If you’ve been following my posts, you know I can be a bit on the protective side with my children. We are careful with what they read, what they watch, and with whom they associate. It’s out of a desire to protect their innocence, and thus far it’s working. After hearing too many horror stories, we reluctantly went to check out the local Scouting troops in our area. Each of them had something that I couldn’t reconcile with our parenting and homeschooling style. Some conflicted with our faith, some were boy-led, and another simply had too many undisciplined children.
It was a difficult thing for me to tell my all-boy son that he’d have to wait on Scouting. Fortunately I didn’t have to. A friend of ours introduced us to Lone Scouting. Lone Scouting is for boys who don’t want to join a troop for specific reasons. One of those reasons is being homeschooled. Many of the benefits of Scouting without the negatives? That sounded good to me! David is self-disciplined and I knew he could work on the various merit badges without a troop. We discussed it, and were convinced that this was the way to go!
Unfortunately, the way wasn’t a very smooth one. We ran in to substantial resistance from our local council. The person in charge of Lone Scouts insisted that it was for boys with medical handicaps. I politely referred him to the Boy Scout Handbook, but it was clear he wasn’t going to listen. Going over his head got a request for a meeting with someone who told me straight up that he was going to see which troop fit us best and we would basically have to live with it. Not one to be discouraged easily, I went around them to another council. It was like night and day! We went to their office and met with a senior executive who gave us a brief interview, then helped us choose the handbooks and accoutrements we’d need to get us started. I was so relieved, and David was so excited to get started.
Start he did.
Unfortunately, life gets in the way sometimes. While he is pretty self-disciplined, his mother has a long way to go in that department. I lost paperwork, filled out forms incorrectly, didn’t get things mailed, and generally made a mess of things. For almost two years, he worked on requirements for his badges. Yet he had none of the badges 100% finished. 95% of the requirements had been checked off, yes. But I had failed to finish the things the adult leader needed to do. His dad was working long hours and the burden had fallen to me. He despaired that he’d ever finish any of them.
Thank God for our local homeschooling list. One of the mothers had written a short blurb about a Scouting troop that was part-homeschoolers and “all good”. It was something that stuck in the back of my mind (and my inbox). It would come to the forefront shortly thereafter.
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David Finds a Troop