Scoutmaster Podcast 351

I'm Steve Kearns and I'm the District Advancement Chair with the Portola District in North Orange County, California. This edition of the Scoutmaster Podcast is sponsored by backers like me.

And now it's the old Scoutmaster. Hey, did I tell you one about the trails, Really, Because it's all over camp? Get it, Trails all over. There's the one about the cots.

You know, the sleeping cots in the tents at camp, But it hasn't been made up yet. So ooh, wow,

Hey, this is podcast number 351.. Welcome back to the Scoutmaster Podcast. This is Clarke Green.

And here we are at podcast number 351, and we're going to begin by looking in the mailbag. Nothing new, No, why do anything new?

Heard from Mark Eblen, who said: I'm a 53-year-old Eagle Scout who'd been away from scouting for 30 years, But I'm now involved with my son. I was a dent leader this past year and will be a Cubmaster this fall. Your podcast, though aimed at Scoutmasters, was very helpful to me. Keep up the good work.

Well, thanks so much, Mark. It's great fun being involved with Cubs and being a Cubmaster, And I hear from Cub leaders on a fairly regular basis, And I know that a lot of this advice does apply back and forth.

So you keep up the good work too. On our last podcast- now we had a break here for Memorial Day, But on our last podcast I answered an email that touched on the idea of who owns a unit, a pack, a troop or a crew.

And if you remember listening to that podcast, we talked about this And we know that the charter partner owns the pack, troop or crew, all the assets, all the money, everything, And I think we talked a little bit about how that works And boy oh boy, that podcast got a lot of chatter over on Facebook And some people, even though they had a long association with scouting, were surprised to learn that this was indeed the fact and wondered when the rules had changed. Well, the rules had never changed. It basically has always been the fact. But the ever helpful Steve Nycloud posted a link to an important resource. It's from the BSA. It's called Fiscal Policies and Procedures for BSA Units.

It's not a terribly lengthy resource And it's in the form of a frequently asked questions kind of thing. If you've never seen it, you should get a copy and you should read it, Because the advice and the descriptions and the policy that is explained therein is extraordinarily helpful. I will have a link to Fiscal Policies and Procedures for BSA Units in the podcast notes in this week's podcast. When Time Allows- and that's just about every week on a Tuesday morning beginning at 8 am Eastern Time, come on over to Scoutmaster CC Gcom and join us in a live chat. Usually goes on for a couple of hours And a lot of people come through and check in, say hello, ask questions And we get some pretty good conversations going.

And over the past couple of weeks since our last podcast, Amy, who's the committee chair for a troop located in a Royal Air Force base in England- So that's a troop for Americans living abroad- But Amy checked in with us, as did Brandon Schultz, who's an assistant scoutmaster with Troop 389 in Green Cove Springs, Florida. Ted is with Troop 45 in Glen Allen and he paid us a visit. And Bill Cooper, who's an assistant scoutmaster- and Bill wants to note- soon to be the scoutmaster of Troop 21 in Edmond, Oklahoma. Once again, Tuesday mornings, 8 am Eastern Time. Scoutmastercgcom. There's a little chat icon at the bottom right of every page.

Just click on it. Join us for a live chat. It's great fun.

Before we go any further, as I am want to do, I want to pause here to thank all of the folks who are ScoutmasterCGcom backers and subscribers And since our last podcast, Amy Borland, James Monroe, Timothy O'Connor, Thomas McGloin, Paige Taylor and Laura Sherwin have added their names to the list of ScoutmasterCGcom backers, And I want to make sure to thank all the folks who contributed to this work. Through Patreon. You can join them. It's not that difficult to do. Go to ScoutmasterCGcom. There are links in the top menu over on the right on every page.

You can see which option works for you And if you decide to join our backers and subscribers, I will be glad to thank you personally during our next podcast. One more bit of business before we move on.

It's early summer and I have a full slate of travel and scout activities planned, So the podcast in its live iteration will be taken a bit of a break. But don't despair, I will be posting favorites from the archive every week in the hopes that it will placate your inexhaustible thirst for the wisdom.

Okay, it'll give you something to listen to And then we'll get back to live weekly podcast towards the end of the summer. I want to hear what you're doing this summer.

Tell me about summer camp. Tell me about your high adventure trips. This is high scouting season coming up. I'm looking forward to everything we've got scheduled.

I know you are too, So we're all caught up and I have a great email question to answer this week, So let's get started. Shall we All time boy scout? You're my favorite All time boy scout. He's my favorite All time boy scout. Write me a letter, Send it by name Email. That is folks.

And here's an answer to one of your emails. I received this email recently from a relatively new Scoutmaster who said: I have a scout who's only interested in participating as long as it fulfills a requirement. He's pretty open about this And I've heard him remark in the presence of other scouts that he doesn't quote need to go on this hike or quote need to do this service project.

And I've heard him say: well, I'm only here to be credited for the camping night on camping trips. On the most recent camping trip He decided to leave before the rest of the troop was packed up and ready to head home. He asked an assistant Scoutmaster who misunderstood what was being asked and let him go. If he had asked me, I would have told him that he needed to stay. I'd like to sit down and work with this scout on scout spirit issues.

Can you give me a sense of the conversation I need to have with him? This is a scout who needs what we have to offer And I sense he can make some real progress and I want to work with him without pushing him away.

Well, this is a great question and I want to answer it in a couple of different ways. First of all, we'll deal with the specific question that's been posed and then talk about, in a more general way, these sorts of problems, because these sorts of problems they're not, you know, disruptive, dangerous, inappropriate.

They're just kind of nettlesome- And I love the word nettlesome, because if you've ever been out in the woods and you've run across a bunch of nettles and gotten stung, you know what I'm talking about. It's a pain and it lasts for a little while and it's really aggravating. It's not dangerous, It's just.

Why would you want to have to deal with something like this? Now, everybody thinks it's a Scoutmaster's responsibility to fix all these nettlesome problems, but it isn't, at least not directly. You can very effectively point out that the scouts themselves can fix these problems. They're empowered to shape their behavior and their attitudes, of course, by applying the scout oath and law.

So how do we deal with this specific question? Well, the first rule of thumb is always to pay attention to behavior you want to see and don't react to behavior you don't want to see, Of course, unless there are issues of safety or propriety involved. Somebody has a bad attitude or kind of a cavalier idea of what they're doing in scouts. Don't pay attention to it. And I'll describe exactly what I mean In this particular instance.

If I was in your shoes, I would take the opportunity presented by my next Scoutmaster's minute and I would talk about the kind of shared responsibilities we have when we go camping And I would talk about specific points of the scout oath and law in that context. And you know that's easy to figure out, right? A scout is helpful, a scout is friendly. We help other people at all times, that sort of thing.

And then I would mention the name of a scout who was particularly helpful in the same circumstances when the troop was packing up to leave on that Sunday morning This weekend. When we were packing up, I saw John working pretty hard and helping everybody out, and I know he's a really busy guy. He probably had plenty of other things to do that day, But, John, I just want to say thank you for staying with the troop and doing your part, because that's a great example of the scout oath and law.

Now, maybe you saw something like that and maybe you didn't. A little creative fibbing is permissible, But the idea is to be relentlessly positive.

Don't describe bad behavior and then tell the scouts that that's not what you want to see. Don't call out the offending nettlesome scout in front of the others and try and make an example of him. Be relentlessly positive. Your scouts will absolutely understand what's going on there, As will the scout who decided he could go home early. And while we're talking about this specific thing, you also need to realize this scout, or any other scout, has only to fulfill the requirements. They can do that with a terribly bad attitude If they choose to.

They can be very cavalier and cynical about it If they choose to. You won't like that. Requirements are written down. There's not a whole lot of argument whether they've been fulfilled or not. You just don't like their attitude and it really bugs you And that's a nettlesome problem. But you don't need to solve it.

You just need to create an atmosphere in which these kind of nettlesome problems are very small. And when it comes to advancement, come on, Advancement requirements are such a small part of the whole picture of what we want to do for our scouts And really fulfilling them is easy. It's not that big a deal if you're in an active camping troop and patrol. If you let things like this get to you as a scouter, you'll find you're going to spend all your time worrying about them. And I understand that because I have been in that place and I still get in that place once in a while. I have to remind myself of these things.

So what about the question of scout spirit? Because you want to sit down and talk to this particular scout about scout spirit.

So here's rule of thumb number two: Don't ever put yourself in the role of judging whether or not a scout has scout spirit or has fulfilled any advancement requirement. Don't put yourself in that spot When you're asked to sign any requirement, any requirement at all. Ask the scout to judge himself based on his own inner standard, And you will find most all of the time you will agree with their judgment. In the few cases that you don't, you'll find the scouts being too hard on themselves. In the one or two cases a year where you disagree.

All you have to do is hold up a mirror by relating what you have observed and asking: do you think, based on what I've just said, you have actually fulfilled this requirement? So let's go step by step on exactly how this would work in this particular case. Let's say this: this scouts attitude never changes and you're troubled by it. And they want to have you sign off the requirement about being active and showing scout spirit.

You ask them to say: well, I want to know if you think you fulfilled that requirement. The scout will say something like I'm not sure or yes, I have fulfilled the requirement, And then you say: okay, so tell me how you arrive at that conclusion, Tell me how you judge that you have fulfilled that requirement. The first time you go through this with a scout, they're going to be a little befuddled because people don't ask this question of them. People don't ask them what they're thinking and what their judgment of the situation is. Usually they just make a judgment for them and either sign or not sign a requirement or an assignment at school or something like that.

So you're asking them to go through a process they might not be very familiar with. Give them a little time ask some questions.

Well, what do you think this requirement means? What is scout spirit anyway?

What does that mean? And you'll have a lovely discussion where you can talk back and forth about the way that this works. And what you're doing as this discussion unfolds is you're getting a picture of their inner standard, because our aim is the development of character, and character is having some standards and holding yourself to those standards. You'll get a real good idea of exactly where the scout is in that phase of his development as a person.

So you give this a shot. See if I'm not right, because most of the time, in the vast majority of cases, you're going to agree with the judgment that the scout has made about their own performance. Or, in a smaller number of cases, you're going to find that the scout is being too difficult on themselves. Or, in the very small number of cases, you're just going to absolutely disagree with their judgment.

So let's say that the scouting question- this one who's had this nettlesome attitude- says, yes, I fulfilled that requirement. And you have a discussion with them about exactly what fulfilling that requirement means and you're not really getting anywhere. You say, okay.

So look, I've heard you say this before. I've seen you do this.

So we're holding up a mirror, We're just saying these are the things that you have said or done that are germane to this requirement. So do you think somebody who says or does those sort of things has fulfilled this requirement? And maybe you'll get somewhere and maybe you won't.

And it's perfectly acceptable to say: well, look, you know, we've discussed this, We disagree about it. What kind of a plan can we make?

So we're both satisfied, when we pick this issue up again, that you've satisfied this requirement. So you start having discussions like that with scouts and you get a very good understanding of who they are, where they are developmentally, what they have understood or not understood about scouting, And it opens the door to a continuing relationship where you can help them figure out how to develop their character.

So back to thinking about nettle sum problems, and remember what we've defined nettle sum, as These are things that are not safety problems or behavior discipline problems that rise to the standard of needing absolute correction. These are things that just kind of bug you, And they could be a long list of things that bug you about the attitude or the actions or the speech of your scouts. A lot of things can bug you.

So when it comes to making a judgment call about scout spirit or being active or any one of another dozen things as effects evaluating a scout towards fulfilling a requirement, one dodge a lot of scouts end up taking is kind of lawyering things around and making rules. So in this situation, you know it might fall out that after you think about this for a while you decide: well, I'll just make a rule. Nobody leaves the campsite early.

There we go. The rule fixes it. But but the rule does not fix anything. It just makes everything worse, because rules are powerless to change the underlying attitudes that people have. The only thing you can do with rules is compel people to be compliant. You can't make them nicer people.

You don't change the way that they look at the world. All you can do is force their compliance.

And then, once you've established a rule, you put yourself into the role of policing the rule and judging the consequences and meeting out the consequences. And once you go down that road it takes over the way that you think about scouts, the way that you think about scouting, and you end up squandering your energy on what is a useless diversion from what scouting is actually aimed at: Rules. Take away your most effective tool, and that's discussion and discretion.

We have to realize we're working with young people at the most volatile and changeable time of their lives and we want all possible latitude to be able to work with individual challenges. And for every rule that you create, you take away a big chunk of the real estate there where you can work with an individual scout on an individual thing and come up with a resolution to it.

Now look, I know that there are plenty of troops and scouts out there who have long lists of rules and regulations and policies and procedures and they get an entire troop of very compliant scouts. You can't force young people to have scout spirit by applying a list of rules. You have to encourage the growth of that scout spirit by getting them to think about their actions and their attitudes in the light of the scout oath and law.

It really is just that simple, And I understand, because whether or not I have very specific, strong standards for my own attitudes and conduct and I think that they should be universally applied has got nothing to do with anything at all, because what you want your scouts to do is to understand the scout oath and law and apply them in their own lives to the best of their ability, And once you start thinking that way and you understand that the door opens up to being able to really help young people. So just quickly, by way of review. Scoutmasters and scouters are not supposed to resolve every single problem that happens. Sometimes. Scouts will say or do things or act in certain ways or maintain attitudes that you find disturbing or nettlesome. They're not discipline problems, They're not dangerous, They're not just wholly inappropriate, They're just a little off key and it kind of drives you a little crazy.

Most of the time these will have their origin in something to do with advancement. So take my advice: Don't pay any attention to those things. Pay attention to the behavior you want to see, Praise the behavior you want to see publicly and often- and the scouts begin to get the idea- Don't substitute your judgment for the judgment of the scout when it comes to evaluating an advancement requirement. Call upon the inner standard that they are developing and discuss it with them. It's during those discussions that you can really drill down into the scout oath and law and develop an understanding of what your scouts think about it and how they go about applying it. And that is a great place to put your energy, because that is our aim: to develop character by the application of the patrol method.

So give that a try and get back to me. I want to learn.

I want to hear from you whether that advice is useful. It's easy to get in touch, by the way, and I'm going to tell you how to do that in just a moment.