Scoutmaster Podcast 309

I'm Mike Beals and I'm an assistant Scoutmaster with Troop 226 in Roswell, Georgia. This edition of the Scoutmaster podcast is sponsored by backers like me.

And now for you, Scoutmaster, As a scouter, it's a good thing to know the technical definitions of things in nature: An acorn, the definition of an acorn, that would be a good thing to know. Share with your scouts. I can tell you in a nutshell: it's an oak tree in it. Oh man, Thanks or blame. Go to Shane Adams for that one.

Hey, this is podcast number 309.. Hey, Welcome back to the Scoutmaster podcast. This is Clarke Green. Let's not waste any time and look straight into the mailbag. Joshua Jones left us a nice review of my book, The Scouting Journey, on Amazon. It's a well-written and insightful book about scouting.

Definitely a good tool to have in a Scoutmaster's toolbag. Thanks, Joshua. Eric Fletcher is with Troop 309 in Pepperpike, Orange Village, Ohio, And he wrote to say I hope podcast number 309 is not in the can yet.

Well, it is now. But you made it, Eric. Troop 309, podcast 309, everybody get it. Okay. But Eric went on to say I started my Scoutmaster CG apprenticeship about a year ago when there were rumors I was next in line for Scoutmaster.

Now, I never saw a line, but I'd taken the Scoutmaster Assistant, Scoutmaster Leader training at our council to find that our Troop said we don't exactly do it that way. Realizing I didn't know what I was doing, I started searching for information and found your site. I worked my way through all of your podcast, finishing before winter break. My view and approach of scouting has changed since my first podcast.

Many times I've started planning a course of action only to listen to the next podcast, And here I probably should do it a bit differently. You're like the conscience who stands on a Scoutmaster's shoulder and whispers in his ear. That would take a very large shoulder indeed, Eric.

But no, I appreciate the kind words And I'm glad we can be helpful to you. Hey, every week we try and get together with listeners and readers at scoutmastercgcom for a live chat session. Usually we manage to have two of those a week, True to form. We had the couple of chat sessions this past week.

Usually we have them on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. Keep an eye on our Facebook feed and our Twitter feed and you'll see an announcement when we're live at scoutmastercgcom. Come on in. Sign in to the chat, Like many of our frequent flyers do, And also for their first time on the chat. This week.

We had Craig Snodgrass, who's the Scoutmaster Troop one and now the Dean of California, Brad Chilcoat, who's the Scoutmaster Troop 59 in Little Rock, Arkansas, And Jennifer Garner, who is an American ex-patriot living in the Commonwealth of Dominica, interested in starting a BSA Scout Troop down there in Dominica. So it's good to hear from everybody once again. Usually Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, Look at our Facebook feed and our Twitter feed and come and join us on the live chat. Hey, if you're a regular reader and listener and what we're doing is helping you, you can return the favor and help us. You can support the podcast by making a one-time payment and becoming a scoutmastercgcom backer, Or you can make a subscription payment through Patreon by pledging $5 or more a month.

Now there are special premiums available to anyone who becomes a patron or a backer. To become a backer, go to scoutmastercgcom, click the support link at the top of the page. You'll find a number of options that'll make you a scoutmastercgcom backer.

And this week I want to take a moment to personally thank Jim Jenser, Lois Holler, Michael Lyons and Eric Fletcher, who've all become backers since our last podcast, And to become a patron, click the link to my Patreon page and the podcast notes, or just go directly to wwwpatreon and that's p-a-t-r-e-o-ncom backslash scoutmastercg. So take advantage of either methods of lending us a hand and I'll make sure to thank you personally on next week's podcast.

Now the remainder of this podcast is going to be taken up with the second in my three-part series about scout parents, And last week we asked ourselves whether or not parents should make their children stay in scouts. So go back and listen to podcast number 308 if you haven't heard that, And this week I'm going to tell you what I wish every scout parent understood, And that's going to take up the remainder of the podcast.

So let's get started, shall we?

So? In the second of a series about scout parents, I'm going to give a shot at discussing one of the thornier issues that parents and scouts find themselves in the middle of, And that is letting their scouts or their children learn things through the scouting process.

Now, this is not a new problem. It is not something that started happening five or ten or twenty or thirty years ago. It's always been there ever since we started doing scouts.

I think there is a gap of understanding between parents and scouters about exactly how the process is intended to work. Now I want to make sure you understand what I'm saying here, because I think it's really important. Scout parents have always misunderstood scouting. Scouters have always misunderstood scouting. In one way or another, We all are working towards the idea of getting to know it better. It takes time and effort to learn the process and what it's all about.

I want to remind you it's not always a parent problem. A lot of times it's a scouter problem.

I think one of the bigger mistakes we make as scouters and as human beings is, once we've reached a certain age, we sit back and complain about kids these days- quote unquote- or parents these days- quote unquote. Listen, if you want to complain about how things were different than they were when you were a kid, I'm really not interested in listening.

I think really, let's just quit our whining and get over ourselves and make progress for our scouts as they come to us now. Otherwise, just let's get out of the way and let somebody else have a try.

Am I clear enough? Am I clear enough about that?

I mean, I'm not trying to be offensive, I'm just trying to say I think it's a big waste of time and it's just plain frustrating to say I wish these scouts would come to me understanding what I understood when I was a kid. Stop it, Okay, let's just deal with them as they come to us now and do some good Now.

Parents have a very important role in scouting and I want to give you the most important information a scout parent needs to know and what I wish every scout parent and scouter understood. And helping parents understand what we're trying to accomplish in scouting and how we accomplish it has always been one of my key challenges as a scouter. A lot of times when I try to explain the scouting process, parents think they know what I'm talking about, but they really don't.

Scouts think they know what I'm talking about, but they really don't, because what we have to do is leave all of our assumptions at the door and understand that scouting is unique. It's different from school and church and sports and any other youth organizations.

Now I will say that some organizations are looking a lot more like scouting because they have adopted some of the ideas that scouting was founded on, but the process of scouting is a unique one and one that takes some study and dedication to begin to understand and help other people understand. Scouting is not simply another activity on the schedule. It is a process and once parents understand the process, they'll become your allies.

Until they do, we can find ourselves working at cross purposes with the parents of our scouts. What we have to understand in scouting, there are at least two things happening at once most of the time. There's the immediate practical goal, like getting a merit badge or going camping or something like that, and the much broader and more important goal of developing character and citizenship and physical and spiritual and mental fitness. The scouting process is really very similar to the parenting process. It may look a little harsh at times or it may make a scout parent feel they're not being responsible, and that's an uncomfortable feeling for most of us. But being uncomfortable, that's not a bad thing, because scouting is not only an opportunity for young people to grow, it's just.

It's an opportunity for scouters and parents to grow as well. To be a good scout parent or a good scouter, you have to be open and available to that process that you're going to learn things.

Now I've mentioned the scouting process a number of times, but let me explain exactly what I'm talking about because, very simply put, scouting is something that young people do for themselves. It is not something that they have done for them.

Now, that might at first seem a little oversimplified, but it's something that's easy to remember. Scouting is something that young people do for themselves. It is not something that is done for their benefit or presented to them, And while it's very simple to say it is infinitely, it can be infinitely complex to come to an understanding of that's what this whole process is actually about. My stepson works for the college he attended and he works with students there, and one of the things that he will tell you is that one key skill many new students lack is the ability to navigate very routine things for themselves, things that they are used to having done for them, And I'm talking like from laundry to signing up for classes and managing a schedule. And he will also tell you that the way he learned to do things for himself, he largely attributes to his participation in scouting.

So what I really wish that scout parents understood in a large part is something that you really can't understand until you've been through, until you've been through this process, When you're the parent of an 11 year old and you've never been a parent before, you think that you pretty much know what the next few years are going to be like and what the result of those years is going to be, until you actually go through parenting a child, through those years, and once you've done that, well, then you sit back and you go. Wow, I really did not have much understanding about this at all, and that's true with most things in life, isn't it?

I mean, we really don't understand the processes of life until we have gone through them and we're on the other side of them. So we're all learning as we go along. Parents are learning, young people in scouting are learning, and scouters are learning, and we're learning new things every single day. Even though I've watched hundreds of scouts and families and hundreds of sets of parents go through this process, I still learn new things about it.

So, beyond understanding that scouting is something that young people do for themselves- it's not something that is done for them and presented to them. It's something that they do for themselves- the other thing to understand as a scouting parent and a scouter, is that we need to be open and available for the fact that we are going to learn things as we move along that we don't know everything, which is a lot easier said than done, isn't it? I know it. I know it is, in my case at least.

So what does this process look like in practical terms? Well, when a scout goes camping, he needs to find out what to bring, gather all that stuff together and put it in a pack and bring it with him. I mean, it's perfectly understandable that a parent of a younger scout or even an older scout may feel they need to do some or all of this for their scout. That's understandable. You want to be a responsible parent. You don't want your child to suffer needlessly.

So if there's a list of things that they're supposed to bring, you're going to look at the list and make sure they bring it right. And there's also this other idea that if your child doesn't arrive fully prepared for a camping trip, that that's going to reflect poorly upon you as a parent.

I mean, what were you thinking? Now, trust me, if it was true, that every parent of a child who arrived without some key piece of equipment for a camping trip was a bad parent, that means all parents are bad.

I mean, after you know 35 or 40 years of going camping, I still forget stuff. So whenever a scout packs their own bag, they are likely to forget something, and they may, and the fact that they forgot it may make them a little uncomfortable while they're out camping.

Now remember, we're there, scouters are there and we're not going to allow them to endanger themselves because they've forgotten something. They may suffer a little bit and they may suffer a little bit existentially, but we're going to make sure they're physically safe.

So it's a safe environment for them to forget and to learn from forgetting, which is a part of the process. A story I want to share with you also points out another practical part of this. It was several years back. Boy goes to summer camp for his first year supposed to do swimming maripage. Doesn't come home with swimming maripage completed.

Now, this is not a big giant deal. It is when you're 11 and all of your other friends get their maripage. It can be a little tragic, but in the grand scheme of things, the fact that this happened presents us with some teachable moments and some opportunities.

So naturally, the scout who did not get swimming maripage finished while he was at camp was disappointed, but his parents, and specifically his father, was even more upset that somehow he came home without this maripage. Now we discussed the whole thing with the parent in excruciating detail. I mean the number of times we reminded his son that he had to go to the pool and the fact that his son simply didn't. He found allowing an 11 year old that kind of latitude in making a decision like that was unacceptable to him.

It was our responsibility to force the boy to do something and, as I remember it, you know, in the way of 11 year old, we talked to the boy, told him he had to get to the pool, finish up swimming maripage. He assured us he would then turned out by the end of the week that he hadn't.

And we did exactly what we've done hundreds and hundreds of times before and somehow the other scouts that were in the same situation came back with swimming maripage, but this scout didn't. It was not an irreconcilable failure. It was not shaming or belittling for the boy, it was not in the least bit negative until his parent decided that it was. And we talked about how the scout could finish up the last few requirements and the possibilities that the scouting process had created for dad to discuss decision making and responsibility and consequences with his son and how, what he learns from the process is one step closer to the broader goal of scouting. But he really wouldn't have any of that and that was the last time we saw that boy in scouts.

Now that's an extreme example of a parent not buying into the process with us, not being able to cooperate with us, because part of the scouting process is the inevitability of a scout failing or coming up short or making the wrong decision about something. We're there to keep them physically safe and mentally stable and not to shame them or belittle them for making poor decisions, but to let those poor decisions create an opportunity for the process of scouting to happen, where they can examine what they've done and think about it and use the experience as a teachable moment. But sometimes parents feel that that is overly harsh or overly permissive and they just can't get on board with it. But if you do get on board and you cooperate with that process, if you keep your eye on the broader goal, you'll see your scout start to grow and figure things out for themselves.

You'll find that your job is not so much telling your child to do things or doing for your child, but is helping them discover answers how they can do things for themselves. Your job is not making things easier, but helping your child look past the initial frustrations and learn to ask questions of themselves and to grow in confidence and ability. And they always surprise you when that happens.

I mean really, you know, it just seems to be this incredible miracle when this happens. But if you value the process and you stick with it and you make a commitment to do it, it always results in very positive things.

Now, as parents and as scouts, it can be a very uncomfortable thing. It is not easy watching young people figure out how to do things for themselves. We get uncomfortable, our scouts get frustrated, and when scouts get frustrated, sometimes what happens is their parents go after the scouts for not doing enough or allowing things to be chaotic, inefficient or needlessly difficult. But the scouting process is purposefully designed to be challenging and every scout and scout parent is going to experience frustration or discouragement from time to time. We embrace those challenges.

Frustration and discouragement are good because we can turn them to our advantage to help our scouts achieve the broader goals of scouting. So when our scouts are going through this whole process and they get discouraged or frustrated, that's when we need a supportive, responsible parent to step up and to help them overcome the discouragement or the frustration and to keep on trying. Scouting cooperates with parents who cooperate with scouting. It's an interdependent relationship. It gives parents powerful opportunities to help their children grow. What we do in scouting is almost never about the immediate practical goal.

It's always about the broader goals and that one way of keeping those goals in view is to understand that scouting is not something that we prepare and do and present to young people. It is a process in which young people learn to do for themselves. Every scouter and scout parent ought to understand that. But i'm not frustrated by the fact that initially you don't, because learning how the scouting process works and learning how to cooperate with it is actually part of the process for parents and scouts to participate in with their children. And when you do, it's very, very satisfied. And when you do learn to cooperate with that process, amazing things happen, not just for your children but for you as well.