Choosing a Troop

A recent email :

My son and I are blessed to live in an area with a good deal of quality Troops nearby. We visited seven Troops, two of them twice for a total of nine visits. This was an invaluable experience and really allowed my son and I to get a great insight into the Units in our area and decide what we wanted in a Troop and how we would fit in and be a blessing to the Troop, as well. We finally found what we feel is the best Unit in the county, one that, in our minds, is head and shoulders above the rest. This Unit has very strong leadership – two of the dozens of registered adults have over 45 years of experience at this Unit Additionally, they have a large wooded property with a Scout Hut, a campground, a shooting range, a very nice fire ring theater, trailers full of equipment, a fleet of canoes, and free use of a privately-owned reservation with amenities. The Unit has also graduated 63 Eagle Scouts since forming in 1963 with six earning rank in one recent year.

Because it’s about 13 miles away and many of the boys had made up their mind on their second or third Troop visit, I was only able to convince one other family to join us for a visit to this Unit.

I admit I’ve been star-struck by all this Unit has to offer and am fairly myopic at this point so I’ve been praying for clarity of wisdom in our decision-making process.

During the visit to our unit of choice, the father fell in love in with it, however, much to our chagrin, my son’s friend wouldn’t be swayed and wants to follow his other friends in the Den to a small Unit close to home where the rest of his friends are going.

I don’t mean to disparage the Unit the rest of the boys have chosen because it does have its positives, but it seems to have less to offer all the way around and was my son’s lowest scored of the seven.

Another dynamic that affects their choice is that our Den Leader likes the small Unit because he wants to us all go there and have a big impact on the smaller Unit. He is an Eagle Scout, the son of a Scoutmaster and no doubt aspires to be Scoutmaster someday and this Unit needs leaders as there are only two or three active, yet well-seasoned leaders there.

There’s more than a little part of their decision that’s based on the Den Leader’s desire to be an influential leader there, which I can’t blame him for based on his pedigree and level of involvement. The father of my son’s friend would really like to see his son come to the other Unit with us, but at this point, it feels like he’s trying to push a rope. What is your opinion on this situation? How much more persuading should the father try to do to influence him towards what he and I feel is the nicer Unit? Are we naive, ourselves, thinking that a larger Unit with deep leadership and endless facilities will provide a better Scout experience than a smaller Unit with fewer leaders and amenities? Are we making a poor decision by choosing a “safe” Unit?

There’s obviously more to it, than numbers, of course. My son felt that the boys at the smaller Unit weren’t serious enough, and noted that they only had a few boys earn their Eagle rank in the past 10 years, while the other Unit is more disciplined, organized and the boys are in charge and down to business. In fact, the Unit we’d like to go to is not for the half-committed and has had quite a few boys leave but the ones that are there are the ones who want to be there. My son, in the meantime, is resolved to go to our Unit of choice, even if he has to go it alone but will miss his friends, especially the boy we are trying to persuade to join us.

I am proud of him and blessed to have such a brave young man to guide on his way to earning his Eagle badge some day. My response : Choosing a Scout Troop is a lot like choosing anything else. You’ve certainly done your due diligence (nine visits to seven Troops, wow!). You’ve described the pluses and minuses pretty well and have outlined the difficulty of the decision presented to your son. When I am presented with such a conundrum I like to zoom out to the broadest possible view and look at the most general concepts rather than the details.

I do this because I can so easily loose grasp of the big concepts. The biggest concept here is that your son be happy, right? Not that he avoids challenge or difficulty but that he develops the skills and abilities to be a contributing member of society, a decent human being.

Scouting will help him do this by giving him a safe, engaging environment for work, learning and achievement.

Advancing to Eagle is a laudable goal, one that I certainly support, but it is only one part of the experience.

There’s the friends, leaders, camping, working together, learning and practicing leadership and the sheer joy of being a Scout. To my mind Scouts advance because they are doing what they love to do, things that they would do without the promise of reward, rather than just doing things in an effort to rack up enough requirements. You’d rather have a happy, well adjusted Tenderfoot than a harried, pressured unhappy Eagle, right? You’ve described two Troops, one pretty average and one super Troop.

While the super Troop certainly has much to recommend it and the average Troop has it’s problems most of what you report is really irrelevant to the quality of the experience your son would have as a member of either. The most important factor is, of course, the Scout himself, not the Troop. If your son was able to take a trip to Disney World on his own do you think he would enjoy it more than playing in the back yard with his buddies? Some guys would do fine on their own at Disney World, they would make friends and have a great time.

Others would find most of the experience pretty hollow because they had no one to share it with.

I love to go backpacking. A few years back I decided that it would be fun to go out for five or six days on my own.

I soon discovered that one of the most important reasons I liked to go backpacking was the people I went with.

Going alone was just not the same and I ended the trip early.

There’s really not a right or wrong decision here.

Which kind of personality I describe is most like your son? Is he able to go into new unfamiliar situations on his own and thrive or is he happier in unfamiliar surroundings with people he knows? If you can readily answer this question you probably know how to advise him.

Whatever he decides realize that he is in what are the most exciting, dismaying, capricious years of his life. He’ll be counting on (and alternatively challenging) your judgment and relying on your support.

Finally I’ll add that Scouts don’t marry a Troop. It’s not about ‘until death do us part’ it’s more like buying a pair of shoes. If his first choice doesn’t work out he can always try other Troops until he finds the right fit.