I pretty much agree, especially about the self-selecting part. Girls at a young age tend to be more self-aware. Boys, not quite as much. (Not scientific either, just based on observation.) My concern would be that you get two or three high energy boys together at a Brownie troop because their parents can’t find any Scouting troop nearby and then the girls start dropping out because they no longer feel comfortable.
Sure, maybe the better distinction would be high-energy vs low energy. There are plenty of high energy girls that don’t do well in Guides. But, there’s no easy way to make this division. And gender is at least fair 95% of the time.
It was, but thanks. I am familiar with the Scout program, my son is Eagle and was SPL at 13. For those playing at home, Senior Patrol Leader is the troop’s head Scout, taking orders from the Scoutmaster, planning the events with him, and making it happen, like a Sergeant Major. It’s an incredible experience for kids lucky enough to get elected to it.
This delegation of authority is one of the things that makes Scouting unique IMO. Most kids activities are very flat structures. A coach and the kids for example. And those kids tend to be grouped by age like Cubs but unlike Scouts.
Doesn’t matter mate. You typed for everyone, not just Urbanacus.
I don’t know how Americans do Dens. So I learnt something.
In Australia we have Joeys before Cubs. Which is our younger group. I don’t expect you to know that, but there you go. You learnt something too.
Are the joeys the 5-6 range? The Lions were just introduced in the US a few years ago- I can’t imagine trying to conduct ‘meetings’ with kids younger than that.
At this point they should have just merged the orgs, they could have some hybrid program, it’ll be like an RPG where you branch out into skill trees. . .yeeessss
Oh, I’m pretty sure that we slung a few homophobic slurs their way…
To be clear, I meant that the negotiable parts of the uniform were camo. They did wear the standard class A button-down shirts with all the patches. They were also very big on their marching and such.
Dagnabbit, just got word that my daughter says she wants to stick with the girl scouts so I guess the simplified family logistics aren’t going to work out after all.
On the other hand my son is excited that his best friend from school may be able to join now.
Awesome, now you can put your sons and daughters in the same precursory organisation for the military and be assured all your offspring will receive education in the attributes of the ideal soldier in a uniform manner.
Inevitably cynical political take, based purely on a distant view:
Although there are plenty of liberal chapters in some areas, the BSA overall is controlled by the right.
They had been making extremely belated and grudging concessions to modernity in recent times, in response to declining membership. However, the rise of the Trumpists has now seen them reaffirm their allegiance to the right, as demonstrated by their tolerance of Trump’s adventures at the jamboree.
But their membership is declining faster than ever, as more and more left wing parents withdraw. And, at the same time, right wing parents are rejecting the Girl Scouts as insufficiently bigoted.
So the right wing BSA leadership want to shore up their membership, and they also want a right-wing alternative for girls. Hence, the current news.
TFA said that, above Cub Scouts level, individual ‘dens’ will be all boys or all girls(though it wouldn’t be…entirely…surprising if HQ is less than wholly even-handed in their interest in the two); so it isn’t necessarily obvious why having the various male and female ‘dens’ divided between two completely different umbrella organizations is necessarily a bonus.
Not hard to imagine why the Girls Scouts as an organization are not pleased; given that the move seems fairly openly about trying to compensate for declining BSA numbers; but a ‘remains to be seen’ whether it is actually a negative for the individual girl looking to do some scouting; since the organization that will be their direct point of interaction will apparently be single gender in either case.
I hear you, but single sex organizations are really good for girls, and not good for boys.
Before someone asks, yes, this comment is based on research. No, I don’t have the citations handy. If I remember correctly, boys tend to get more of the attention, positive feedback, etc, in mixed groups., which means girls get less of it.
Did no one notice that the girls and boys will be separated? How does this help? I still have problems with an organization meant to shape young children who won’t stand firm against discrimination. Their current policies are a joke. I still can’t get over a conversation in a teacher’s lounge in which a teacher’s aide expressed fear of having a gay man in charge of the boys…under the current policy, people like her can keep going on with their uneducated hatred and fear and pass that on to kids. A big NO from me. My son will not be joining Boy Scouts. I will teach him that it is far better to stand up for others at your own personal cost than to be complicit in the discrimination of others.
So the “chartering organization” (think a sponsoring church) can set the bar for leadership “to comply with its values”.
But a sponsoring school, PTA, VFW or whatever likely isn’t going to have that discriminitory of a stance. So if you speak with the chartering organization (the committee reps) and get THEIR stance on it, you can get it in writing, and decide if that troop is aligned with your interests. If the committee is of one opinion, but a woman in the teacher’s lounge is of another, then work to get her drummed out.
The wiggle room that the BSA left the churches is an issue, but it’s still leaps and bounds better than it was. But a troop is only as good as its leadership. Find a troop that is run by scoutmasters that you feel comfortable with. AND THEN BECOME ONE. It’s way easier to drive the organization from the inside than just cede the organization that’s ostensibly about shaping our children into leaders to the bigots that are going to crank out more chuckleheads.
