Girl scout parent involvement

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who signs up for troop leader should expect to lead ALL of the meetings themselves, without parental help, period. There are always two troop leaders to share that responsibility, and they get to choose whether to meet weekly/biweekly/monthly according to what works for them.

Our troop was pretty low-key, so most of the time, our meetings would just be a circle-time style routine, an activity checked out from the GS HQ library, and a snack, which the parents would take turns bringing. I know a lot of troops go way above and beyond this. If the parents are pushing for anything EXTRA beyond barebones meetings, and the troop leaders can’t/don’t want to do it all, then THE PARENTS NEED TO HELP.

Beyond the meetings themselves, anything extra that the troop does, whether it’s cookie sales (not every troop does this!), going on field trips, camping, parents should expect to help. If they don’t, then they shouldn’t expect anything beyond a basic GS meeting.

Not sure where you are getting this- this varies by troop. Parental expectations for a troop should be that the troop leaders will run it the way that the disclose they will run it. If a troop leader wants to run a troop with the expectation that they can lead ALL of the meetings, period, then that is fine. However, if. troop leader says that he/she will not run the troop unless parents help lead some or all of the meetings then that is fine, too. There is no universal method here. The DC based service unit has gotten away from having one designated troop leader or even requiring that a troop leader be at each meeting.

+1

If you don’t like the way a particular troop does things, you don’t have to join that troop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is in a brownie troop. I’m the money manager. The two troop leaders and I plan most of the events. We encourage parents to lead or organize an event. A few parents have hosted in their home or planned or suggested an event. I would say half the parents have led one event over the past 2 years. The other half just attend or drop off.

Me again. My sons did cub scouts and we never planned anything. The pack had a monthly meeting and a monthly all age event. Then our den leader held meetings every other week. Sometimes we would do an outing but mostly attended the all age monthly outing and just went to the every other week meeting.

Very different from Girl Scouts where there are no all age meetings or events. Our troop does participate in some service unit events.

This isn't true - our Service Unit in DC just hosted an encampment which was for all ages; every year there's a World Thinking Day, Founders Day, and National Girl Scout Day which have all-ages activities; we're about to host the National Meeting which is all ages.

It's not every month like clockwork but it's false to say there are no all-age events in Girl Scouts.

[Anonymous]

I swear it's the same Boy Scout mom that starts this same thread over and over again so she has an opportunity to trash Girl Scouts. Get a life, lady.

[Anonymous]

Cub Scouts Packs tend to have more kids in them and that means more parents to volunteer. A Pack has 6 Dens and can split out the jobs between those Dens, which makes it far easier to fill positions. For example, most Packs have a few adults that are Baloo trained for camping purposes. There are other adults who handle popcorn sales. There are other adults who handle the social activities. The Den Leaders are able to focus on the Den Specific activities and the other adult volunteers handle the Pack specific activities. The work load can be spread out among a large number of parents.

The Girl Scout Troops I know are essentially the size of a Den in Cub Scouts so there are fewer adults to handle the activities. I think this is why I hear about more Girl Scout Troops that don't camp or do certain activities because they don't have an adult who wants to go through the training to do another thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yep this is typical. GS requires a ton of parent direction that only gets more intense as the girls get older. I have been a troop leader for four years and am extremely burnt out because it is a lot of work and the parents are resistant to helping. I would also say that at least for our troop, the girls who have stayed are largely ones who are neuodivergent or at least quirky and don't participate in other activities, so the meetings can also be very difficult to manage. If the troop would not fold without me, I would absolutely quit.

This sounds like a you problem. In my experience, the girls take over much more as they get older. Sounds like you are controlling and the other parents don't like you (probably because you are an ableist a-hol*).

[Anonymous]

I'm a long term GS leader and Boy Scout (now Scouting America) volunteer as well.

This really depends on troops. Sometimes leaders get burned out and need more help. If families want the troop to survive, they may need to volunteer to help more. Some troops have a system where they ask each parent to sign up to co-lead and help plan one meeting per year. I used a sign-up genius when I did that and just asked each family to sign up for one meeting -- some parents were better than others at actually helping plan and implement. I usually gave some ideas about badges the girls were interested in, but also tried to get parents to pick things that they were skilled at (like some parents might be better at helping with the hiking badge, and others might be better with the dance badge, or the physical fitness badge, or cooking or first aid...I found that if parents did something they were psyched about, that usually worked better.)

I don't know how often your troop meets. Mine always met once per month and then usually did one other thing per month that was either a field trip related to our meeting theme, or an activity that was planned by Council or the Service Unit. For instance, each year, we did the Service Unit encampment and the Service Unit Thinking Day -- that was two events right there. Some years our Service Unit also did things like renting out a facility like Zavazone or the ice skating rink, so that was a third. GS Council does stuff like GS Day at Udvar-Hazy, etc., -- that could be a fourth event. We always had an end of year party. So we could usually get to 9 non-meeting "events" at year pretty easily with minimal work from me. If the troop leaders are planning weekly meetings, I can absolutely see why they would be totally burned out.

Any parent that is an MD, RN, PA, firefighter, EMT, etc. is already automatically first aid qualified and fits your need for a first aider for a field trip. If you don't have a troop camp certified person, sometimes you can team up with an older troop (cadettes) which tend to be smaller, and then the teen girls can also maybe help you with the younger girls. Also the Service Unit encampment doesn't require a troop certified camp person. I always found that it was easy to get parents to volunteer to help chaperone or to bring certain things if assigned -- just harder to get people to volunteer to plan meetings.

Sometimes you can get a Cadette girl to help at your Daisy meetings in exchange for SSL hours or Silver Trefoil or even Bronze Award credit. They can be a really helpful extra set of hands with active little ones. If you meet at a location that is close to a middle school after school, that can really work well. Check with your Service Unit leader that can send out a request to see if anyone is interested, or contact troop leaders at the MS directly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep this is typical. GS requires a ton of parent direction that only gets more intense as the girls get older. I have been a troop leader for four years and am extremely burnt out because it is a lot of work and the parents are resistant to helping. I would also say that at least for our troop, the girls who have stayed are largely ones who are neuodivergent or at least quirky and don't participate in other activities, so the meetings can also be very difficult to manage. If the troop would not fold without me, I would absolutely quit.

This sounds like a you problem. In my experience, the girls take over much more as they get older. Sounds like you are controlling and the other parents don't like you (probably because you are an ableist a-hol*).

Hmm okay. I guess I can see why you took that from my comment, but you couldn't be more wrong. My non Girl Scout kid is autistic. My point is just that in my particular case, it is a hard-to-manage group of kids. That isn't ableist. It happens to be a fact. Thanks for calling volunteers names though!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep this is typical. GS requires a ton of parent direction that only gets more intense as the girls get older. I have been a troop leader for four years and am extremely burnt out because it is a lot of work and the parents are resistant to helping. I would also say that at least for our troop, the girls who have stayed are largely ones who are neuodivergent or at least quirky and don't participate in other activities, so the meetings can also be very difficult to manage. If the troop would not fold without me, I would absolutely quit.

This sounds like a you problem. In my experience, the girls take over much more as they get older. Sounds like you are controlling and the other parents don't like you (probably because you are an ableist a-hol*).

This response is not in keeping with the GS spirit. Being kinder to the PPs, I would not that there is a certain luck of the draw in maintaining troops as the girls age. Girls tend to join troops when they are very young, before personalities are formed. Some girls reach an age where they are very introverted and don't like group activities, or they only like to do activities with their close friends and not with the sort-of-random grouping that is a girl scout troop. As the parent of neurodivergent kids and also a long-time scout leader in both organizations, it is accurate that scout troops may have a higher than average rate of neurodivergence, precisely because troops are welcoming. For some kids, that is a turnoff and they may not be willing to be in that kind of inclusive community and they may leave the troop because of that. It is sometimes also challenging because sometimes the parents might not provide the appropriate information or support for the scout leader to support a neurodivergent scout. It is a recognized issue within scout leadership that scout leaders, unlike for instance teachers, aren't really trained on difference in this way, and so unless the leader happens to have this experience from their own life, it can be challenging for the scout leader. This is something that leaders have asked Council to provide more assistance with, so that leaders can appropriate support the scouts. I think its important for scout leaders to reach out to the parents and ask "how can i help your child," as I know that sometimes parents of children with SN feel bad about being the squeaky wheel, or don't want to highlight their child's challenges if they aren't already apparent.
I had two different troops -- one had fabulous parents who were really supportive and appreciative of what I was doing as a volunteer. The other one had some parents who tended to see it all as "my job" and not theirs, and it was a little challenging. I think parents should at least be appreciative, even if they don't have the bandwidth or skill set to be really helpful.
I also agree that girls should take more ownership as they age, but that does sometimes lead to an increased need for parental assistance. The little girls are easy to please, and you can do meetings that are easy to plan. The older girls want more outings, more travel, more excitement, all of which requires more money and more parents who are willing to help chaperone, drive, maybe call vendors or community groups or specialists, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cub scout at K to 5th grade is mainly troop leader & den leader run with minimal parent supports or volunteers. How about girl scout at K to 5th grade level? Our girl scout troop leaders seem to be stressed out and often ask for parent volunteers to lead or plan the meetings/outings. We have 16 Daisies bridging to brownies in this fall.

I overheard that our cookie leader may step down, and troop leaders really want some parents to step up to help out to plan and lead occasionally instead of just dropping off their girls or stepping on the side chit chat as moms hangout. Unfortunately we do not have many parents interesting in devoting time doing so. I am not a troop leader, but I have helped out a few times to lead and run the meeting. It is not easy for me, but at least I have tried my best. I am a bit worried about this troop's future. Do other girl scout troop normally rely on other parents to help out at early elementary school level?

I have kids in both and volunteer for both. GS moms make it mandatory for each parent in the troop to do various things.

For Scouting America I volunteer because I want to and the troop needs volunteers. There are some parents who do nothing. I supposed we have enough parents who have stepped and and do A LOT that those other parents do not need to. I assume they are volunteering elsewhere

If your GS leaders are asking for help, it is probably because they need it. So step up and encourage others to as well.

Neither of these organizations is paying for the troops to operate. It HAS TO BE THE Parents. They will only be as good as the effort of the volunteers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who signs up for troop leader should expect to lead ALL of the meetings themselves, without parental help, period. There are always two troop leaders to share that responsibility, and they get to choose whether to meet weekly/biweekly/monthly according to what works for them.

Our troop was pretty low-key, so most of the time, our meetings would just be a circle-time style routine, an activity checked out from the GS HQ library, and a snack, which the parents would take turns bringing. I know a lot of troops go way above and beyond this. If the parents are pushing for anything EXTRA beyond barebones meetings, and the troop leaders can’t/don’t want to do it all, then THE PARENTS NEED TO HELP.

Beyond the meetings themselves, anything extra that the troop does, whether it’s cookie sales (not every troop does this!), going on field trips, camping, parents should expect to help. If they don’t, then they shouldn’t expect anything beyond a basic GS meeting.

Troop leaders do not have to lead every mtg. They should organize and set a schedule and can give out responsibilities as they would like. It can also change every year. It is a lot ask for one parent to organize, schedule, coordinate and plan/lead each mtg. That would be a lot and I'd quit!