Even in organizations organized around putting the children in peer leadership positions, the experiences of the kids in the BSA and GSA are going to be highly variable depending on the abilities, interests, and resources of the parents and the adult leadership of the individual units. So there’s no reason to take “My kid had this or that problem” as a blanket condemnation of the entire organization. Although I think that it IS important to listen to Novium’s point about the necessity of the national organization providing support for parents to get out of their comfort zone.
A scoutmaster acquaintance basically had to drag his pack into the importance of teaching meal planning for outings so that the kids didn’t just end up living on pop-tarts for the weekend. The kids were probably actually happier eating real food, but without SOME pushing on them, and the rest of the adult leadership it wasn’t going to happen.
