My 11 year old has been involved HEAVILY with Scouting since he was in 1st grade. Actually, he saw the Cub Master at the kindergarten open house and BEGGED me to let him join. I concented only to find out that he had to wait until the next year. And he was sure to remind me the very next year, even though we had moved and he had to change schools.
After that first TIGER year, I was recruited into a leadership position. I ran a den of boys for their WOLF and BEAR years and co-ran a WEBELOS 1 den. This year he is a Webolos 2 (or a 2nd year Webelos since the webelos program is an 18 month program). I have been stepping back, and not actively leading a den this year, instead focusing my time on SCOUT COMMITTEE membership. I have been running an active recruitment campaign to replace all of the leaders and committee members who will be leaving the pack to join a troop this year.
My son want's to earn his EAGLE rank. I have no doubt that he will earn it, but I want to do what I can to find the right troop for him to do so. I guess when you think about it, it is similiar to stacking the deck. I mean we want our children to succeed, and it is the job of the parents to "stack the deck" in anyway we can to set them up on the road for success. For my children, this means I make sure they have the tools they need to accomplish their goals. I make sure they have all the school supplies they need, the clothes that won't get them made fun of, etc. I also know that college will be out of the realm of something I can pay for, so we find something they like, and work the hell out of it so that they can have a shot at something. My 11 year old wants to join the service. (really I think it's more of an obsession with Call of Duty games) He would be perfectly cut out for it. And he realizes that earning his EAGLE rank will help him in obtaining a higher pay grade upon joining the military. And he has fun in scouts.
But I digress. We have been working on visiting troops to find a good match. It helps that it is part of the Arrow Of Light award too! For the last 5 years in scouts we KNEW that we were gonna join Troop 942 out of St. Andrew's Methodist. 95% of the boys in our cub scout pack joined there. And it was the 'big names' of our pack. The overachievers. The ones with parental involvement. It just seemed like a natural progression, both for me and for my son. We were even sold when we visited the troop. I spoke with the other parents that had joined in the years before me, and really felt like it was going to be like a reunion for me. My son liked the active calendar and seeing his old buddies. The meeting was CHAOS. Lots of high energy. I asked a giant list of questions to the Scout Master. I was hooked.
Until I visited with another troop that the remaining 5% of our cubscouts cross into. Troop 829 out of St Sabina Catholic Church. My son and I walked into a small group of Webelos 2's sitting down with the Scout Master. He was telling the boys all about the differences in Cub scouting vs. Boy Scouting. It was the way he did it that was so special. He was asking questions and letting the boys tell each other. If they got stuck, he guided their answers and thought processes by asking different questions. It was the very embodiment of BOY LEAD with an ADULT guiding the process.
Things just got interesting.
I really was liking what I saw. I liked how they seemed to be working the scouting system the right way. Then the meeting opened. The boys repeated the oath and the law. It hit me then that I didn't see that in my meeting with 942. Both troops worked on merit badge requirements, one was more active meeting once a week, and seemed to be into activity and fun, and the other was slower and met only 2 times a month but participated in more of the serious side of scouting.
My mind was made up. I wanted the serious quieter troop, since they seemed to be 'growing MEN' instead of just providing a fun after school activity. (don't get me wrong, the busier troop also had plenty of advancement, but it seemed that it was the core super involved parents kids who were advancing, which made me question if my son would do it without me PUSHING him) I had no idea how to get my son to go along with it. I was certain that he would want to join the troop we had been planning on crossing into since we found out about it.
Then a miracle happened. He and I sat down and I asked him which he would like to join. He told me he was still thinking about it, and wasnt sure how to decide. I asked him to think about pros and cons of both, and think about what he wanted to get out of being a scout. He told me he wants to be an EAGLE scout. And he was kind of thinking that the SLOWER more Serious troop would be the best place for him to make Eagle.
My heart skipped a beat. I was so astounded that an 11 year old could come to that conclusion on his own. It helped show me that the Scouting program and all the work I have put into participation has been worth it. I am raising the kind of kid I want to raise.
Then it got even better. He informed me that he wants to make 1st class in his 1st year, and he knows that 829 is the best place for that, AND he figures that after he gets all of the basics covered, if he starts to get bored, he can transfer to the more active troop.
It was like he was reading my mind. I had been thinking that it would be a good tool to have in my parent arsenal that he could transfer to a more 'fun' troop when I start to loose his interest due to cars, jobs, and girls, and sports. If he joined the more active fun based troop then it would be harder to convince him to join a more serious troop if the time came that his interest was waning.
So we emailed the Scout Master and told our Cub Scout pack the news, we were going to buck tradition and go with a different troop than most of our other scouts. We were going to go somewhere that my son didn't really know many of the kids, and we made an unpopular choice.
I have never been so proud.
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