AIBU to say that we are not here to provide tour child's education.

[Curerofsouls]

This was prompted by the homeschooling thread and just reminded me of an email I received from a potential new attendee in our scout group. The parents have been homeschooling their children and appear quite target driven with things they would like the child to learn or cover. The parent sent me their child's learning objectives and asked how we could meet them!
I replied politely and stated that I was unable to go theough his learning objectives but would be happy to send our itinerary for the term so the parents could see. Not a happy camper the parent proceeded to tell me how I should be linking with homeschooling learning objectives. I told them I was not being paid to be a teacher so wouldn't be doing that but child was still welcome to attend. Needless to say he never showed anyway. I was discussing it with a colleague today and she thought I was mean🤣
What do you reckon...mean or not?

Hah. You’re not mean, the parents are stupid. You’re completely right

OMG not mean at all!

Oh good grief! No of course not. The whole point of scouting and similar activities is that it's not school. Poor kid tbh.

You were absolutely right, i volunteered with scouts for years and the expectations from the parents put upon volunteers always amazed me!
I always made a point of stating we were all volunteers at meetings/presentation nights with parents etc because i honestly think lots of them thought we were paid!

Goodness no!! Hold firm. Scouting is there to provide something quite different.

That's hilarious.

Definitely not unreasonable and that's coming from a parent who is currently homeschooling. Some people expect the world, don't they.

As a teacher, I have completed forms to support when the children are working towards awards that they say are linked to things we've covered. But that is just to be nice and I wouldn't expect a club to do the same.
You are not a homeschool tutor. They can use your itinerary to support them in their planning, not the other way round.

Haha no. Entitled much?! The parents are being rather unreasonable

As a homeschooler of four who’ve been scouts I’d just say you’ve met a crazy one. Every walk of life has some fruit loops.

Haha, I was worried I was being a bit cheeky when I asked the leader of DS' sports group to write a short assessment of DS's fine and gross motor skills based on his knowledge of DS when we were starting OT assessment. This is a whole new level!

Some parents are just ridiculous. Puts me off working with children TBH.

Scouting programme is to benefit all the kids, not just one...

Sounds like their kids need an activity where they aren't centre of yhe universe

YANBU. What princely sum was this parent going to pay for this bespoke learning arrangement?

But their one kid out of a troupe is the special one you see?
The one you must devote your time and resources too, the others don't matter as much as their child...

(No you weren't mean, probably far more polite than I'd have been.)

Nope, quite reasonable not to do that. I used to hand over the volunteer forms to parents like that and point out that we were always looking for new leaders with exciting initiatives. See also: parents who complained that 1.5hrs a week wasn't long enough as it didn't give them time to themselves (Beaver Scouts, so 7 year olds!), parents who wanted camping trips to last all weekend 9friday to Sunday afternoon) so they could go away (again, Beavers) and parents who wondered how come I needed subs when I was volunteering anyway- why wasn't it free?

Not mean at all.

I quit a similar volunteer role after becoming fed up with parents complaining about the lack of educational content related to the activities we put on.

So they expect you to put everything else on hold and adjust the scouting groups activities in order to further the aims of their home schooling?

Don't really understand your colleague's thinking tbh.

You volunteer your time and energy running this group and she thinks that because you can't/won't agree to what these entitled parents want you're 'mean'?

In what way exactly does she think that makes you mean?

Wow - you're not an extension of school.
You're a completely separate organisation that provides for children in a completely unique way!

Imagine the grief she'd give you if she decided you were the reason he hadn't met an objective?!

Yanbu and sounds like you've had a lucky escape from that family!

Not mean imo but realistic.
I can only think some people think guide leaders are paid.

Sorry scout leaders, same idea though.

@TiredButDancing

Haha, I was worried I was being a bit cheeky when I asked the leader of DS' sports group to write a short assessment of DS's fine and gross motor skills based on his knowledge of DS when we were starting OT assessment. This is a whole new level!

That's not cheeky at all, that's the kind of thing people don't mind doing. You haven't asked them to change everything they're doing to follow your planning.

Perhaps they got you mixed up with a private tutor duh. Do they have any idea about what being a Scout leader involves, and for no pay - I'd guess not!

I'm a home edding parent and I'm also a leader, you did the right thing.

It would be perfectly fine to ask about the program and see what might be fitted into the home ed outside of scouts etc, but not the other way round.

In the summer, my child did their aviation badge with girl guiding, and we made it into a whole trip to an aviation museum, we asked a lot of questions and then undertook the tasks for the badge, we really want to town on it. You can do that with the interest badges. But not exactly with the program badges.