Anonymous wrote:I have a boy in cub scout and a girl in girl scout. Both of my kids are the only Asian kid in their troop. DH does not care about it. I am the standout mom among mostly white families. I find cub scout are more welcoming, fun, and warmer to me than girl scout. They wany to recruit my girl to join their 99% boys dominated troops, lol.

Maybe this is just where you live? My daughter's Girl Scout troop of 12 girls has 5 caucasian girls, 4 indian-american girls, 1 korean-american girl, 1 african-american girl, and 1 mexican-american girl. It's pretty diverse!

I was a Girl Scout leader, beginning in kindergarten. We started the troop with other families from our rec soccer team, opened it up to all the girls in our elementary school class, and had about 18-20 girls at our max. (The class had maybe 2x that.) all the grades at our elementary had a troop, but most disbanded during middle school. Middle school girls have other priorities.

I have girls in Scouting America (cub scouts). We like it, there are hikes, campouts, pinewood derby. We have a pack meeting once a month and a den meeting (age group) once a month. They do activities and learn things to earn badges/belt loops. Fun things like building out of popsicles for the little ones, learning to use a pocket knife for older kids, bike riding, fishing. We do a few park cleanup days per year as well. It's what you make of it and how many involved parent volunteers you get in the group.

GS is different because if you join at the youngest age, you essentially have to form your own troop. I did that for my DD and now we have a MASSIVE troop because no one else wanted to start a troop, but everybody wanted to join one once it existed. Luckily we have a lot of involved parents but we can't add anyone else next year because it's just not feasible. I always offer to help parents find a placement or support them getting a troop off the ground, but even with the volunteer ratios met there comes a point where a troop is too big to manage a meeting well. That said, in GS the girls choose the focus, and ours want to camp, go climbing, and volunteer. So that's what we're doing.

My understanding from friends whose kids are Cub Scouts is that the troops are always there waiting for new kids and parents can just sign a kid up, pay a fee, and get slotted in even mid-year, so it's more like like joining a church than heading up a local offshoot of an established charity.

I’m the mom of a 6 year old boy and I am his Cub Scout den leader. Lots of boys (and some girls) do Cub Scouts in our Silver Spring neighborhood. Our 1st grade den (Tigers) meets once a month to complete an activity (“adventure” in Scouting language) and once a month as a pack. We also have a camping trip in the fall and spring. Cub Scouts is what you make of it. Our family tries to be “into it” because why not— we use the language and mottos of Scouts in our family. Our younger sons can’t wait to join.

Anonymous wrote:It's very common where we live. So much so that there are multiple troops per grade for Girl Scouts.

Same here, but it's very school dependent. Our school has lots of GS and BS troops, but the elementary school closest to us struggles to have troops. I had to volunteer to lead a troop when DD was in kindergarten because the first troop that formed was after full by back to school night.

Anonymous wrote:We are in bethesda and lots of scouts. I will say that since pandemic it has been much harder to find parent volunteers so it’s putting stress on the system.

OP here: thank you. We are in Chevy Chase. Why do you think there are fewer parent volunteers since the pandemic?

I am hoping to sign up our kindergartener— are the Cub Scouts typically organized by parents of kids at the same school?

Anonymous wrote:My kid is a Cub Scout Bear but they don’t do much. They are doing pinewood derby next month and have random meetings every 3 weeks with all the grades K-5, but we have never gotten any patches. I don’t know how they are supposed to be earning badges or adventures or whatever? I thought each scout needs to complete the grade’s assigned adventures. They don’t need to do this every year to advance and become an Eagle Scout after the final project?

They usually don't do much in ES beyond advancing ranks, and the occasional event like Pinewood. They'll earn Arrow of Light to graduate from Cub Scouts to Scouts, which is when they begin earning merit badges that count toward Eagle (6th grade).

My kid is a Cub Scout Bear but they don’t do much. They are doing pinewood derby next month and have random meetings every 3 weeks with all the grades K-5, but we have never gotten any patches. I don’t know how they are supposed to be earning badges or adventures or whatever? I thought each scout needs to complete the grade’s assigned adventures. They don’t need to do this every year to advance and become an Eagle Scout after the final project?

Both of my sons earned Eagle Scout (2022 & 2024). Scouts is definitely not as popular as it was 30+ years ago. Downturn was combination of rise in travel sports and the abuse scandal.
My sons managed to do both sports and scouts - it is a juggling act. And my husband and I volunteered as leaders so we could be at most campouts and get a feeling for the other adult volunteers.
I think they got more from scouting than sports. It emphasized lessons we also taught at home - service to our community and life skills ranging from cooking to finance. They met a lot of different kids through scouts.
The scouts that were in their troop ranged from athletic kids (baseball, football, wrestling, soccer, swimming, etc) to kids that do chess and robotics and D&D.

The Girl Scouts are having their National Convention this July in D.C. Girl Scouts are coming from across the country.

Most GS councils are in desperate need of leaders. Girls can attend quality day camp and resident camp this summer, and financial aid is always available. Girls who are not Scouts can attend as long as they register as Scouts for the purpose of camp. It’s a great way to get involved.

The mission of Girl Scouts is to build girls of courage, confidence, and character. There are incredible leadership and travel opportunities the higher they go. Girls learn to work as a team, to set goals and meet them, and have fun. I could not recommend it more highly. Additionally, Girl Scouts prioritize safety above all else.

I have a boy in cub scout and a girl in girl scout. Both of my kids are the only Asian kid in their troop. DH does not care about it. I am the standout mom among mostly white families. I find cub scout are more welcoming, fun, and warmer to me than girl scout. They wany to recruit my girl to join their 99% boys dominated troops, lol.

Idk about Boy Scouts but lots of Girl Scout troops - every grade level usually has a troop.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So called “boy scouts” no longer exists. The correct name is now Scouting America:

“Scouting America has collaborated with nonprofits and youth organizations to learn best practices and identify opportunities to support people and cultures through Scouting. We've also appointed diversity leads for each of our 14 Council Service Territories to partner with the leaders and troops within their territories to implement and advance our commitment to serving youth from all backgrounds.“

I find this so confusing - this organization seems to change its name every few years. Why is that?

Agree it's been confusing. Their first effort at rebranding wasn't popular (don't know why) so they settled on Scouting America. This one will stick.

I can only find one name change after they switched to letting girls join, was there another?

I've found coed scouts tends to be succesful because families can just bring all their kids to a single event. Almost all the girls in my son's den have older siblings in scouts.

Anonymous wrote:My son did Boy Scouts through elementary school. He enjoyed it but wasn’t self
Motivated enough to do Boy Scouts. He missed most of those meetings due to sport conflict and don’t follow thru on the badges.

I tried fo years to find a troop for my daughter, but they limited the size of them. The one t her school was full and the nearest was
Like 25 minutes away in traffic. It was also at a different school so not with her friends. That set up made no sense to me so she never joined.

Hi- the troop wasn’t full, they just needed more leaders. If you had volunteered it would have opened more spots.