Scoutmaster Podcast 281

Hi, I'm Jill Wilting, training chair of Algonquin District and the South Council, South Bend, Indiana. This is the Scoutmaster Podcast, sponsored by Backers Like Me.

And now to you, Scoutmaster. Hey, we had a great trip up to Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada, this summer. We had a great crew, we had great weather. It's such a beautiful place to go canoeing.

We were up there for a week canoeing And there was one night where the Scouts ran into the campsite out of breath because they found a moose in the woods. They saw a moose And I said, well, was it a bull or a cow? And they said no, it was a moose.

Hey, this is podcast number 281.. Hey, Welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green.

Hey, I hope you enjoyed the Encore Podcast- And you know when you get real fancy rather than reruns, you call them Encore Podcasts, But featuring some of the interviews we've done over the past- 280-some podcasts and some of my favorite ones. But everybody's back home now And we're all getting ready for a new Scout year to begin. Summer Camp was great And thanks to all of you who answered the Summer Camp survey at ScoutmasterCGcom. If you haven't had a chance to do that, go, take a look And take the survey if you would. Boy, there's a lot in the mailbag And let's see.

Let's do three or four this week and then we'll catch up. It's going to take a couple of weeks to catch up, But let's get three or four done here. Christine Fitzgerald from PAC and Troop 7 in Warwick, Rhode Island, wrote in to say I just wanted to thank you for your site. It's a wonderful wealth of information for my role as a fairly new Assistant Scoutmaster and Cubmaster.

Well, thanks, Christine, I'm glad that you're finding what we do useful. Gene Williams wrote in to say your columns make a difference in our troop.

Thanks, Gene, I'm glad that we can be of service to you. James Faircloth is an Assistant Scoutmaster with Troop 531.. He said: thank you, sir, I really enjoyed your podcast and your book.

So far, so good. Hey, if you haven't read the book yet, it's available both in ebook and print versions And you can also get an autograph copy by becoming a scoutmastercgcom backer. But we'll talk about that more in a moment. David Copeland is with Troop 168 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He says thanks again for all the great resources and motivation you provide.

I'm technically already a backer after having signed up previously And I thought it was now a good time to renew. Your support is ongoing and in return, our support as backers should be the same.

I encourage anyone that's back to you in the past to do so again by being proactive and to renew support each year. Well, thanks, David, I really I do really appreciate that, and our backers keep us going. And we heard from another one, and you heard him at the beginning of the podcast here: Joe Wilfing. He wrote to say today I became a backer of your podcast which has helped me become a better scouter, especially in my duty as pack trainer and pack 11 and district training chair in the Algonquin District and LaSalle Council, North Central Indiana. Great stuff.

Thanks so much, Joe. I did manage to sneak in a couple of chat sessions, kind of under the radar Over the past several weeks. We heard from Owen Wilson, who's an assistant Scoutmaster in Phoenix, Arizona, Eric Guter, who is an assistant Scoutmaster for Troop 131 in Holmdel, New Jersey, And Mason Turner signed on to say hello.

He's a committee chair and we will, as den leader, Impact 956 in Sterling Virginia Now keep an eye open because we'll get back to like our semi regular live chat schedule, usually Tuesday and Wednesday mornings at scoutmastercgcom. Keep an eye on the Facebook Twitter feed and come and join us.

So, before we go any further, let me talk about the backer program real quick. Everything that we produce at scoutmastercgcom is there to help scouts And, as you heard, people find it helpful, Right?

So to keep everything freely available- because I'm never going to charge for access to any of these resources- I depend on people like you to become backers. It's an unusual idea, So let me take a moment to explain. If I was- oh, I don't know, you know- sending out a paper magazine or newsletter, you'd expect there to be some costs associated with that. Right, I'd need to pay a printer and whoever was writing articles, and I need to pay for postage. And what happens with things like a blog and a podcast is actually pretty similar. Somebody spends their time producing content, incurs the expenses of publishing it and getting it to you, And backers are folks who make a one time voluntary subscription payment and those funds go to cover the expense of producing and publishing everything that you find on scoutmastercgcom, including the podcast you're listening to right now.

If these podcasts and the blog is helping you, go to scoutmastercgcom. Click the support link at the top of the page You'll find a number of options that will make you a scoutmastercgcom backer And woo, this is a long list. I'd like to personally thank Sam Caligliari, John Pandicchio, David Copeland, Mike Danshaw, Justin Dawson, Joseph Wilfing, Dexter Decker and Steve Souter, who all became backers since not our last podcast, but our last podcast before we started doing the encore presentations.

So once again, go to scoutmastercgcom, become a backer this week and I'll be sure to thank you during our next podcast. Well, the email questions did not slow down very much at all over the past several weeks and we've got a lot of catching up to do. I need to start answering some of these email questions and that's going to take up the remainder of this podcast.

So let's get started, shall we?

So I had this question from a listener who asked to remain anonymous. They said: how do you deal with scouts who are openly disrespectful to their parents, who are volunteering as scouters, like the scoutmaster or assistant scoutmaster, And they're disrespectful at meetings and camps and other outings? This is not following the scout law and it makes everyone around them uncomfortable.

Is this something the patrol leaders council should discuss and address, or should only the scoutmaster address this? But that has happened and that doesn't seem to be working.

Should there be consequences and, if so, who would decide them? It seems like a big responsibility for youth leaders to take on.

Well, that is quite a question, and the answer isn't about who handles this and how. You're looking for procedural or logistic answers to a question that's really about roles and relationships.

Now, this makes it a little complex, but it's not too hard to understand. We have to examine first what's going on. A volunteer scouter is a parent and has two roles and relationships if they have a child involved with the unit that they're volunteering for And they can't occupy both of those roles and relationships at once. A scout and a child also has two roles and relationships if their parent is a volunteer scouter. The scout and the child, they can't occupy both those roles at once.

We should add that there is a power differential to consider too. A parent has more power over their child than a scouter has over their scout. You can't use parent power in your scouting relationship- No fair. And you can't use child power in your scouting relationship either, Because there's also the idea that a child can push a parent's buttons more effectively than they can provoke a scouter, right, And that's why I say there's child power too. Obviously, parent power stronger than scouter power, child power stronger, stronger than scout power. And it's all about those relationships.

The problems start when the two different relationships are allowed to overlap. If mom is the Scoutmaster and the child is a scout, the child can likely only sees mom right, And really not the Scoutmaster. And vice versa for mom, Mom only sees her child and not the scout. If you understand what I'm saying, If one or the other or both of those relationships is strained, right, If things are a little strained at home between the parent and the child, or things are a little strained at scouts, between the scouter and the scout, it's not really likely that you're going to be very objective when you try and switch roles.

Now the responsibility principally lies with the adult in this equation Who we hope has more mature character tools to handle the situation. So that explains the relationships and the different things that bear on them.

So let's talk about how this works practically. If you draw a line between the roles of parent and scouter and of child and scout and you make that line the threshold of the meeting place or the gateway of the campsite, and you and your child have a mutual agreement that the role changes at that line, right?

So you define the difference between the roles and how a parent and child interact in one set of roles and how a scout and a scouter interact in another. Since objectivity and the power differential is always going to be an issue in these situations, the child of a volunteer scouter should be encouraged to make a free choice of a neutral adult involved with scouting to resolve any issues that might come up.

Let's go back to my example again. My mom's a Scoutmaster who is subtly leveraging her parent power and letting it overlap with scouts, or that the child is a scout and is doing the same thing- kind of leveraging the child power, right?

That neutral adult makes a judgment and defines a resolution and a lot of- and not nine out of ten times- that resolution is just going to be okay, guys, you're mixing up the relationships. You got to stop being that way. Come up with a hundred ways to define being that way, right, But you get the idea.

If either of them- either the parent or the child- can't or won't stop confusing these roles or making a difficult situation, they really just can't be a part of what's happening in scouts, because we have an oath and a law that defines our conduct and our character, and if you can't follow that, whether you're an adult or a child, hey, we got a problem and you're just not going to be able to participate. Now this is all really simple. It talks really easy, right. If a parent or a child scouts conduct is not in line with the oath and law, they simply can't be part of what's going on.

So we don't want to try to write rules or standard consequences. We don't want to give this to the youth leaders, because we're really in this kind of difficult area where an adult relationship with their child is involved, and I don't want to distract our youth leadership with issues like that. That's something that's going to be better handled by adults And, like I said, no rules or standard consequences. The only thing that's going to work is dealing with issues one at a time in the light of the scout oath and law, Rules and procedures and consequences and things like that. They only change conduct. They don't affect character.

Dealing with people on an individual basis as issues arise. That's where we call on their character And look for a post this week on this subject. It's not just about parents and scouts but broader ideas about conduct, character and scouting. But anyway, if you have behavior problems with a scout who is being disrespectful of their parent, who is also a volunteer scouter, or the tables are turned, you have a volunteer scouter who is a parent who's being disrespectful or difficult with their child, who is also a scout. It's not about procedures and policies, it's about relationships and it always goes back to those two relationships getting mixed up and confused. Jim, Who is the Scoutmaster of Troop 309 in Morton Illinois, and Jim wrote in to say: at a recent scout roundtable the topic of service hours for ranks came up.

A group of leaders says that the time that Boy Scouts help out at Cub Scout events is not eligible to be counted as service hours for rank requirements, And these are events like Day Camp or Pinewood Derby. My response to them was: what counts as service hours is wholly dependent on the scoutmaster's approval. After all, the requirement states that service hours must be approved by your scoutmaster. There was also a council director of operations at the meeting and he said that helping at Cub Scout events is not considered service hours of eligible for Boy Scouts.

So I was wondering if I'm wrong in my understanding of what counts as service hours and I wanted to get your thoughts and insights. Well, thanks for that question, Jim, and it's really a pretty easy one to answer if we go to the Guide to Advancement 2013, because here's what it has to say on the subject. In section 4.2 .3.3, titled Service Projects- quote: service projects required from ranks other than an eagle must be approved according to what is written in the requirements and may be conducted individually or through participation in patrol or troop efforts. They also may be approved for those assisting on eagle scout service projects- Unquote.

Now, the requirements for star in life are worded identically. While a first class or star scout take part in service projects totaling at least six hours of work, these projects must be approved by your scoutmaster.

So, Jim, you're correct. In saying that there's no limitation other than the scoutmaster's approval is pretty simple right, because if there were, it would either be written in the requirement or it would be expanded upon in the guide to advancement, and there's no verbiage there that affects that.

Now, it's pretty easy to resolve things like this when people tell you something that doesn't sound quite right and that is just to politely ask if they will show you where that is written down. If they can't show you where it's written down, it isn't so and it doesn't matter if it's 10 to 1 scouters saying that they know what's right and they're telling you something, or if it's even a council director of operations telling you something that you know isn't right.

You know just. Hey, where is that written down?

Let's look at the resource and get it sorted out and that way you know. There's no argument or anything like that, because it's already written down.

And these questions come up all the time, you know, and that's why they're written down. That's why we have the resources to resolve them. I heard from Darren Brown who is a scout troop in Utah and he says I'm looking for direction on organizing a small troop of eight scouts.

We were preparing to elect a new senior patrol leader. I'm wondering if we need to elect a patrol leader or if that's just kind of redundant.

Do we need to make appointments for assistant senior patrol leader, quarter master scribe and all of that? We've had a lot of positions of responsibility in the past, like patrol leader and assistant patrol leader, and sometimes scouts fill dual roles in those positions of responsibility. But it always kind of felt redundant and put us in a situation at times where the patrol leaders council was everybody in the troop but two scouts, which seemed odd and a little exclusionary to the scouts who were not in the patrol leaders council.

I know you're mostly experienced with larger troops, but I wondered if you had any good advice for a smaller troop in a rural area where joining another unit or growing much past who we are right now is not very feasible. Thanks for your great podcast.

Well, Darren, it's pretty simple. Right, you have a patrol and that's all you need.

So where did troops come from? Did we start out scouting with troops? No, we started out with patrols, and you might get tired of hearing this, but let's remember.

You know, a century ago scouting for boys was published. Boys started reading it, boys formed patrols and then it became apparent that, oh, you know what, why don't we have three or four or five patrols together in a troop? Uh, they can share resources and things like that.

So troops aren't very important, are they? Patrols are important.

So if you have eight scouts, well, you have a patrol and you'll have a patrol leader, an assistant patrol leader, you'll have a patrol quartermaster or patrol scribe. There's four positions of responsibility and the scouts can add on whichever other ones they feel are appropriate. In a patrol of eight scouts, everybody should have some kind of responsibility, and those roles might change back and forth a little bit.

So let's not serve an organizational imperative where we say, oh wow, well, we're. Well, we are called a troop and that means we needed a senior patrol leader, assistant, well, it just doesn't make sense. With that many scouts, right, operators of patrol, it's great, it'll be fine. And if you're concerned about, uh, the tenure requirements for rank, remember that you only need to be concerned about that when we're talking about eagle scout, because for star and life there is the concept of a Scoutmaster approved leadership project, and also for star life and eagle, the tenure requirement can be fulfilled in any number of roles.

So what's more important, the organizational imperatives of the Boy Scouts of America or the eight scouts that you're working with? Of course it's the eight scouts that you're working with, right, and the BSA understands that too.

The thing is that more often than not the talk is about a big troop rather than a smaller troop. So if you're working with a smaller troop, take a look at what you're doing and consider: hey, we have a patrol and if you go past the point of a patrol, well then consider troop level organization and leadership. But I'll say for the third time: what's most important is the interests of the scouts themselves and you find a way to serve those interests and you'll always get it right.

So that's a few of the man. It's a pretty big backlog of email questions, but I think that's enough for today and you can get in touch with me with your questions, and please do, and you're going to find out how to do that in just a moment.