you understand my position. I just can't have this kind of behavior. so I'm gonna ask you to talk to your son and see what you can do to fix it. that might take an hour or a week or a month- however long you need to do it, but we'll accept him back on your word once you've dealt with this at home, that we're not going to have a problem with bullying behavior from here on out. so I'm not suspending the scout. I'm not punishing the scout. I'm not using any kind of corrective discipline with the scout. in that particular instance, where I'm speaking with his parents, I am telling the parents: we don't have this kind of behavior in scouting. you have to deal with it. he won't deal with it with me and take whatever time you need to deal with it, but until then he simply can't be active because he's behaving poorly to solve the problem. because, as I've said many, many times before, scouters do not use corrective discipline and we do not use punishment. that's a parent's prerogative. they are made aware of the situation. they apply it as they see fit. here's what I would not do. I would not get a bunch of other adults involved in this, because it's going to tend just to muddy the waters. I want to work with the scout and his family. naturally, whenever I have a discussion with the scout, it's going to be in the full view of other adults and I may ask another adult to sit in with me, not necessarily to put their oar in, but just to listen to what's said, so that I have somebody you know who I can talk to after I've talked with the scout to make sure that I got it right. so what we're doing when we're counseling with scouts is an essential aspect of character development in scouting. we're establishing an inner standard based on the scout oath and law and we don't want to substitute our judgment with our spirit. so when it comes time to sign the requirement for that, you need to talk to the scout and ask them to judge their own attitudes and actions, and when you're doing that, you're further addressing and developing this internal standard based on the scout oath and law. if you don't agree with their assessment of things, then you need to talk about why and you need to agree to a series of steps or benchmarks where you're both going to be satisfied with your environment. we would never want to use advancement as a punishment or an incentive to affect behavior, because we don't need to. scouts already understand the incentives involved and we don't use corrective punishment. that's just not something that scouts do. we use advancement to build character in a sense of honor, by taking advantage of the opportunity to have scouts assess themselves according to their own developing inner standard, and you'll find, most of the time scouts are going to be a lot harder on themselves than you are. so let me review this very quickly. if we have a scout who has a problem with bullying behavior, we need to address it directly. we don't need to wait, and the way that we address it is: we have a discussion with them. we say: look, this is the behavior I'm seeing. do you understand what kind of behavior it is? can you explain it to me? can you tell me how the scout oath and law bears on this type of behavior and what you need to do to fix it? in this discussion, support and encouragement, because we see potential in the scout for good. if the scout does not want to discuss this with us or the behavior continues after the discussion, we're going to have to involve the parents. if the scouts totally resistant to dealing with us, it's going to be up to the reparents to resolve the behavior problem and then we'll take their word that that's been resolved and we'll have the scout back actively involved. well, listen, I hope that helps. these behavior difficulties can be really really challenging, especially the first couple of times that you go through them, but you'll get better at it and I think understanding the principles involved will help kind of calm your own personal reaction to it and separate the behavior from the scout counsel. help them bring their judgment into it. don't substitute your judgment for it. bring their judgment into it and you'll begin helping them develop character by calling on an inner standard that's developing in them. hey, if you have a question for me that you'd like to have addressed, I don't put them all on the podcast. I do it only with your permission, and there's many questions like this that are a little tricky, so we we keep names and locations out of it, but you can get in touch with me. it's pretty easy to do and you're going to find out how to do that in just a moment. music. well, thanks