Tag: Adult behavior

Posted on

Conflict management and unit parents

We’ve recently discussed some situations you might run into on your troop or pack committee where members have a difference of opinion and you, the committee chair, need to step in and help resolve it. What happens when one or more of your parents blindsides you with a gripe?

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.

Frequently, these problems arise as the result of an incomplete understanding of Scouting’s mission, aims and methods. Continue reading “Conflict management and unit parents”

Posted on

Conflict management and the unit committee

Anytime two or more people come together, there is potential for conflict. This is true of all organizations, including Scouting units. Everyone is likely to have a different idea of how things are supposed to work, and when personalities clash, decorum can go out the window and we can lose our focus on why we are Scouting volunteers: to help the boys have a successful program. Continue reading “Conflict management and the unit committee”

Posted on

Your unit’s complaint form

Regardless of how hard you try, you just can’t please everyone. The sentiment goes all the way back to the Greek slave Aesop, whose fable about the miller, his son and their donkey concluded with “he who tries to please everybody pleases nobody.”

I enjoy reading each issue of the Scouting advice blog Ask Andy as soon as it comes out, much the same way that I put other reading material aside to read through Scouting magazine when it arrives in the mail. Andy deals with a variety of thorny issues, many of which involve parents complaining about the way things are done in their pack or troop. (Andy does try hard to please everybody who writes in with questions, and while some may not like his advice, it always rings true.) Continue reading “Your unit’s complaint form”

Posted on

Please stay behind the rope!

An AP news item which ran in our local newspaper last week told of an Easter egg hunt in a Colorado town being canceled for behavioral reasons.

No, not the kids misbehaving – the parents.

Aggressive parents were to blame for the sponsors of the annual event deciding to call it quits. Too many parents were jumping over the rope to make sure that their child got her fair share and wasn’t disappointed. Continue reading “Please stay behind the rope!”