Tag: Youth Leadership

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What are you clinging to?

balloons_200Talking with the Cubmaster at a Blue & Gold banquet recently, I found out that her son is crossing into Boy Scouts this spring. In fact, he (and she) have already been on a campout of the troop that he is joining. Among other tales of the adventure that lies across the bridge, I gently advised her to quell the urge to do things that the boys should be doing. She had heard that before – from the Scoutmaster. On the campout, she thought it would be helpful if she’d wipe down the table after the patrol had lunch, whereupon the Scoutmaster reminded her that it was the boys’ job to do that – not the adults’. So she called her son over and told him to do it, and learned the next part – it’s not the adults’ job to direct the Scouts, but that they’re led by their own leaders.

There’s a lot to learn when an adult follows his or her son into a troop. Continue reading “What are you clinging to?”

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Scout camping: Three essential elements

tents_at_scouting_camp_250A couple months ago, we wrote about just what constitutes a Scout campout. Scout camping, as you’re aware, is different from ordinary-folks camping because it aims to fulfill a purpose besides recreation and just getting outside. Scout camping is where the values of Scouting come to life and is the end result of a month’s worth of planning and preparation by our Scouts.

In one of his recent podcasts, Clarke Green crystallized the concept of whether a particular activity qualifies as an appropriate Scout campout. Clarke gives three essential elements that must be present in order to be a Scouting activity and not just a weekend in the woods. They are: Continue reading “Scout camping: Three essential elements”

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What is a Scout campout?

tents_at_scouting_camp_250When many people think of “camping” they think of gassing up the RV and loading it up with groceries, beverages, maybe the ATVs, video games and sports gear, and heading to the lake, a KOA or a state park and plugging in for a weekend or a week.

To a lot of Scouts and Scouters, that’s not really camping – it’s a vacation in a tin can. But just what is Scout camping?

Troops go camping every month – it’s part of what we do. Continue reading “What is a Scout campout?”

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Woods Wisdom: The Next Generation

Program-Features-cover_200How does your troop program planning go?

Some troops take last year’s calendar and just copy it, doing the same things each month. Others get together, rack their brains to think of new things to do but generally keep some key activities from year to year and rotate a couple other activities in and out. But a troop that keeps and holds the interest and involvement of the youth is one that plans a variety of things at troop meetings and on monthly campouts.

In participating in boards of review over the years, one of the things I heard most often is that the program is stale and boring, and this was borne out by attendance and participation levels. Continue reading “Woods Wisdom: The Next Generation”

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The Marshmallow Test

marsh_200If someone set a marshmallow in front of you, would you eat it?

If that person told you that if you didn’t eat it, but watched it for 15 minutes, they’d give you another marshmallow. Would you eat it or wait?

Now imagine you’re a kid. Do you think you’d have the patience to wait 15 minutes? Think of how much longer 15 minutes seems like to a child than it does to us.

You’ve probably heard of the psychology experiment conducted by Stanford professor Walter Mischel in the 1960s. Continue reading “The Marshmallow Test”