Scouts weekend trip- would you expect updates/a few photos?

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If your child has gone on an overnight trip with scouts, is it unreasonable to expect a few group photos or a quick update from the leaders? It’s DS first trip away and he was a little apprehensive camping for the first time. We’ve not received a single photo or update on the group chat. I messaged privately & got a very general reply with an implied don’t bother me again so I’m left feeling uneasy. It’s cubs scouts and ds is age 8.

I am being unreasonable - parents don’t need to be updated at all
YANBU - parents should be sent a group pic/update daily.

Currently away with Cubs. It took me two minutes while they were eating to post an update.

One parent who was worried about his kids first night away gor an individual reply when he asked.

We didnt have signal strength for photo uploads

Presumably you trust them to contact you if there was an emergency?

No news is good news.

It is full on and exhausting running these things and messaging privately to get a busy leader to allay YOUR anxiety / over involvement was very unreasonable.

I would appreciate an end of the day update, but what I would expect is for the level of communication to be set out in advance.

If the parent information said “we’ll be busy having fun and it’s a signal black hole, but we’ll call if there is a problem” and I’m not comfortable with that, my child wouldn’t be going. If the parent information said “we’ll send regular updates so you can see what an amazing time they’re having without you!” then yes, I would be worried if I hadn’t heard from them. If the parent information said nothing, I would politely suggest maybe it could be added for next time.

You can be grateful for something and still disappointed that it hasn’t happened in the way in which you wanted.

I just figured if they need to contact us they will other wise update on what? I want to hear about on their return

dd went away with the brownies 20 years ago
we didnt expect and didnt receive any messages
just because we can doesnt mean we should

Imagine you're doing a kids party and all the parents who drop off their kids expect you to also message them, ideally with a photo of the party, telling them how their kids are getting on.

Scouts trip is a similar level of chaos!

There is no time... and if there is a snippet of time, the leaders should be able to stop and take a quick breath rather than needing to sit there doing parent admin.

Op- assume your child is having a fantastic time- or you would have heard otherwise?

Thanks to the adult volunteers prioritising safeguarding, your dc is most likely having a great childhood experience, free of phones and constant pictures of their every move. They are one of the lucky ones!

How on earth would some photos reassure you that the kids were safe???

What fucking nonsense!

This is the reason I’m no longer a scout leader. Parents are mental. As someone said upthread - if you don’t ensure your photo includes EVERY child they’ll be hell to pay. And if you have no photo permissions you can guarantee some dickhead parent will share it on social media 🤬

Do none of you comprehend that our parents managed just fine without 24/7 communication 🙄🤦‍♀️

I would rather they were supervising the children and making sure everyone had a good time. I once worked in a nursery class where we had to send every parent a picture every day and it took one adult about an hour and a half every day. And those were children we knew well. We didn’t have to look up photo consent or anything.

I would be concerned to receive any photos at all. There is a good chance that one or more of the Scouts have a family background with parents who are separated or divorced and where one is behaving unreasonably or worse. Just read any of the threads about co-parenting.

Wait until they have returned.

I don’t think there should be a requirement that the leaders have to send photos/updates and they are only volunteers giving up their free time, but I do agree it’s nice to get photos etc when the kids are away on camp/residentials.
It’s often a time issue though and also not every child has photo permissions, so that can be tricky too.

Probably not. I didn’t send my son until he was a bit older than that as I would’ve been like you are now. He’ll be having a brilliant time.

It's a tricky balance. Obviously back when we were kids there were usually no updates at all - I went to Mexico for 3 weeks with Guides/Rangers and my parents heard nothing! That's a fair bit older than Cubs, but back then parents would get no updates at all for a weekend camp.

I'm now a Brownie leader and for a long time we also didn't do updates - we felt it wasn't needed for a weekend and didn't have a WhatsApp/Facebook group for various reasons so it would have meant emailing, which is a faff. However, we changed that a few years ago and now do photos in a closed WhatsApp group. Parents mostly seem to really appreciate it, but yes, there is always at least one moan that little Flossie isn't in it/it's not a nice photo of her. She's scrambling over a flipping assault course wall, I'm not getting her to stop to pose for an Insta-worthy shot! And yes, sometimes camps are just really busy and taking/sending photos is lower priority so people have to wait for an update.

I also have two DSs in Cubs and Beavers, and their leaders do updates in their FB groups. I must admit I do really like seeing them, as my kids never tell me anything about what they did! So I do appreciate it from the leaders - but I also find myself checking repeatedly and starting to fret if there aren't updates, even though I know logically that I'd be contacted if there was a problem. It shows how these things aren't always healthy for us though!

Mine were in cubs and scouts. Away numerous times including up to the wilds of Scotland for a week. No contact and wouldn’t expect any. It’s a learning experience for parents and children to be away from and get on without each other.
They’re now 23 and 21 and it’s proved invaluable. I’m so grateful.

No news is good news.
a little update to the group chat is nice but I wouldn’t expect it.

I'm a leader and when I was at a weekend camp in the Summer we didn't have time to send any updates. We did respond to any messages if a parent messaged etc.

DS is now in Scouts and since Beavers has been doing camps of 1-2 nights, and has done one week long camp with Scouts so far. For all of these the photos came after they returned home (except the week long camp).

For Scouts we had an email to say they had arrived at the destination safely, and twice in the week we had about half a dozen photos plus drone video footage of the campsite (a swoop from a distance, no one identifiable). We weren’t expecting to receive anything at all apart from the email to say they had arrived.

I used to be a Beavers/Cub volunteer a few years ago and it is bedlam so give them a break. You will hear if your child is upset/miserable/hurt whatever so otherwise regard it as no news is good news. Funnily enough getting parents to volunteer is akin to pulling teeth but they love to try and dictate from a distance what they think Leaders and other parent volunteers should be doing, according to them.

Phone battery
Phone signal
Constantly being busy from 6am to midnight (if you have early risers and slow settlers)
Photo permissions for safeguarding
Coping with a range of parental expectations.

All reasons why it might not be practical to send non-essential updates.

Welcome to the intense, hectic world of camp. Leaders volunteer their spare time (often away from their own family) to give the children a great time, not to pander to parents' demands.

My dcs have gone on lots of scout camps

regular pics are posted to a closed Facebook group, usually at least 3 times a day.

are you sure there isn’t a group you haven’t joined yet?

even no pics I would expect a “we’re here and everything is fine” sort of messages

I used to be a guider.

im the person there can’t be a photo of and we had girls who couldn’t have photos.

why does my and their safety have to be put at risk so you can have photo updates?

Why send a child if you feel like this?

I agree with a previous poster who said they once did send photos and then were swamped with parents complaining that they couldn’t see their child in the photo. This happened to us on a county camping trip where obviously I knew my girls in my unit but none of the others so didn’t know their photo permissions so it’s such a faff to take photos.

Also I saw you volunteer at weekly sessions which is great but camp is a whole other ballpark it’s knackering and when you finally get them to go to sleep you have your own cup of tea, plan for the next day and usually pass out.

So rather than moaning come join us! We can use the help!

As a teacher I shouldn’t have photos of the students on my phone. I would have thought it would be the same for scout/guide leaders. If we want photos of an activity we have to use a school camera or phone.

The point of these trips is to build independence - something I’m beginning to think is more needed for the parents than the kids.

I’m in two minds about it. I think how you feel about a first camp and wanting news, is totally understandable. My Dd was 7 on first beaver sleepover for one night and I was very nervous. We did get photos of her smiling which helped.

So Yanbu at all to few this way, but for all the reasons discussed above, it’s maybe a shame that this has become normalised and maybe we should be able to just trust and accept that the leaders are caring for them safely.

I’m a Cub Scout leader. Some camps we have regular photos uploaded to the private group for parents and some we have none. It depends if there are enough extra pairs of volunteer hands to do it. Sometimes all your attention is on the children as it needs to be! And even with extra hands, there’s preparing activities, cooking and serving food, cleaning up to do. Usually photos are the nice to have extras if we have a couple of adult volunteers over and above the ratio amount.