Scoutmaster Podcast 258

I'm Jim Boggs and I'm the Scoutmaster with Troop 102 in Fort Myers, Florida. This edition of the Scoutmaster podcast is sponsored by Packers Like Us.

And now for you, Scoutmaster. I was about halfway through my Scoutmasters minute at the end of our meeting on Monday night One of the scouts started heading for the door and I stopped and I said: look, where are you going? And the scout said I need to go get a haircut.

And I said: well, why didn't you get your haircut before I started my Scoutmaster minute? He said: well, I didn't really need one. Then That's another one for the books.

Hey, this is podcast number 258.. Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green. Let's take a look at the mailbag. We heard from Angus F Bickerton, who wrote in to say: I'm a scouter from the great white north that follows your blog with great interest.

I loved your Cub Scout leader survival group And I read it as it came out and then read it all again together. I've taken the liberty of adapting it to Canadian scouting. I made a few changes to account for the difference in Canadian scouting terminology And I'm sending you this email to ask your permission to circulate it to Scouts, Canada Scouts. I've attached a copy for your review and comments And I'm sending you this email to ask your permission to circulate it to Scouts Canada Scouts. I've attached a copy for your review and comment.

Please keep up the good work, Well, Angus. Thank you so much for getting in touch.

I'm glad you found our series about the Cub Scout leader survival guide that we did a week or two ago Useful and certainly take it, adapt it, do what you need to do with it. All I ask is that you let people know where you found it. It was created to help scouts and I'm really glad it applies and works up there in Scouts Canada Over on Amazon. This week, Greg Kennedy was kind enough to do a review of my book.

So far, so good. And if you don't know about the book and if you've been listening to more than one podcast, that would be impossible. But you can get copies of the book, both digital and print copies. Go to ScoutmasterCGcom to find out how.

But Greg says in his review, I believe this book sets the tone and helps adults get what scouting is all about. While striving for excellence in scouting is laudable, it is more than that. It's teaching scouts how to think. It's allowing scouts to fail and learn from their own mistakes. As an adult, it is realizing that you will always, or perhaps mostly, do things more efficiently and better than any scout can, But understanding that the scouts must find their own way while they develop character. Clark gets this and hits many important points in this page turner.

I couldn't help but see many of the same issues I've experienced as a scouter in the book. Do yourself a favor, get it and then get copies for others in your troop.

Well, thank you so much, Greg. I really appreciate that.

Like I said, you can get so far, so good right there on Amazon. If you have trouble finding it, go to ScoutmasterCGcom And if you've read it and you enjoyed it, leave a review on Amazon. I'd really appreciate it. Let's see Over on the blog. This week we had a post about bedwetting and scouts. It's kind of a sensitive subject, I understand, But nocturnal aneurysis or NE, is what we commonly call bedwetting.

It's involuntary urination during sleep And this is something that is a very common condition amongst boys who are scouting age. And I heard from a lot of you on that post. I heard from Matt Price, who's with Scout Troop 444 in Fuqua Verena, North Carolina. He said discussing this issue with parents. Letting them know you're there to help is a great start And I agree with you, Matt, It's something that should be discussed. Mark Fisher checked in to say this is a great article.

As a longtime scoutmaster, I've had this issue come up a number of times. Pete Parris said we had a scout with NE at camp.

Before going to bed I'd remind him to use latrine and then about 2 am we'd wake him up and make sure that he used latrine again, And I always made sure another adult was awake too when we did this And we didn't have an issue with any accidents using this method. Zane Neller got in touch to say it was a great article, Clark. I worked at a Weeblows camp for five years and we frequently had scouts in their first overnight camp setting who had this problem.

You do a great job of reminding us to empathize and make extra efforts to accommodate the scout so he can have a great week of camp. Also, remember that the camp staff sees this kind of thing and they'll always be willing to help you with access to laundry facilities or any other needs. I would say that anybody who's worked on camp staff- and I did for a number of years knows that this can be a problem and you always want to help out. That's another great resource for scouts who are dealing with any in one of their scouts to know that the camp staff is always willing to help you out. Bob Deck wrote to say over the 17 years I was a Scoutmaster. We had several scouts with any and I learned early on to take an extra sleeping bag or two when we went camping.

And that's also another great idea because there are going to be accidents and if you have a spare sleeping bag that can be a big help. I heard from Amber who said we had two scouts in our family who had NE and we worked diligently at home and in a year or so the problem fixed itself.

We have a scout in the troop now, but his parents don't really want to help with the plan, thinking that this is all going to go away. Any suggestions on what to do?

I think a good approach to have for this, Amber, would be telling parents that you know camping out is different than sleeping at home And scouts- all scouts, whether they have NE or not- need the right gear to sleep comfortably. They need a sleeping bag with the proper rating, They need a sleeping pad. Every scout needs that. But a scout with NE needs some other gear, especially if he's having accidents while he's camping.

So it's important to have the good nights or something similar, and if they don't send him with the right gear when he goes camping, it's going to be stressful and difficult for them. And this whole subject matter, folks, the whole thing with NE- it's kind of an embarrassing, kind of sensitive situation.

But if you have a scout who's suffering with this condition, understand that it's very common condition and there's a lot that you can do about it. Check out the post about scouts and bedwetting at scoutmastercgcom. There's some good thoughts and resources in that- and make sure to check out the comments too, because those were very, very helpful on this post.

Now, we had a couple of chat sessions this week and we had snow this week. I think just about everybody listening probably had snow this past week, so we actually had a snow day chat session. What my goal is is to have a live chat at least two weekday mornings and I'll announce when we're going to have live chats on our Facebook and Twitter feeds And when you see a live chat going on, you can go to scoutmastercgcom, click the little chat guy on the right-hand side and sign in and let us know where you're from, what you do for scouting, and it's a nice time. Sometimes there are questions asked, sometimes we talk about the weather, but it's always useful and it's a lot of fun.

Now there's a number of people who are frequent fliers on the chat and it's always good to have them check in. But we also had Aaron, who is an assistant scoutmaster and venture patrol advisor in Buffalo, New York, sign on for his first time this week, as did Jim Moore, who is a new scoutmaster in the Buffalo area in New York, and Marcel Corollis, who is from Houston, Texas. All of those folks were new on the chat this past week.

So once again, watch our Facebook and Twitter feeds for announcements when we're going to be having a live chat and come on in and join us. Let's see.

In other business, I've had several reports that the Scoutmaster CG app is not working on some Android devices and there was an update to Android needed and it will take a few days for the update to get on Google Play, but it will be fixed. You know, apps are really wonderful things. Until they don't work, Then you got to figure out why they're not working. You got to fix it and it takes a long time. My apologies If you don't have the Scoutmaster CG app. It's available for your mobile devices.

You can get it on iTunes for your Apple devices and you can also get it on Google Play. I also wanted to tell you that we have a date for our 2016 trip to Kondersteg International Scout Center in Switzerland. Go to scoutmastercgcom. You'll see a banner right at the top of the page about that trip. Check it out, Let me know if you're interested and we'll get you moving. That's for 2016..

It's going to be in July of 2016.. And finally, before we get going here, if you're a regular reader and a listener and if the resources we've created have helped you, you can return the favor by becoming a scoutmastercgcom backer. The funds we get from our backers go towards the expenses of producing and publishing the blog posts and the podcasts and all the other resources, and the whole idea is to keep them freely available and accessible to scouts.

So it's an easy thing to do. Go to scoutmastercgcom, Look for the support link in the menu at the top of the page and you can choose any level of support, and some of them entitle you to premiums like autograph copies of my books, And I'd like to take a moment to personally thank Rick Ferry, Patrick Garrick and Doug Spracklin, who all became backers since our last podcast. Once again, go to scoutmastercgcom and become a backer this week, and I'll be sure to thank you personally during our next podcast. In the remainder of this podcast, in scoutmastership in seven minutes or less, we're going to talk about the most important volunteers in scouting.

Then we have several email questions to answer and that's going to take up the rest of the podcast. So, hey, let's get started, shall we?

Scoutmastership in seven minutes or less. So this is almost a trick question, but not really.

Who are the most important volunteers in scouting? These volunteers have more power and influence than council presidents or commissioners or scoutmasters or cubmasters and all of the other volunteers put together. Without the participation of these volunteers and without their support, scouting would quickly just come to a complete halt. The volunteers I'm talking about bring endless energy and resources and real transformational power to their role in scouting. They're the only volunteers we simply cannot afford to lose. They are the most important volunteers in scouting.

So have you figured out who this is? Yet The single most important volunteers in scouting are the scouts themselves. Scouts make a voluntary decision to participate in their packs and troops and crews from week to week. If the program they're participating in falls flat, if it doesn't meet their expectations, if they're not getting something out of it, they're going to stop volunteering their participation. All of the time and effort and money and resources that adults dedicate to scouting have absolutely no value if the scouts don't volunteer to participate right along with us, right. Of course, the work that we scoutmasters and our fellow adult volunteers put into scouting is important, but in many ways it's just not all that significant in comparison with what scouts volunteer to do.

So let's remember who the most important volunteers in scouting are. We only have our positions, our volunteer positions, to serve the interests and goals of the scouts and thus encourage their participation. We must never lose sight of our role in serving the most important volunteers in scouting: the scouts themselves. Music, Take me back to dream again. By campfire on the trail, By campfire on the trail when day is done, By campfire on the trail when day is done, Write me a letter, send it by name,

Email, that is, folks. And here's an answer to one of your emails: Music, I heard from Rick Ferry, who's an assistant scoutmaster with Troop 670 in Manassas, Virginia, And he wrote in to say: do you have a thought or philosophy on first year patrols? In the past, our unit has simply integrated new scouts into existing patrols.

In doing so, we haven't adequately met the fundamental development of skills needed by these scouts to thrive. We are now installing a dedicated first year program where scouts coming from various levels of developed skill sets, as weblos, engage in the first year program as a cohort based on the patrol method.

What guidance can you share? Well, Rick, I'm a pretty hard sell on things like first year programs and things like that.

I think the only relevant issue is what these new scouts want, And you'll find out what they want and what you want are going to be pretty much the same things. I wouldn't tell them what you want. I would begin by asking them some questions. If you have a group of weblos transitioning into your troop or you have several new recruits there, I would sit down with them and I'd say so.

Do you, fellas, want to stay together as a patrol or would you rather be split up amongst the other patrols? Do you guys know what a patrol is?

Do you know how it functions? Do you want to elect a patrol leader amongst yourselves or do you want to choose an older scout to help you out?

What do you think your patrol ought to work on first? Have you looked at our schedule of camping trips?

Do you know what you're going to need to do to get prepared for those? What kind of help would you need from the adults who are involved or the older scouts? There's a pretty good chance when you ask these questions you're going to be met with a blank stare because they have little idea about what you're talking about.

So ask them where they could learn the answers to those questions and have a scout handbook nearby, And they won't have great answers at first, but with a little guidance they'll find some great answers and they will be pretty sure that everything that happens from there on out is their idea. They'll begin to ask those questions of themselves before too long and they'll find their own answers too.

So it begins by talking with the new scouts, finding out what they're really interested in, how they would like to arrange their patrol, what they think, and getting them invested in the idea that they're leading themselves. Like I said, I'm a pretty hard sell on something like a dedicated first year program that's focused on basic skills and stuff like that. I understand that that is a very common thing and I don't think that it's bad.

What I think is that our approach to it is a little messed up sometimes. I think we can work with new scouts to help them create a plan of their own, rather than imposing one on them. I would start very small. I'd stay one or two weeks ahead of them, I'd check in often and I would make a big deal over the smallest victories their new patrol has. When the going is rough, we're going to want to help them out.

Otherwise, we want to watch what happens. We want to encourage them.

We want to help them discover answers. We want to help them understand that they're leading themselves and building their own experience and building their patrol. And it's amazing what happens When you give them that latitude, you ask questions and you follow their lead rather than going out front and leading them. I hope that makes sense but, like I said, a dedicated first year program- meh, I'm a hard sell on that If it's something that we come up with and dictate to them more than something that they begin working on and discovering and building for themselves. This next email we're going to keep anonymous and the reason for that will become clear as we read it. Our scouts wouldn't even volunteer to be a candidate during our last leadership elections.

We are so fed up with this lack of interest We were forced to appoint all the youth leaders. What can we do to get the boys to step up and take a more active role in leading the troop? Reading between the lines on that email, I don't see a scout problem here. It's probably a problem with the attitude and expectations of the adults.

I say this because you're telling me none, zero scouts were interested in a leadership election, And then you talk about being so fed up with these guys and that you are forced to appoint them to leadership positions. And good luck with that, by the way. I don't know that that's going to be a very good solution.

If nobody raised their hand, it sounds like being a youth leader in your troop isn't a very good experience, And I think that has something to do with the attitude and the expectations of the adults involved. I'd guess there's no real leadership role to fulfill because the adults are doing all the important things or they have some kind of a chip on their shoulder about exactly what leadership quote unquote- means, And I understand how frustrating this can be, but I've never known scouts to refuse all the leadership positions when there's the right spirit in the troop, So I have to assume, unfortunately, it's probably not them.

Now, this is pretty plain talk. I understand, and I don't want to come off as Mr Know-it-all, but am I close to understanding the situation? That was the first email reply, and the person responded. Maybe our expectations are a little too high. It seems, though, that the scouts would rather just let the adults do all the heavy lifting. If the scouts do anything at all, their efforts are unorganized and they don't take their responsibility seriously.

So my reply was this: scouts are unorganized and they aren't very fond of planning in the way that adults will find acceptable, and they certainly will let the adults do all the heavy lifting if the adults do it. I mean, frankly, who wouldn't? It's just good, plain common sense. These are smart scouts. If you want to do all the work, that's fine with me, I'll just go along for the ride. And, of course, they don't take their responsibility seriously.

They aren't 45 year old men, They're a bunch of teenage boys who are working at becoming scouts, So these sound like perfectly normal scouts and there's absolutely nothing wrong with them. It's apparently the way the adults are reacting, their expectations and their attitude, and it's kind of actively keeping the scouts from leading.

Step one, I think, is getting the adults involved with the troop together, sitting down and getting real with each other over the current state of affairs And think about what you'll need to do to reset your attitude and your expectations. Let me offer this to you as a way of helping you shape your attitude.

Okay, I have a splendid work of art on my refrigerator door from one of my favorite neighbors. Now. She showed up at our door and proudly presented this work of art to my wife the other day, with the pride and pleasure only an eight year old can muster, And I should say this is only the latest of many such gifts she's given us.

Now nobody's ever going to mistake what's on our refrigerator door for the Mona Lisa. It's a crayon drawing from a little girl and it has little objective value as a work of art, But to my wife and I it's absolutely priceless and we wouldn't sell it to you for a million bucks.

So now imagine what would happen if, when our little neighbor girl knocked on the door and handed the crayon drawing to my wife, she had just balled it up and thrown it into the trash, We'd probably never see that little girl again, and rightfully so. She may go home and throw away all our crayons and never draw again.

That'd be pretty traumatic, wouldn't it? How about if we had accepted the crayon drawing from her and then started reworking it as she watched us- okay, I mean, I'm a reasonably good artist and I could have made a number of improvements to her work. I wonder how she would have felt about that, and how rude would that have been to take that drawing and start reworking it and say, oh honey, you could have made this a lot better by doing this and this. No, it was a nice gift, It was something that she created and she gave to us.

So we need to look at our Scouts' efforts in leadership the same way. When a Scout takes on a leadership role, his first efforts are not going to be all that great because he's a teenage boy. He's going to be sloppy and chaotic and he may barely make a dent.

His plans are going to be terrible and incomplete and lackluster and their skills are going to be fan-wanting, But you know what. They have done something.

So we congratulate them on the smallest triumph. We commiserate with them when things fall apart and we don't point out everything that they failed to do. No, we ask them questions that help them discover how to do better. If we build on this a little at a time, with a lot of patience, respectful of their efforts, not throwing them out, not reworking them- they will grow in confidence and skill.

Now what's important is not how slick our program is or how orderly our meetings are. What's important is a Scout's effort at developing some leadership skill. The efforts are small and seemingly insignificant at first, but things will get better when they're met with an attitude of thanks and positive feedback and encouragement.

Now you go through that process. Pretty soon you have a group of youth leaders who are firing on all eight cylinders and almost as soon as they get to that point, it's time for them to step aside and for the next bunch to step up And we'll start all over again. We never arrive right As Scouters. We never arrive. We just keep on traveling.

And I want to repeat myself: What's important isn't how slick our program is or how orderly everything is or how well planned everything is. What's important is that Scouts are making some effort at developing leadership skills.

That's the attitude that encourages them to raise their hand and that's what I want you to think about and work on and see what happens. See if that changes some things in your troop. Next up is an answer to an email I received from a new Scoutmaster. He's an Eagle Scout, He's been involved with Cubs for several years and he sent me a long email about the history of the troop that he's involved with and the adult leadership in the troop that he's involved with and his hopes of empowering the youth leaders to run their own troop. There's a few older Scouts and many younger Scouts in the troop and he's trying to wrap his head around what to do. This is the answer that I sent him.

What he described in the history of the troop and the way the adults are is pretty ordinary. It's pretty familiar. Any troop has a history, good, bad or indifferent.

Here's a couple of thoughts you may find useful As a new Scoutmaster. You can't try to fix everything at once. You have to rebuild the engine while the car is running. You can't take the engine out and put it up on blocks for a couple of months and meticulously rebuild it.

You have to kind of pick one thing, focus on that for a while and then, once that's going well, move on to the next thing. I'm saying that this is an allegory and allegories fall apart after a while, but you understand what I mean.

You can't put a stop to everything, draw a line and say, now it's a new day. You have to kind of work along with an operating troop and you'll fix things as they come up and you'll work on things as they come up, and the Scouts in leadership positions will be your great ally in this. Everybody will be overwhelmed if you try and do too much at once. The biggest change when a new Scoutmaster takes over is just kind of the general approach and the attitude, and that changed when you take over a Scoutmaster. It's already done So.

Now everything needs to catch up with that vision and that attitude and you'll build on things a little at a time. You'll make changes as the Scouts respond and they begin to get the idea, and you need to go at their speed. It'll be a little slower at times than you'd like to go and it will be a little faster if it should go at others And through this process.

It's a good opportunity to test everything you think you know and understand about Scouting. Stay humble, keep studying. Like I said, sometimes it'll go a little faster than you thought it would, sometimes a little slower.

Now, one important thing about this is that your older Scouts have been raised under very different adult leadership. You have to have some respect for this. Don't try to change them.

You know what I mean. Don't impose a whole lot of changes on them.

Don't tell them: well, you know everything you've done up till now. It was done the wrong way and we're going to start doing it the new way. You have to understand that our interest is always the individual Scout and it's not the fault of those older Scouts that the previous adults may have led them in less than an optimal direction. If you put yourself in their shoes, they're going to naturally be suspicious or even antagonistic towards a new Scoutmaster. It's pretty natural.

So I'd make a point of sitting down with them individually and expressing your respect for who they are as Scouts and what they've accomplished. Ask them what they expect. To ask them what they expect will happen over the next few weeks and months as you take over a Scoutmaster and listen carefully, Ask what they'd like to take on about making changes and how you could help. What you'll find is is that you'll be working with a set of standards they learned from their previous Scouters and you don't want to monkey around with that too much or too quickly. As I said, this is about them and their individual interests.

Now some of those older Scouts will surprise you with their energy in making changes. Some are going to hold back, Resist the temptation to offer judgments or in any way characterize what they are used to doing as bad, and that you have a better way. Talk to them and ask them questions.

How about we try it this way? Does that sound good to you guys?

I think maybe we could try it a different way. That's the spirit of the thing that I'm talking about, Because being a new Scoutmaster in an old troop is all about your perspective. You need to learn as much as you can about your Scouts before you start moving them in a new direction too quickly. Share your ambitions with them in a way where you're asking their permission to make changes rather than dictating those changes to them.

Scouts will usually take to changes that you're going to make faster than the adults, and they'll surprise you with how well they embrace those changes, so long as they're respected and they have some sense that they're in control of the situation. Now I'm not giving you much in the way of specific program advice and direction, and that's actually because I would think that this is one of the least important aspects of the next few months. I know how large these program concerns loom right now.

Where are we going to go camping? What are we going to do at meetings?

How is this going to work? How is that going to work? But what you're doing for the next few months is observing and forming your perspective and leading from behind. I'll repeat again: You go at the Scouts pace. If all you end up doing is for a few meetings is play games, If all you do at a camping trip is set up, tense and cook, be happy with that and study your Scouts. Of course you're going to share some ideas and you're going to ask lots of questions that will help them figure out more things to do.

So the program will reasonably take care of itself. You're going to have to work with them and make sure that the activities are planned and make sure that things are happening, But with the first few months, what you're really looking for is you're looking for understanding who they are, expressing some respect and asking their permission to make these changes.

Now, when it comes to the adults that you're working with- you've heard me talk about this before- there's a difference between mentoring and guiding Scouts and leading adults. The adults in the troop picked you to be the Scoutmaster, so they picked you to lead them, So be very specific about what that means.

Every new Scoutmaster is going to have some uncomfortable moments here and there with adults who were involved with the troop prior to them being the Scoutmaster, But usually a little good humor in a friendly manner, diffuses that type of situation, Especially if you're developing the attitude of service to the interest of all the Scouts in the troop together, all the Scouts in patrols together and each and every Scout individually. It's a lot of work to become a new Scoutmaster in an old troop and I'm interested from hearing from anybody who has a question or a comment, something they'd like some answers to. You can get in touch with me and you're going to find out how to do that in just a moment.