These stories are from at least three years back so I hope I'm safe in sharing them.
I have seen kids struggle as victims of their parent's problems. Once during introductions to a large group of Scouts the teen Boy Scout leader asked the Scouts to tell their name and two things about themselves such as their favorite hobbies or sports or activities. Everyone was naming a favorite video game and telling what sports they play on. This one boy (who was always very quiet and sullen) said his name then said, "My parents are divorced." That is all he said. I couldn't imagine a boy who identified himself wholly by the fact that he was a child of divorce instead of sharing that he likes to play a sport or enjoys video game playing. My heart ached.
That night, I told this to a fellow Scout leader who is a high school teacher who works at a vocational education school with disadvantaged inner city kids and he said, "Christine you have to realize you can't save them all." He understood what I was feeling. I didn't even have to say what I was thinking, that I wished I could do something to help the kid. He got it. In that moment I learned that he and I had something in common: we think the same way and we both wish we could save them all. Until then, we didn’t know that about each other.
Another time I had to talk to the divorced boy's father to confirm the pick-up time after camp. I had never spoken to him or seen him at a meeting before. He yelled at me, swearing, and said I had to call his ex-wife and the pick-up it wasn't his problem. I called the mother (who I'd never seen) and she yelled at me using profanity, out of the blue, as all I did was ask about the pick-up for goodness sake! What the heck did I do to deserve being verbally abused in that manner? I did nothing to them, and I was polite! She yelled that she was too busy for that and she'd send up her teenaged daughter to pick her son up (it was a 90 minute drive each way so it was not a simple trip). Had the parents been better organized and more involved they could have asked one of us to drop the kid off at home on our way past, it would have been simple. I had never been treated that way by two strangers nor witnessed parents who acted so badly ever before. Later I wept for that boy because I had a new view of what his life may be like. If the parents treat me that way, what is the boy's home life like?
Even more emotionally crushing was the boy who kept seeking me out at day camp to talk to. He was a boy who seemed gifted to me, mature and smart with excellent thinking skills. He also seemed to have some social challenges in that he could relate better to adults than to his same-aged peers. He avoided the other kids and didn't seem happy to just do the fun "boy things" at camp. All he wanted to do was talk to me. I tried to redirect him over and over but it was hopeless, the kid was starving to have someone listen to him so I listened.
He told me about was how his father was slowly dying from a progressive chronic disease which first appeared a few years prior. He told me of all he now had to do around the house and for his father since his father was now immobilized and using a wheelchair and nearly housebound. I was thinking to myself that I was surprised, as I knew the father as an acquaintance in the Scout leadership community and saw his dedication when working as Cubmaster. Once I heard this boy's pain how could I ignore him and not listen when that's what he needed? So I kept listening.
When I said I'd help out at day camp I never imagined that a boy in pain would use me as a psychologist of sorts. Was this what I signed up for when I filled out the BSA adult volunteer application? Shouldn't this kid be talking to someone more qualified than me? I was just a mom trying to help the Council by putting on a fun daytime summer activities program for kids.
When you are involved with Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts you never know what will happen. These are real kids with real lives and some have real problems.
I have seen clashes with parents and other typical problems that have happened due to misunderstanding or miscommunication or ignorance or mistakes. That’s life. It happens everywhere.
I witnessed an incident involving fire and an aerosol can that could have gone very wrong but luckily did not (and was against BSA and Council policy to have aerosol cans at camp). I had to decide whether to pretend I’d never seen that or whether to report it. The ensuing fallout was a big deal but reporting it was the right thing to do. First year Scouts were present that needed to learn that what they saw was unacceptable and should not be repeated lest the next time serious injury may occur.
I was there when kids were fooling around and laughing but later the young Scout accused the others of a hazing type of bullying. Leadership had to handle the situation, talk to the parents, the boys, and then address the Troop about hazing and bullying. However in the process of the discussions it was said that the boy was taunting the older kids and they just got rough by accident. The boy had kept laughing and didn't indicate it had gone too far. That seemed in line with what I knew of those older kids, they were good kids. It was a shame it went too far. Kids need to learn to have a voice and to use it. If you give verbal signals that everything's okay and if your body language also indicates it, it is confusing to others.
I've seen kids taunt others until there is backlash, then the taunter accuses the others of bullying him. (There seems to be a misunderstanding of what bullying is. The term lately is used whenever something negative happens to anyone.) Kids who provoke and intentionally irritate others need to accept responsibility for their actions and realize if they push people's buttons long enough, you can make a person snap.
I saw a reckless kid doing dangerous things with knives, which was followed up later by even more dangerous things that were seen by other adults and Scouts. So other leaders confiscated the knife. I saw how badly the parents came down on them. "How dare you deny my son the right to play with his knife at camp!" The boy quit the program soon thereafter.
I've seen boys not living the Scout law. It is not always easy to handle all these things because small things happen in normal social interactions between the Scouts that the adults are not always aware of. The job of a leader is not to micro-manage the kids. It’s not appropriate and that would be weird to sit right in everyone’s face listening in on everything.
There was a mean kid who was so rude to the younger Scouts when he was in his leadership position. He kept calling them maggots. When around adults the kid flew straight. I heard this story after-the-fact from my son. A Patrol of Boy Scouts failed to elect him to be their Patrol Leader he quit the program. He felt wronged and that he deserved to have won, he told them. He accused the other kids as playing favorites to vote for the kid who won. He yelled at them and called them maggots again. He didn’t see that his meanness when in a leadership role was not acceptable to the younger Scouts. Good riddance. No one missed him after he quit. It’s too bad no one knew of the maggot thing beforehand so that a leader could have spoken to him about living more of the Boy Scout oath and not being a bully. Also he probably told his parents of favoritism and mistreatment as the reason he wanted to quit, and I’d not be surprised if they were angry that their son was wronged. If they only knew the truth.
Scouting is not a perfect program for the simple reason that it is made up of imperfect human kids and led by imperfect human adult volunteers. The Boy Scouting program’s structure and ideals are sound and worthwhile. Parents, leaders, and the boys should be open-minded as to the typical challenges when working with other real people: Scouting is not exempt from normal childhood developmental behavior. If you take things with a grain of salt and realize that mistakes and accidents do happen to people even with an excellent Troop you will be better off. It’s just because that’s the way life is: people are people. If you focus on the positive rather than overly focus on the unavoidable negatives then you will be able to feel gratitude for the Scouting program.