New brownie promise

[Nannyowl]

As a brownie leader; can I ask mums of seven year olds? Would your daughter understand to promise: "to be true to myself and develop my own beliefs"?
That is; do they have independent beliefs from you and their family? Are they able to ignore peer pressure? Do you think it is fair to ask a seven year old to make this promise? As a leader I thing they are too young imo maybe the older girls nine ten can. I not saying they are not good ideas to aspire to, but not sure to promise at seven? Would your daughters understand this?

[pigsinmud]

Never actually answered op's question. I don't think my 7 today dd2 will have a clue what she's agreeing to when she starts Brownies in September. As someone else said, it seems more suitable for a Guide.

[Nannyowl]

Hi schilke thank you for your comment. I was hoping some mums of seven year olds would comment. General comments are nice, but it is easy to forget just what a seven year old understands when children are older or not that old yet.
Also the mum who said her daughter told her it was about remembering the words for the badge. That is my experience of how our younger girls view it.
My problem is; up to now we have always done the promise a few weeks after they join us. So we have just one week to prepare them. Other activities other weeks. I am thinking of waiting a bit longer before they do the promise now. They wiill still wear uniform and be part of the pack, have other badges.books etc. But we can spend more time on helping them to understand. We do promise games/activities once half term. Girlguiding is open to all, and btw the girls dont have to do the promise to be a member.

[moggle]

exexpat - just want to be clear, I didn't mean "precocious" in any kind of pejorative way (I did try a couple of other words but they sounded worse). I do think a 7 year old thinking about religion and belief systems to that extent is fairly rare (though not unheard of, of course) and advanced compared to their peers so precocious in its proper definition fits I think.

Nannyowl we usually end up having 4-6 weeks before doing the promise, it's nice having a bit of a gap, although where we are girls often come in and out of Guiding without telling you, so it's good to make sure they're definitely in it at least for the short term before buying the promise materials!

The Guide and Brownie promises are the same, but the last line is either "and to keep the Guide Law" or "and to keep the Brownie Guide law". The Brownie and Guide Laws are different. Adults make the Guide promise. The Rainbows have a shorter one line promise (which has also been changed along similar lines as it mentioned God). The Senior Section (16-25) did have an extra line in their Promise, but it was about community, so now that's in the main promise I'm not sure what they'll do.

[Startail]

I never did leadership qualifications, I was a brown Owl 17 years ago, before DDs.

I only had a CRB check for the Scout gang show, hides didn't care.

I had been a young leader, I knew the ropes and they were desperate.

[PatPig]

Aren't most Brownie packs linked to churches and involved in church life?

It seems a bit odd to just unilaterally dump the God bit.

[ABirdInTheBush]

The 'true to myself' bit makes me cringe! It sounds like awful American teenager speak. A 7yr old is unlikely to understand it (and I'm not sure if I really do!) but I am overjoyed that they have taken this step and removed the promise to God - it was complete discrimination.

I made the promise at 7 because I was used to saying religious crap at school and thought nothing of it, but I refused to make the promise at 14 and was turfed out of Guides (this was 20+ yrs ago, it may be different now).

[exexpat]

PatPig - they didn't just unilaterally dump it, there was a huge consultation exercise for people involved in the movement currently or in the past, as well as the general public.

[moggle]

Guiding has never been a religious organisation; most of the media reports have been glossing over this fact / not bothered to research it. Certainly the Baden-Powells were Christian and that certainly influenced the ethos, and that is why God was in the Promise to start with, but there's nothing inherent in Guiding's principles or organisational / internal regulations which is exclusively Christian or indeed religious. There have been non-Christian Guides and Brownies since way way back.

Yes quite a lot of units meet in churches but these days this may be more due to necessity - where else in the community has space available to rent at reasonable cost for groups of that size. Also even if they do meet in a church hall the link between the church and the unit may be very strong (church parades etc) or not there at all. Here in central London perhaps I have a skewed view but religion doesn't even come into my Brownie meetings except if I fancy activities based around a religious festival.

ABird these days if a girl doesn't want to make her promise she can still do all the activities that the others do. I imagine some leaders might make more of a fuss over this than others, but by the letter of the "law" no-one HAS to make the promise. It certainly wouldn't bother me although I'd feel happier about it if the girl (or her parents) could at least attempt to articulate why she doesn't feel comfortable making it, as without the Promise is it any different to any after school club!

[PatPig]

Well yes, but if you are a church that has supported a Brownie pack for 50 years or more, then you might not be very impressed.

The new promise is spectacularly awful. You would have thought that they could have come up with something a bit more community-minded, and WTF does 'develop my beliefs' mean?

Dreadful.

Not something my DD will ever sign up to.

[PatPig]

Don't know how it differs from Scouting, but my DS's scout group join church parades several times a year. I wouldn't have thought the brownies were different?

[Pyrrah]

Another atheist former-Brownie. I recall keeping my fingers crossed behind my back while making the promise.

I didn't have a problem with church services etc - I sang the hymns and counted the other non-believers during the prayers - but having to make a promise about something I didn't believe in was uncomfortable.

I can see that some people might not be happy about the Queen bit, but she is the Head of State and at least you can actually see that beyond all doubt she exists!

New wording sounds fine to me. I'd probably have kept country rather than community though.

Now let's see if the Scouts can follow suit.

[Nannyowl]

Hi all,
Think my thread has been high jacked here was hoping to get mums of seven year olds to tell me if they thought their daughters would understand the new promise.
Not if the change a good idea. The change was made after consultation with over forty thousand people both guiding and non-guiding. I just wanted to know; if as a leader I was wrong to assume that it is a little complicated for our youngest seven year old brownies to understand after just one or two activities. Do I need to factor in more time? I wanted a parent?s perspective.

[edam]

"To be true to myself and develop my beliefs,
To serve the Queen and my community"

is a bit waffle and psycho-babbly - as apatchy said, Hannibal Lecter was true to his beliefs... and what's wrong with promising to serve your country? It's far broader than promising to serve your community, which could be taken as quite a narrow group of people.

Appreciate the removal of God - far better than the Scouts chucking children out for not believing in God.

[moggle]

If the Brownies have links to the church, then yes they'll be involved with parades as I said in my post. But I know of a few packs which meet in a church hall but don't have any other links to the church and aren't involved or asked to do parades. Equally my brownie pack has nothing to do with a church and so doesn't do any church parades. It all depends on the group! No Guide or Brownie should be forced to parade either - non-Christian girls are welcome in groups with church links but may not want to go on church parades, it shouldn't be a problem.

The change in the wording of the promise isn't really going to change what each Brownie or Guide group actually does. No church-linked group is going to stop doing church parades as a direct result of this; or at least if they do they have hugely misunderstood. I hope the leaders of any affected groups will be able to communicate this to their church or religious leaders. Guiding is supporting the leaders with the change pretty well.

[moggle]

Sorry Nannyowl! Didn't mean to hijack your thread.

To get back on topic, I realise I'm not a parent but... I reckon actually 7 year olds won't find the new promise any more complicated than the old one. i.e. they will probably find both equally difficult to understand :-) It's us oldies needing to understand it, before we can explain it to them! I'm really interested to hear my girls' points of view on the new words - I'm hoping to get them to share their opinions of what it means before I give them them my thoughts, or GGUK's opinion.

[PatPig]

"The change was made after consultation with over forty thousand people both guiding and non-guiding."

Hmm, but who did they consult? Or were they a self-selecting sample?

"and what's wrong with promising to serve your country? It's far broader than promising to serve your community, which could be taken as quite a narrow group of people."

Well indeed, it could be seen as almost sinister, e.g., if you consider areas where 'the community' for one person is half the local population, and for another the other half.

[Nannyowl]

Thank you Moggle, yes you are right re understanding before explaining is my problem too. Will be interesting to see what our girls think next week.

[moggle]

Every member (girls and adults) was invited and encouraged to take part, everyone with an email address was sent a link, every parent whose email address is on their database was also sent a link I believe, and anyone visiting the guiding website had a message asking them to fill in the questionnaire. Leaders were encouraged to ask parents not on the database to fill it in. The BBC and several papers ran a story on it when it was running and said everyone was invited.

Any survey is self selecting - you can't force people to fill them in. My personal opinion is that in this situation the views of the people involved in Guiding to some degree, or at least taking an interest, were most important, and they did a good job of getting their opinions (to the point of being annoying). Although any member of the public was able to have have their say, I don't really see why some random person on the street who thinks Brownies are purely a chocolate cake should really have an opinion, it isn't like we are taxpayer funded or anything. A lot of people (particularly in the Telegraph comments) are getting very het up about it although they admit they have never had anything remotely to do with Guiding or Scouting in their life!

[LittleSporksBigSpork]

They took a survey of over 40000 people, mostly members, and the change follows the majority opinions. It's quite close to Australia's promise change a while back.

I believe the Queen is the Patron of Guides, so unlikely to take her out - as others have said, this may be reconsidered some time in the future.

Personally, I prefer community to country, and don't see it as narrow at all. There are many global communities and Guides is an international organization. Why not connect to that rather than nationalism?

OP - I asked my 6yo DD who will likely take it next year. She seemed to get it though it did take some help (though mostly she was concerned on what "the Brownie Guide law" meant) but that was in the last one. She got it quite quicker than the prayer they do now at Rainbows (at a Catholic church hall, they conclude with a prayer to 'Father, Son, and Holy Spirit which my DD thought was Father, Son, and Husband for weeks and eventually told me about it as she wanted to know why there weren't Mummies, Daughters, or Wifes. We had to discuss that for ages...).

[exexpat]

I took part in the survey after seeing a news report on it.

I'm not connected with the guiding movement now, but I was a Brownie and (briefly) a Guide, and I have a 10yo DD who I deliberately did not enrol in Brownies because of the religious element, although in other ways I'm sure DD would enjoy Guides - she loves outdoorsy activities, making things, doing helpful stuff etc.

I thought it would be useful if I responded, because I am exactly the kind of person the old promise has put off.

[moggle]

Yes you are definitely the kind of person they would want to have heard from.
I think I do have a slight skewed view of Guiding now. I grew up in Brownies and Guides in the 80s and 90s in small prosperous, mainly white towns in the home counties, church-affiliated units, very traditional, with Patrol / Six uniform inspections, dancing into the ring and flag ceremonies every week and church parades every term. My adult experience of Guiding has been hugely different, in Central London with a demographic which can only be described as "mixed" - with regards to race, religion, wealth, health etcetera and we are very laid back and accepting of things that would give my old Brown Owl palpitations!

[OddSockMonster]

PatPig, our Scouts has very little at all to do with church, they're all different. The Scouts (and I think the Guides) are faith orgnisations, not church organisations. There has been a very wide consultation on the Scouting promise too, am hoping they will announce the conclusions soon.

[pigsinmud]

Nannyowl - I have ben thinking more on this subject. My dds go to a c of e school and a lot of the children believe in God even if their parents don't...all the God talk at school I think. So a lot of them do have different beliefs to their parents, although I have noticed it only seems to work one way. I don't know any 7 year olds who don't believe in God when their parents do. My 7 year old dd does not believe and I have always been very open on the subject saying some believe this and others don't etc.. I think I may have been unfair on my dd. She would have some clue, but as she doesn't believe in God, I think she might be confused as to what she might be developing!

I think it's a bit sad that Brownies are saying the words without any thought - I'm not criticising anyone by the way, just saying! I know the leader of our Brownies pack is not religious and the Brownies only have church parade a couple of times a year, but she does spend time discussing the promise with them before they say it. At the moment, they go for 5 or 6 weeks before the promise ceremony. I think the community is pushed more than the God element in our pack.

I think Guiding is great. My older dd is looking forward to joining Guides next year. I'm glad she wants to continue. I know our pack needs more help and I'm tempted, but think I'm too quiet!

Sorry for waffling!

[Nannyowl]

I think it is great that some people no longer feel excluded. We need more adult members to join so we can offer more girl places.

[Nannyowl]

Hi schilke
If you are tempted I would say give it ago. Cannot be too quiet, as we all add different skills. Some of the girls may find you more approachable because of that. There is a lot of planning for events and holidays for example.
Re the 'be true to myself and develop my beliefs' good to hear your seven year old would grasp this. We will probably have some training on presenting this in the right way - I hope. I don't disagree with it, but as a volunteer not teacher it is difficult sometimes to be confident presenting complex subjects. Which is why it takes all sorts of volunteers my other guiders may be better grasping this than me iyswim. btw you can register your interest as an adult on JoinUs.

www.girlguiding.org.uk/get_involved/volunteer.aspx