Daughter not made a sixer when a younger child was

[tomtom88]

Ok so please be kind.

Daughter is in Brownies, the old leaders left recently and a new leader took over. I appreciate all the leaders are volunteers.

Without warning - the new leader allocated sixer and seconder roles, with my daughter being given a seconder role in a group of 2 where the other girl was the same age. In another group a child a year younger, who is a lovely girl but very scatty was given the sixer role. At the meeting brown owl said these are not permanent roles because sometimes I change things and swap things about.

Daughter gutted not to be a sixer.

I messaged brown owl in a very polite way thanking her for taking over the group, expressing that my daughter was disappointed, and drawing her attention to the fact a younger girl. I asked are these decisions permanent (she has implied they were not at the session)
Anyway she got back and said, oh your daughter will get the opportunity "at some point" eg not specified so could mean never if they cannot expand the group and then stated " she couldn't now take the opportunity to be a sixer off one of the other girls" although obviously by chosing the other girls and not being flexible she has effectively taken the opportunity to be a sixer from my daughter. I would have thought she should have given thought before allocating the younger girl in yr3 to be a sixer and perhaps swapped the girls over in their groups so the yr3 became the seconder and my daughter the sixer int he other group.

Long read - any thoughts

What if the other pairs didn’t want to be mixed up? Why should your daughter’s desire to be a sixer override other girls’ preference to stay with their existing partner.

For 8 kids, only one sixer and one seconder are required. The clue is in the title; a sixer leads a group of six.

"Most Sixes have 6 Brownies (that is why they are called a Six). A Six is led by an older Brownie called a Sixer, she is helped by another Brownie called a Seconder. All Sixers and Seconders are chosen as they are responsible, helpful and friendly. It is an achievement to become a Sixer or a Seconder and these Brownies are presented with metal badges to wear on their uniforms.
Each Brownie in the Six is good at something and you always help each other out.

Just in case you missed it…you don’t ’say nothing’ to your child, you explain how the world works…

“Your job as a parent isn't to change the world to keep your child happy; your job is to teach your child how to cope with life's disappointments, how to have realistic expectations, and how to be happy for others too.”

So the “sixes” are actually pairs?

This is all nonsense. There is literally no point in the role of Sixer when you only have one other in your “Six”. So you can console yourself and your daughter with the fact that the experience of being a Sixer in this pack is not remotely authentic anyway.

The leader should obviously have split them into two groups of 4.

Are there no other local packs?

Well, no because in the adult world, you're mother is (hopefully!) not emailing your boss to complain.

I am fairly sure I was never a sixer and it has not negatively impacted the last 3 decades of my life.

I can guarantee you that by the time your DD hits her teens she will neither remember nor care about this unless you are still bringing it up then .

Thoughts ... get over yourself and stop making a volunteer job even harder. Good for building your daughter's resilience.

I do agree with others though that all you can do is get her to accept it and try not to be upset - disappointment is part of life unfortunately.

I was a brownie in the seventies and my daughter was a brownie in the early 2000s. I know l was a seconder in the pixies, but I cannot remember if I was promoted to sixer or not. The same with my daughter, which really how much it matters in the scheme of things.

I mean you'd like to think that wouldn't be the case here, but...

Brown Owl here - in our unit sixers and seconders are not always chosen based on age. We look at other factors such as attendance, responsibility, behaviour (if you spend the evening not listening and cartwheeling round the room albeit but you're probably not going to get chosen), commitment shown outside of meetings to work towards interest badges. It might be that an older girl, despite age, might not have been attending for as long if they didnt start when they were 7 due to available places or other commitments. There are lots of factors not just birth dates.

And as others have said - if you really want to get involved in the decision making then please register your interest on the Girlguiding website - we are crying out for more volunteers

what a great opportunity to teach some resillance

Life is not fair, deal with it

We all know that’s never going to happen

I can understand your daughter is disappointed but I would have used the opportunity to increase her self worth. In a supporting seconded role, to the sixer I would be asking her to work together to promote the brownie values. A small child feels these disappointments greatly and a big part of these clubs is to promote self reliance.

I was Akela to 36 cubs, and did try to judge each child on what it needed. This often meant giving responsibility to children in a way that benefited them. Inevitably this led to others being upset. It is not possible to explain every decision.

A new leader would value your support. Now that you have asked the question, let it go.

You only think it wasn't thought through because your dd wasn't made sixer.

If you want to run things differently then step up and volunteer yourself.

I think you have over inflated this. It's Brownies, it won't be on her CV.

Have you found out what the Sierra actually does? For my Cubs is really means little more than the Sixer dies the Flag at the beginning, and the Seconder does it at the end. I swap the other responsibilities around so all of them get the opportunities needed to complete their Team Leader award

Can you not see that a lesson of “sometimes things don’t go your way, and sometimes the reasons aren’t clear, but it is something you can cope with and get through” is SO MUCH BETTER than a lesson of “if things go wrong someone else sorts it out for me”?

yes maybe the decision is unfair - that’s ok! It’s a really valuable, really important lesson and your helicoptering is preventing her learning it.

this is why in a recent survey of recruiters there was lots of evidence of young people not having the resilience and skills to get through interviews - some of the recruits brought their parents to attend their job interviews!

stop getting in the way of valuable learnings!

You're missing the point, OP.

You're not teaching your child how to have realistic expectations; you're not teaching your child emotional regulation or how to cope with disappointment; you're not teaching your child how to be happy for others.

You have plenty to be getting on with in your own parenting, instead of challenging Brown Owl's decisions!

But she has said it’s not permanent and she may change things around, so for all you know she may make changes in a couple of months to give your daughter a chance. We don’t know the reasons for her choice, and neither do you. It’s not just about age. It would be very unfair to the other girl to be told she was sixer and then immediately have the role taken off her for no fault of her own.

If nothing has changed in a couple of months I suppose you could try asking again, but I have great sympathy for the volunteer who is giving up her own time to run Brownies and just gets hassle from parents.

If you had posted this in AIBU I would have voted YABVU.

Didn't say my daughters rights were more important - I stated she would be happy to mover

So teaching a child that to get leadership roles you have to act scatty and dumb

When I think if some of the bosses I have I think this a good life lesson to learn

And maybe the other girls wouldn’t be happy to move!

You encouraging DD to ask if there’s anything she can do to work towards being a Sixer might set her up. Going to brown owl to complain on her behalf is not.

TBH, OP, the sooner your dd learns that we can’t always have what we want, and that disappointments happen - we just have to grin and bear them, the better.