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Frank Maynard is a blogging troop committee chairman, he recently published this excellent article outlining how to work with Scout parents;
Parents who aren’t as involved in Scouting as you are sometimes don’t understand the program as well, and can see a unit working normally as being dysfunctional. Friction can also develop among parents, or even between boys, and the people “in charge” are looked to for a solution.
“Why isn’t my Jimmy getting to Second Class any faster?” is a typical complaint, or “How come you didn’t tell Billy that he needed to bring his handbook to the meeting?” Sometimes you’ll hear things like “Why can’t the pack go on a canoe trip?” or “The robotics club did a paintball outing – why can’t the troop do one?”
Often, these problems vanish once you stop taking a piecemeal approach to informing parents. Scouting’s different from almost every other youth program. A sports activity’s rules don’t go much further than the rules of the game, and most parents are more familiar with the rules of sports than the rules of the game of Scouting.
Read the full article Conflict management and unit parents at Bobwhite Blather.
