DS 6 has been involved with squirrels and then beavers for over a year and really enjoys it. There’s been a few things which have gotten up my nose over the last year or so. Firstly the leaders seem to treat the group as some kind of super exclusive club where they don’t want parents to be involved, I have offered my help several times in the past and also volunteered to be involved with hikes etc, they don’t want to know. Secondly, during a trip to a designated scouting camp, DH and me went for a short walk around the grounds and discovered two things which disturbed us: 1) a burnt out van 2) a set of medieval stocks.
This really creeped us out and we kept DS off for a few weeks while we mulled it over, we decided we wouldn’t allow DS to stay on any overnight trips and accompany him on any day trips. Anyway, today during a church parade, one of the head scout leaders (in front of everyone including our vicar) made a huge deal out of DS necker, taking it off claiming it was untidy and hadn’t been done properly? It was mortifying for us and really offended us. Still we smiled and said we’d take more care next time. Then after the parade, another main scout leader wandered over to us, condescendingly tapping his shoulders, me and DH were perplexed, asked what do you mean?, he tells me I have sewn one of DS Welsh flag badges on the wrong way - then proceeded to say “I’m not OCD or anything but get it sorted by Wednesday”. This has pissed me off because I do in fact have OCD and I find this type of talk trivializes a condition I have lived with for 16 years. I will acknowledge that I have had something of a chip on my shoulder for some time about their ways but usually I just try to ignore it as DS enjoys going, but I’m really pissed off at this type of behavior. It would be different if we were pulled aside quietly and shown how to fold his necker properly, or he phrased his request for me to restitch his badges on differently. It’s a strange one, I would ideally like to move him to a different scouts group (not sure if this is even possible?) but this group does the parades at our local congregation so I would not like to cause any friction by moving him. I’d love to hear opinions on this, also maybe opinions on the stocks and burnt out van at the scouts camp - is this a normal feature on these pitches? Thanks for reading