to be a bit grumpy with cub leaders?

[Mummyinthedark]

Well, DSs went to a cub camp this weekend. They had a lovely time despite the rain but...seemed to me to be poorly supervised on a few counts. Things that have made me grumpy are:

• neither DS cleaned teeth or washed (3 days 2 nights) the whole time and are adamant they were never asked or told to do this - or to change their clothes
• dinner finished very late each night - one night it was around 11.30 pm before they got the last cup of hot chocolate done - admittedly this is according to one of the children there, may be an exaggeration
• they got back an hour and half late. Given that they'd all had a big weekend and had to get up for school today this was not helpful.

• one boy who is a good friend of DS2 spent half a night with most of his body outside of the tent so got very wet and cold and is now unwell

Yes, I do appreciate the hard work and effort put in by the leaders and am normally quick to remind other parents how brilliant it is that they do all that they do just for fun...but, really, AIBU to think they should be a bit more organised and a bit more on top of routine and health/hygiene for the children in their care?

I didn't exactly expect them to go meekly to sleep at 8 pm but they don't seem to have been encouraged to settle down and given the sort of routine I usually associate with the scouting association.

My ds1 was on a cub camp this weekend too. I EXPECT him to come home in a filthy mud splatted grimy state. I expect to find the clean clothes buried under the wet manky ones where he has "packed" his bag and most of all I expect to find a beautifully folded, clean and untouched flannel and toothbrush

However YANBU about the non-communication for collection.

Nice to have someone who listens! Think of all the positives they got out of it and ignore the rest.

I used to be a Brownie leader; on pack holiday we would ask them to brush their teeth and wash etc, but not stand over the to make sure they did it. I'm sure a few girls didn't bother, but at ages between 8 and 10, they were old enough to know it should be done. And have you ever tried to get a dozen hyped up excited kids to sleep on time?!

11:30 in bed is standard for night time: keep 'em active until they are begging for bed, and they will have more sleep than had they been put to bed earlier, when they still have plenty of energy for teddy fights, farting competitions and rubbish ghost stories. Early night tonight, and he'll be back to normal, only with fab memories.

Perhaps if more parents had pitched in to help strike camp, they would have been back sooner. Taking down tents in the rain, and when you are knackered, is no fun.

A parent once arrived to collect their Grubby, grumpy, tired Cub from me - and gave me a home- made lasagne in return. Made my week.

Well my expectations of how the camp would work were clearly not in line with the leaders or of other posters here, so I need to keep that in mind, and ask a few more questions if they go again. I did think it would be like the camps I went on as a guide which were, as others have experienced and noted here, quite regimented.

I did get them to pack their own stuff specifically so they would know where things like toothpaste were and do agree, they are old enough to take responsibility for this, and washing etc. We've talked about this today. But I did expect them to be firmly reminded based on my experience.

I can see I am not up to date and/or confusing Guide and Scout approaches - another learning for me as I had thought they were closely aligned culturally.

The DSs have been away with school and other groups - including Beavers - before so it wasn't their first trip and they had managed to at least do teeth before.

Thanks for all the comments, it's been helpful.

7.30 is not really late for 7/8yo's, even on a night before school.

'I can see I am not up to date and/or confusing Guide and Scout approaches - another learning for me as I had thought they were closely aligned culturally.'

Sadly this is often not the case, have a search on MN because there have been numerous threads about it.
I've always been in the camp of wanting scouts to stay single-sex because of the different approaches, although I'm in the minority. Guides is single sex, scouts is not.
DS's troop has 4 girls in it, but they are happy with the different nature of the activities, and the more robust approach to many things, so they have mucked in with how things are run rather than wanting to make it more like the guides. Including the lack of individually-created washing up bowl stands for example.

Beavers are away for one night, not 3. The Leaders are aware it's likely to be the first night away. They are usually indoors. By cubs, they are a couple of years older, and a couple of years more experienced, and ready to be trusted to do what they are asked to do (in terms of washing or teeth cleaning), and able to take the consequences if not. Same with your own children at home - you start watching over them, then you let them get on with it themselves as they get a bit older.
Some excellent posts by FallenCaryatid, in particular.

I was just doing some totting up this weekend (when 4 of my family were away on 3 different camps) that ds has done 144 nights away now as a Beaver,Cub, Scout and Explorer, and dd1 has racked up 101 as a cub and a Scout. What they've gained from those experiences, is worth a worn out washing machine, and some grumpiness in the week after they get back exhausted from camps, by any measure. Oh, and neither of them has any trouble with their teeth through the odd slapdash weekend of hygiene.

On the rare occasions any of them have been late back, I am just full of sympathy for the LEaders who have had to manage the situation, and then still have to sort their own stuff and get sorted for work the next day. Wouldn't occur to me to be negative in any way.

Hey FallenCaryatid, we're making mini pioneering washing up stands!

You could start your own troop, for the more genteel cub?
I'm sure there's a market for it, bridging the gap between scouts and guides and appealing to the more nurturing sort of mother.
I rather like the idea that come the Fall of Civilisation, DS will be a survivor, in style.

Really?
Explorers either seem to use a plastic bag in a hollow in the ground, lick the plates clean or tie them together and dangle them in a stream.

Yep, I agree with the masses here,
Less,moaning, be grateful,
I am a brownie leader, it's hard knackering work,
Good fun and rewarding, but the parents are the worst part of it.
A thank you sometimes, goes a long way !!!!!

I can just see this as a cartoon, with guides in their marigolds and pinnies sneering at cubs with a nice bowl of sand and a pine-cone scourer.

Part of the fun of things like that is the not having to brush your teeth (despite being reminded by leaders!), staying up late (11.30 is early.. I have known groups to still be chatting at 5am, the next night they were all asleep by 7!) and generally having a fantastic time away from home!

Yes that means they will be grubby and grumpy when they get home. But nothing a hot bath and early night won't sort!

Can I also say, yet again in my eulogy for scouts, that my son has Asperger's syndrome and struggled with social relationships and communal activities.
The scouts have always been as inclusive as possible and listened well, given him boundaries and opportunities that the families of his peers never let him into.
They helped him form a few tentative friendships and supported him in one of the few out of school activities he could maintain. Which is why he's still joyful about heading off for a 10 mile hike in the rain and the dark.
Scout volunteers are amazing and wonderful people.

Dh has been one of those parent helpers and has given up many a weekend for cubs and scouts in rainy soggy fields.

They do their absolute best and everything is clearly explained to them but the children do get up to some daft things like running about with just their socks and pj's on in the mud despite being told/asked repeatedly not to.

By cub age I'd expect the sheer unpleasantness of sleeping with half yourself out in the rain to bring about an obvious conclusion as to what to do about it. Or should the adults patrol the tents the entire night?

The only thing I can suggest is that you go along and join in and then you can keep an eye on your own dc. That's how come dh started going. Mind you mine still come back in a humungous mess. Including dh But they always always say what a fantastic time they've had.

Try not to worry about it OP.

Some of my best memories of going on school trips when I was about 9/10 involve being absolutely filthy, out late because of a camp fire with stories and half cooked/totally burned sausages, being allowed to play hide and seek outside in the dark in what was probably a very secure garden area but which felt unsupervised and wild and coming home with three day old face paint on because I refused to get washed until my mum had seen the butterfly pattern (now dirt streaked and reduced to a few very faint multicoloured blobs).

I'd had a small fight with a girl I hated which ended with us both falling in a very small stream massive river, fallen off a horse, been allowed to shoot rifles and bows and arrows, whizzed through a forest on a zip wire and stood knee deep in pig poo feeding nearly newborn piglets. I doubt I brushed my teeth once the entire week we were there and I know for certain that one boy who was covered in chicken poo on the first day (he put a chicken on his head ) didn't wash his hair at all that week, just brushed it out a bit. It was the best time ever.

Your boys will have loved it, whatever they did, however late up they were one night or how late back on the bus coming home, no matter how many times they did or didn't get washed, they will remember this trip as being a lot of fun. And that's what you wanted isn't it? For them to have a lot of fun and make some lasting memories.

Mummyinthedark - a sense of humour may be useful to overcome all this !

can i just add that joining cubs was the best thing ever for my ds. he often came back from camp mucky and damp but he had a brilliant time on all the camps he went on especially the summer one which lasted a week.
so what if they had late nights and didn't clean/change clothes much (at all :D) its all part of the growing up experience.
i think anyone who takes kids away on weekend trips need a big thank you for the time and fun they give, not gripes/moans because the kids teeth wern't cleaned for two days

YABU. Either become a helper (although you may be viewed as a party pooper ), or try not to sweat the small stuff, and go with the flow. Kids will be kids.

Just come back from a Woodcraft Folk camp. I didn't wash much because it was too flipping cold

Thread has been a bit too long and time-consuming for me to read. I think YABtotallyU to be grumpy with the cub leaders. The boys are 8-10. They are told to clean their teeth, but they aren't nagged. The leaders may not sleep with the boys for child protection reasons.

Also, do you really think that the leaders wanted to be 1 1/2 hours late home? Each time my boys and DBs went away with the cubs they came back very dirty and not having really changed their clothes. They always had the best time and we were always very grateful indeed to the leaders who put themselves out for no financial reward whatsoever and having to use up lots of their own holiday allowance and free time for the meetings.

I went on guide camps, we used to stay up much later than i was allowed at home, as I am an early riser. I used to get overtired and horrid, i got sent back for a lie in once and actually that is when I learnt that I need a lot of sleep and get narky if i dont get it, huge life lesson there.

We were in charge of how often we washed (one campsite you had to pay to shower!).

The only thing I see as a problem is that the boy was stuck outside, but really I think one of them should have had the iniative to seek help.

"one boy who is a good friend of DS2 spent half a night with most of his body outside of the tent so got very wet and cold and is now unwell"

why didn't he put the rest of his body in the tent?

Also it's not up to them to ensure that your kids brush their teeth.
yabu