Anonymous wrote:GS is such a positive memory from my childhood and going away for a week or two to camp was a big part of me learning independence. I still have a few friends from my Brownie troop that I didn’t go to school/church with - they are purely GS friends. Most of us dropped it a year or two into Juniors, but the Daisy and Brownie years were a lot of fun and something I looked forward to.

Why most drop GS around juniors ( grade 4 & 5)?

GS is such a positive memory from my childhood and going away for a week or two to camp was a big part of me learning independence. I still have a few friends from my Brownie troop that I didn’t go to school/church with - they are purely GS friends. Most of us dropped it a year or two into Juniors, but the Daisy and Brownie years were a lot of fun and something I looked forward to.

Anonymous wrote:Depends on the specific troop and specific girl. Can be great but is not always great.

+1 GS requires a lot from parent volunteers at the front end when the girls are young but can provide amazing girl-led experiences for the girls as they get older. But parents have so many claims on their time and attention that I don't blame anyone for not having the bandwidth to put in the effort in the Daisy/Brownie years. I do judge people who don't want to put in the work and then decide it's a bad organization for asking them for effort, which is always at least a third of responses on a GS thread on DCUM.

Depends on the specific troop and specific girl. Can be great but is not always great.

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Anonymous wrote:I say go. I found girl scouts to be incredibly girl empowering as a child.

Same, but when I explored it with my DD, I found it to be a lame shell of what it once was. Plus too many kids can’t behave and have attention issues, aren’t interested in doing activities that require work, effort, concentration. The same problems that teachers have in just about every classroom is also present in GS (and Boy Scout/Scouts). It was a hard no for us.

My DD is in girl scout. I do not know if it is due to young age, and it feels like a lot of work on parents, kids not participating or listening, and nothing empowering.

Anonymous wrote:I say go. I found girl scouts to be incredibly girl empowering as a child.

Same, but when I explored it with my DD, I found it to be a lame shell of what it once was. Plus too many kids can’t behave and have attention issues, aren’t interested in doing activities that require work, effort, concentration. The same problems that teachers have in just about every classroom is also present in GS (and Boy Scout/Scouts). It was a hard no for us.

My girls troop has been really flexible. My daughter has hyper mobility and it causes her a lot of pain so she can’t do a lot of sports or anything like that. We’ve been looking for something for her to do… she also has anxiety and it’s hard to get her interested in this. As long as she’s doing OK, but I feel like I’m failing because first of all.. I am not social. I just want my daughter to make a few friends and call it a day. That’s all I really want out of this. I don’t have any interest in the outings or anything like that. I’m not sure if that’s OK but that’s kind of where I’m at with it.. nothing has been said. I also really hate where it’s held.. the school is in the city and I’m not very fond of that aspect. 🤷🏼‍♀️ all in all I guess it’s been all right and there hasn’t been too much required.. but I’m a bit of a lazy parent when it comes to activities because I don’t really want anything to do with anybody outside of my little circle

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Anonymous wrote:If we were to do it again, I’d pick Scouts (or whatever Boy Scouts are called now) over Brownies/GS. The regular scouts do much more outdoor activities and camping.

My DD’s troop does camping all the time. That’s what her troop likes to focus on. That is a good thing about GS- the girls choose which activities to focus on.

Yes. If the leader is open to that. Ours isn’t. Or parent input.

Have you actually volunteered to get campout trained and plan and lead a campout? Because I have three parents who swore up and down they would get campout trained and do all the planning and leading for campouts, and guess what? It's three years later and they all keep saying "oh yeah, I need to do that" and then never do.

We’ve never heard a peep about that being a possibility.

Have you asked? Have you looked into it? Are YOU signed up as a volunteer for the troop? You don't need permission to do that, you can just do it. You can also contact GSCNC and find out who your membership rep is and talk to them about your concerns. They'll get you in touch with your service unit leader who can help solve the problems that you have your kid's leaders.

What I'm trying to say is that if you have your child in Girl Scouts because you want them to learn how to be a leader and gain some independence then you should also be willing to work to solve the problems that you have instead of just complaining. We had a few parents like you early on. They just complained, complained, complained but didn't actually volunteer to do anything. Thankfully they left the troop. Our troop is thriving without those families -- as the girls get older, they do so much more!

Agree, you can go into your girl scouts account and sign up as a volunteer for different roles and get trainings. Ideally your leaders will welcome that. If they don't it may be because they're used to families saying "we should do this amazing thing that will be lots of work to arrange but I'll help" but then don't follow through. So then you have a group of girls wanting to do said amazing thing and your stuck disappointing them or planning it yourself. Stop they may be wary of accepting new volunteers.

If you give a concrete suggestion and a plan to follow through, hopefully they'll be amenable. Otherwise maybe look for another troop

To op, girl scouts seems worthwhile. My troop is becoming Cadettes next year and it looks like there are a lot of opportunities even through high school !

I say go. I found girl scouts to be incredibly girl empowering as a child.

Anonymous wrote:Off shoot question - there is not a troop in my DD's school. We tried to start one but had very little interest. I was thinking about signing her up for a near by one but heard that it's harder to acclimate to the girls if you are not in their school. Is this true? My DD is a bit on the shy side.

My daughter was in a troop with 1/3 from different schools than the rest, and it was not an issue.

Off shoot question - there is not a troop in my DD's school. We tried to start one but had very little interest. I was thinking about signing her up for a near by one but heard that it's harder to acclimate to the girls if you are not in their school. Is this true? My DD is a bit on the shy side.

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Anonymous wrote:If we were to do it again, I’d pick Scouts (or whatever Boy Scouts are called now) over Brownies/GS. The regular scouts do much more outdoor activities and camping.

My DD’s troop does camping all the time. That’s what her troop likes to focus on. That is a good thing about GS- the girls choose which activities to focus on.

Yes. If the leader is open to that. Ours isn’t. Or parent input.

Have you actually volunteered to get campout trained and plan and lead a campout? Because I have three parents who swore up and down they would get campout trained and do all the planning and leading for campouts, and guess what? It's three years later and they all keep saying "oh yeah, I need to do that" and then never do.

We’ve never heard a peep about that being a possibility.

If your kid is involved with scouting, it’s pretty obvious that activities are led by volunteers. So if there is something you’d like to see happen, please feel free to step up.

Anonymous wrote:The GS business model seems pretty iffy. Troop adult volunteers control what happens and are easily able to ignore or reject suggestions from girls or parents. I guess your family's experience will depend on which adult leaders you select to spend time with your daughter. I would rather select organizations where there is consistency and assurance of what a girl will experience rather than a grab bag.

For $25 per year and a couple of volunteers, who very likely get very little in the way of any help from the other parents, yes, you are going to get a “grab bag”. Feel free to spend $3,000 on a club sport or something else that offers consistency along with a high price tag.

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Anonymous wrote:If we were to do it again, I’d pick Scouts (or whatever Boy Scouts are called now) over Brownies/GS. The regular scouts do much more outdoor activities and camping.

My DD’s troop does camping all the time. That’s what her troop likes to focus on. That is a good thing about GS- the girls choose which activities to focus on.

Yes. If the leader is open to that. Ours isn’t. Or parent input.

Have you actually volunteered to get campout trained and plan and lead a campout? Because I have three parents who swore up and down they would get campout trained and do all the planning and leading for campouts, and guess what? It's three years later and they all keep saying "oh yeah, I need to do that" and then never do.

We’ve never heard a peep about that being a possibility.

Have you asked? Have you looked into it? Are YOU signed up as a volunteer for the troop? You don't need permission to do that, you can just do it. You can also contact GSCNC and find out who your membership rep is and talk to them about your concerns. They'll get you in touch with your service unit leader who can help solve the problems that you have your kid's leaders.

What I'm trying to say is that if you have your child in Girl Scouts because you want them to learn how to be a leader and gain some independence then you should also be willing to work to solve the problems that you have instead of just complaining. We had a few parents like you early on. They just complained, complained, complained but didn't actually volunteer to do anything. Thankfully they left the troop. Our troop is thriving without those families -- as the girls get older, they do so much more!

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Anonymous wrote:If we were to do it again, I’d pick Scouts (or whatever Boy Scouts are called now) over Brownies/GS. The regular scouts do much more outdoor activities and camping.

My DD’s troop does camping all the time. That’s what her troop likes to focus on. That is a good thing about GS- the girls choose which activities to focus on.

Yes. If the leader is open to that. Ours isn’t. Or parent input.

Have you actually volunteered to get campout trained and plan and lead a campout? Because I have three parents who swore up and down they would get campout trained and do all the planning and leading for campouts, and guess what? It's three years later and they all keep saying "oh yeah, I need to do that" and then never do.

We’ve never heard a peep about that being a possibility.

Have you asked? Have you looked into it? Are YOU signed up as a volunteer for the troop? You don't need permission to do that, you can just do it. You can also contact GSCNC and find out who your membership rep is and talk to them about your concerns. They'll get you in touch with your service unit leader who can help solve the problems that you have your kid's leaders.