To say no to Daughter carrying someone else’s bag at DofE

[DrSeuss84]

My 14 year old Daughter is about to do bronze Duke of Edinburgh in a weeks time. This is the first time she has done anything like this. She is quite slim and petite for her age.

I read that they should only carry a certain amount of their body weight so have been super selective and spent a lot of money buying lightweight items and researching the lightest possible gear.

At the practice run a lot of girls had much heavier bags. Some were packing skin care and makeup and other non necessities.

she doesn’t know the girls in her group but they all know each other and are an established friendship group.

Tomight she got a message from them saying they had all decided and agreed that they are going to bring a bag weighing device and weigh each bag and whoever has the lightest bag will have to swap bags with someone else on the second day to make it fair.

it was quite a direct message in the tone of “everyone has already agreed and it would be unfair if you say no”

My initial instinct was ‘no way’ Everyone packs what they want but we didn’t worked hard to get your bag light only for you to lug someone else’s bag around for 11 miles!

DD she is worried this will have her outcast from the group and turn them against her making the whole two days uncomfortable and isolating for her.

I don’t know how to tackle this at all. What would you do?

OP, said it's an already established group. Her daughter is the only who doesn't know them. By default she is an outsider. Perhaps I should have said "outsider" rather than "outcast", but it's hard to become a member of a established group and in such a short period, it's impossible, especially with these queen bees around.

Fine, they can abandon the junk either before the hike or during it. Everyone has the same information before they start the task and if they make stupid decisions because they ignore the facts, then hopefully they will learn from it and not make the same dumb decision at a more important time. Would I help them if they genuinely got to the point of failure? probably yes but not at risk of my own back health because that's a lesson I have learned. I would also hope that whoever is leading the expedition would not allow a member to injure themselves to assist someone else. Would I support them in their bad choice by agreeing to carry their unneeded junk from the get go? Absolutely not. Team work is about setting the team up for success RIGHT FROM BEFORE THE START

Teamwork is often about working with what you have in the moment.

You know, this is a problem among NHS staff when it comes to teamwork. You have people who are so caught up in how things should be, they have trouble responding in a timely fashion to the acute situation they have developing in front of them.

We used to have teachers back in my 90s primary school who would issue group punishments for the behaviour of a few. A lot of people now see that as unfair but you know it taught us some invaluable skills. We had some people, one boy in particular, who had a lot of additional needs and his behaviour could get us all punished.

Some teachers, especially those new to us, didnt always account for his extra needs. As a class, we learned how to get this boy to work with us. The girls would do their thing, the boys their thing. We greatly reduced the number of times he got us in trouble and we all learned foundational skills in working with people with SEN.

We have so many younger students and newly qualified staff these says who say "but I shouldn't have to do this", and it's often true, but that woman and/or her baby need this and the person who should do it isn't here, who should suffer for it?

Underfunding is definitely the root cause of the collapse of the NHS we see around us. However, and maybe related, the type of people that join the NHS have greatly changed. Their values, their ability to develop resilience, their ability to work in a team (especially one that isn't perfect). I do wonder if this is connected to the fact NHS qualifications have become unaffordable for the masses.

as an ex NHS clinician I completely agree BUT you don't let the team idiot(s) do things that will screw it up for the rest and you definitely don't let them do it even before the challenges start. Should the strong support the weak? Yes. Should the group support individuals who are challenged? again yes. Should idiots be allowed to get away with stuff? hell no.

Groups that seem ‘established’ may not actually be as ‘established as you think they are especially if the OPs daughter refuses to do it and it falls on some other girl to carry their bags

Just to add from a health and safety perspective, the leaders will have made clear all the processes that need to be followed to have safe and successful trip. The students who are not experienced and have not been a part of this detailed decision making should not be making alternate decisions because they think they know better and it suits them.

This is a good idea I think

All this talk of team building and sharing the load is all fine and grand but the leadership of this trip is being completely undermined by this girl thinking she gets to distribute other people's weight.
Not a good start at all to the trip and one that needs highlighting to the Leaders.

Because some people can just carry more than others, in general?
We're talking before the time where 14 year old girls would ever have dreamed have taking makeup/skin care on something like that.
The bags are heavy as, even with only the essentials in it.

But you can't control that! For instance, we have a staff member who has been qualified for a long time, can't get with technology and thus it means that she doesn't respond to new information in a timely way. To be frank, she doesn't always know the significance of pertinent information.

Management let her stay. This puts all staff in jeopardy, let alone the patients. But it isn't our call. So, what we do is assign her tasks where the chances of something developing are small and assign her a senior student who ploughs through the admin.

We'd all prefer she wasn't on the team, but the team aren't the ones who get to decide that. We have to work with who we get.

This

seriously? if its that bad then gather evidence and whistleblow!
But we are straying way away from the OP's post.

That's commonplace in the NHS. You're constantly covering for staff in that way. Doctors mostly though.

maybe but not relevant to Op's thread.

It's about teamwork

So you think that a teenager should have to carry more weight than is safe so that others in the team can take unnecessary stuff so that tge NHS can continue to be screwed up?????? Really?...

Apologies I've not read all the thread but there's a simple non-confrontational way to sort this - get a 2L coke bottle filled with water and put this in her bag - her's wont be the lightest bag anymore. Then either she just has plenty of water for the walk, or she can pour it out later - a squashed empty coke bottle doesn't weigh much. You can also get bladder systems which are great because the heavy water is held close to your back/dont notice it as much. Easy to drink as you walk as opposed to getting bottles out etc.

If anyone notices the extra water it doesn't take much justification - it's what i need/i drink a lot. Especially if compared against someone bringing makeup!

But I'd only do this if the others were being ridicules and insisting on carrying unnecessary items on a camp. It's normal to share group kit out so there's still that - there's a balance between balky and heavy items and it's not always possible to be equal. It's not normal to swap bags - as you say everyone should have theirs setup so it fits well and it would be daft to have some bag swapping rule.

So? It is still not organiser’s rights to let people swap, unless of course willingly swapped. It is not what OP posted anyway.

I was a 6ft, rugby-playing hill walker of a 14yo girl and on our DofE awards, ended up carrying the lion’s share of our joint equipment as well as lightening the loads of smaller girls in our group. You work as a group and your daughter will work that out over the few days she’s out with her friends. And those girls will ditch their makeup pronto when they realise it’s dead weight 😂

I think you should stay out of it.

So are they swapping bags around between each other ? So they all get to carry a heavy one for a while and a lighter one ?
because otherwise I don’t see how it would work ?
or you could have your daughter pack a brick in hers For the weighing part then dump it when she gets allocated her own bag 🤣

D of E is hard going when my dd did hers she almost crumbled under the size and weight of it ! She’s so petit and the others shared her bag for periods of time to help her out . My youngest just did his first one last night and he just hoisted it up on one shoulder ! 6ft 2 gym bunny !
they just have to figure out how to get through it .
maybe she could suggest rather than swap rucksacks a redistribution of items ? Being as the rucksacks are fitted to their body ? But make sure hers is packed full of light items

I haven't read all of the comments but I don't think your allowed to carry more than 25% of your body weight anyway.
My sons assessors made them take everything out of their bags and took out everything that wasn't essential for them. My son had a 3/4 full 65l bag of lightweight items for his Silver. He knew what wasn't needed after the Bronze. His mate went straight to Silver without Bronze and had an 85l bag so full he could hardly close it. The assessors ransacked it and took 50% out.

So hopefully they do the same for your daughters group and then there shouldn't be a problem.

Perhaps a message from your daughter to the others saying that she’s happy to share communal items as they will be working as a team but personal items are the individuals choice and she’s planning on travelling light.

Wow, it is only fair that your daughter should suffer the externalised consequences of others who couldn't be bothered to make an effort to keep the weight of their backpacks down? Honestly, this country and its bloody people completely throwing away any sense of personal responsibility.

Tell her to add a few large rocks to her bag on swop day