Are there any minorities, cool, sporty boys in Boy Scouts or Scouts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son was in scouts and completed his eagle rank. His troop was primarily white, but I think that varies from troop to troop. I know there's one troop in South Arlington that's associated with a Filipino church and virtually everyone is Filipino.

As for sporty kids, it is harder to be involved in scouts and do a sport with a big time commitment. I would ask the scoutmaster what their policy is on kids missing meetings for sports. Some will be more accommodating than others. My son plays a HS sport and it was hard to fit in scouts, especially things like getting 20 camping nights to get the camping MB or doing the leadership positions that are required for rank advancement. My son took on leadership positions and tried to get in all his camping nights during his sport's offseason. In his troop I would say that only about 25% of the kids were high school athletes. It does tend to be more popular among kids who don't participate in sports.

Both my sons are Eagle Scouts and I agree. Most scoutmasters allow flexibility with sports. A few are rigid and don’t like making accommodations for sports and make scouts choose - which usually results in the child quitting scouts. My sons’ scoutmaster was happy to have them participate in scouting in whatever way they could - even if it meant showing up to meeting still on there sport attire covered in mud or showing up late to a campout.
That said… 20 nights camping is actually really easy to do. One summer camp (6 nights) and 7 weekend campouts. My youngest completed that within his first year of scouts. Spread out over middle school - that’s only 2-3 campouts a year. Or if they go all the way through high school, it’s just one weekend campout a year.
For those that want to earn Eagle, I recommend encouraging the scout to focus on it during middle school before other things compete for their time.

This is really true about focusing on it in middle school. DS started at the end of seventh grade. Neither DH or I had any experience with scouts, and I thought that as long as he went to the meetings and campouts and he and DH volunteered for things that he would kind of naturally rank up.

It took me a year to realize that you have to a bunch of stuff on your own and use the meetings to get that stuff signed off. He and I worked to get him up to first class now at the end of ninth grade, but it’s going to be a challenge for him to get to Eagle. He just has a lot of other stuff going on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS plays on 2 Varsity teams in HS and is an Eagle Scout- thankfully he had most of his requirements finished before he hit high school. He also loves everything outdoorsy so it was a good fit for him.

Same here,but 6 day/ week baseball doesn't allow much scouting involvement now (life scout working on Eagle).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are teaching your kids to stay away from kids who aren't sufficiently "cool," please don't enroll in Scouts. It has an inclusive ethos and that attitude wouldn't be welcome.

THIS. This right here.

+2

[Anonymous]

My son’s troop is mostly white but still several minorities and plenty of HS boys who play big team sports. They are a great group of kids who are learning responsibility, leadership, project management, and community service. And they spend lots of time outdoors. It’s fantastic.

I don’t know whether any of them are “cool” and I don’t care. My kid loves it and it’s healthy for him.

[Anonymous]

What’s interesting is that while I was progressing through scouts I saw the troop for what it was. Some cool some capable and some on the spectrum. But the diverse group taught us how to work together and create a successful dynamic outside of our parents direction. We got rained on. We got cold. We built fires and most of us made rank with ~50-70% making Eagle at some point late in HS.

I have boys in Scouts. We enjoy the adventures. I’m trying to recreate some of the better parts of what I remember.

And you wanna know what happened to those cool kids who weren’t in scouts? They ain’t so cool now that they have homes that need fixing. Crafts that need crafting and problems that need solutions.

Some of my best friends in the Fraternity & college were Eagle Scouts. Extremely capable men who have gone on to own businesses, build wealth and generally maintain a moral compass that lands them high into their professional arenas.

[Anonymous]

Lots of pedos still in Boy Scouts?

[Anonymous]

No more than in sports or cool groups whatever that means. Wherever there are groups of men and children this will always be a possible issue but scouts have plenty of protections now. All communication and activities must have a minimum of two adults involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots of pedos still in Boy Scouts?

I’m sure. They are wherever kids gather.

[Anonymous]

My sporty boys are scouts. And in our troop (not local to DC) there are also a lot of different skin colors which I agree isn’t typical of scouting. They’re still mostly conservative families though - really well raised, nice kids. You should visit a few troops to see how you like the kids before joining. We have some families who travel past a couple of other troops to come to our troop because they like it better (including white kids FWIW).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of pedos still in Boy Scouts?

I’m sure. They are wherever kids gather.

It’s a different culture these days. Lots of awareness about safety for kids in that way. I feel much safer about scouts than any other activity they do. Soccer training for example has the kids alone with the coach sometimes but that’s not allowed to happen in scouts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My sporty boys are scouts. And in our troop (not local to DC) there are also a lot of different skin colors which I agree isn’t typical of scouting. They’re still mostly conservative families though - really well raised, nice kids. You should visit a few troops to see how you like the kids before joining. We have some families who travel past a couple of other troops to come to our troop because they like it better (including white kids FWIW).

To be more clear, the darker skin color families are usually conservative like the lighter skin families and they’re all lovely kids!

[Anonymous]

Our scout group is at least half minorities. It looks exactly like the percentage of races attending public school. Some groups are run better than others. Sometimes it's the troop and other times it's the year.

[Anonymous]

My girl does not like sports, and she is the only Asian in this girl scout troop. It is all white, except her. I don't think she has learned much from daisies. She treats it as girl group playdates, and she loves it. I see some dramas in girl scouts. My boy is not a cool boy, but he is involved actively in sports. I have attended a few informational meetings for cub scouts, but I don't know how I could find a troop that can make it work with sport schedules. Sport schedules are not released till the beginning of each seasons, I don't know how to ask troops or dens awkward questions upfront like how many sessions can we miss?

Another question, Is it okay for a kid to join both girl scout and cub scout in different troops? They are hosted at different schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Minorities, yes
Cool kids, no

I disagree. there are about a 1/3 who are cool No one runs around saying what rank they are as school , for sure

My boys are scouts . It’s not boy scouts any more btw . We all like it a lot

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Minorities, yes
Cool kids, no

I disagree. there are about a 1/3 who are cool No one runs around saying what rank they are as school , for sure

My boys are scouts . It’s not boy scouts any more btw . We all like it a lot

I guess it matters how you define cool kids. If you mean kids who are the male equivalent of judgmental queen bees or the ones at keg parties on the weekend, probably not. But our troop has boys on JV sports teams, boys on travel sports team, boys with girlfriends, boys who play in cool bands, etc. Theh do tend athletic because most of them will do the high adventure summer camps. This summer my son is doing a 65 mile backpacking trip with massive elevation climbs — personally, I could not do it.
I’ve said before on this forum that if you’re the kind of person who worries a lot about whether your kid is hanging out with the cool kids, scouts is probably not the right vibe for you. If your kid is secure enough on their sense of self that they can be friendly with all types of people: that’s a different thing.