AIBU - Need perspective: Beavers requiring parental attendance after camp upset

[Pinkballoons55]

My DS is 7 and has attended Scouts from age 4 (Squirrels and now Beavers). He has always attended independently and has been on numerous off-site trips and activities without any issues.

Recently he attended an overnight camp for the first time. It started at 10am and the plan was for him to stay until midday the following day. By the evening he became extremely upset and distressed. In hindsight, I think he was completely overtired and overwhelmed after a full day of activities. He got upset and the leaders ended up calling us to collect him at around 8pm.

Nobody was hurt and there was no aggression, but he was very upset and apparently tried to run off when distressed, so the leaders had to stop him and send him home.

We've now received an email saying that for all upcoming off-site Beaver activities (three events over the next couple of months), one of his parents must attend alongside him. If neither parent can attend, he won't be allowed to take part.

The thing I'm struggling with is that these aren't overnight camps or all day events. They're normal Beaver activities within the local area (e.g. a park trip) of around an hour in length, which is what he's been doing successfully for years. This feels like quite a big restriction based on what I see as a one-off incident in unusual circumstances.

To add some context, we have just started looking into SEND assessments, so I'm very aware there may be things we're still learning about his needs. Part of me wonders if I'm being too emotional because I hate the idea of him being treated differently from the other children or excluded if we can't attend. I also worry that having a parent there when no other child does will make him feel singled out.

At the same time, I appreciate that the leaders have safeguarding responsibilities and may be looking at things from that perspective.

Has anyone had anything similar happen with Scouts, Guides etc? How did you handle it?

I'm genuinely interested in hearing other peoples thoughts because right now I'm too close to the situation to know whether my upset is clouding my judgement on whether this request from them is reasonable.

(But please be gentle!!!)

I'm a cubs leader. I joined because my two neurodivergent sons needed a parent there to help manage their behaviour. I know how it feels when you're at the beginning of the SEN journey but if you can try and change your mindset to think more positively about being there with him then it will help loads. As others have said, it's probably because your son ran off. That's a safeguarding risk. At least two leaders would need to go after him as one leader is not allowed to be alone with one young person according to scouts rules. He's unlikely to be singled out - we always ask for parent volunteers to come and help on days out or trips to places. It doesn't mean you have to be by his side all the time, just there if needs be.
Remember that scout leaders are all volunteers and our number one priority is child safety.

If it helps, my eldest was a real handful at Beavers when he first started. He's now nearly 14, about to move to Explorers and has won a place to World Scout Jamboree. He's the only one from our group going and he's going to Poland for 10 days. This has only been possible because of the support we gave at the beginning and little by little he's become more independent.

Scouts/beavers are volunteer led, and pretty much free. Unfortunately that means they are not really equipped to work with anything but standard behavior. My older son (mild ASD) was ok at beavers (no camps!), but we had to leave cubs as they just couldn’t cope - he is fully verbal and high masking, but very anxious, so didn’t want to do camps, which pretty much meant he had to leave. In our experience, scouts aren’t very inclusive.

Some of the kids might have parents as leaders, so there may technically be other parents there.

Just a thought. Sometimes at such events different groups can join together. And they don’t know each other really. And if you get one child who is a bit older and a bit of a bully then it can all be a huge error frankly.
If the overnight was just his group then that is different. He knows everyone. If they were paired up with a group he doesn’t know then that could turn what should have been fun into a nightmare.

Hopefully it’ll only be for a short while til they’re sure he can cope and not run off.

good luck with it all op.

I think this sounds sensible. He tried to do a runner and as you weren’t there, you don’t know how serious the incident was. The leaders are concerned about keeping him and the others safe with their already stretched capacity. He’s clearly being assessed for SEN issues, so you can’t be oblivious that there is a problem here.

Frankly, my dc has stopped doing Beavers because the sessions are completely unmanageable due to having too many children with SEN unsupervised running around causing chaos, trying to get out the doors, throwing things. It can be a lot for leaders to facilitate and it sounds like they are sensibly trying to trial some 1 to 1 support for him, which can only be a good thing.

Don't be hard on yourself for all the feelings. The journey realising that your child has SEN and the subsequent realisation that it comes from somewhere i.e. some one... is a rollercoaster. You have a lot going on

Your child tried to run away and had to be restrained to prevent this. This is a safeguarding issue as it takes an adult away from the group to deal with your son. The risk of your son doing a runner in off site activities is too risky for the other volunteers.

Me too - was a Beaver Leader for 10 years. Think either you’re underplaying it op or the leaders haven’t been as frank with you if they need to. Running off at a camp at night is a massive safeguarding risk and what the parents rarely consider is that all the other kids have to be considered as well. If one of us has to run after a kid, that leaves one leader less for the rest of the group.

I would ask the leaders to be to totally frank with you about his behaviour and the impacts on the rest of the group. But if they’ve asked you to attend then you should.

Just seen your update op - look not all kids cope with Beavers. My DS wouldn’t have and so I didn’t send him. He joined cubs at 8 and that’s when I joined as a leaver for Beavers. And he didn’t do a camp until he was 9/10 as he just wouldn’t cope. No SEN or anything but he was just rather young for his age and didn’t do well with instructions!

It’s no reflection on how your DS might turn out. We had lots that didn’t do camps as their parents knew they wouldn’t cope, and so they just did the weekly meetings and trips out.

I don't think it's really fair to say scouting isn't very inclusive, I lead a pack and we'd love to be more inclusive but unfortunately parents often downplay their dc's needs, refuse to volunteer and just see it as very cheap childcare. "Scouting" is not the problem, the parents are usually.

I’m sorry you’ve found that. I’ve found both Beavers and Cubs to be very inclusive for my girls.

My oldest can’t attend camps and frequently an’t attend Cubs but they know often Cubs is the only thing she can do in a week and are very supportive. My youngest had an emotional day and wanted me to stay at Beavers last week with her and it was no problem.

TBH I dont see a problem here really.He got upset and they handled it well I think .He can still go to future meetings and you with him.Its not ideal ,but better than no participation at all.I think he may have SEND issues maybe not .But looking into it and keeping him safe is paramount.Imagine if he had an accident god forbid .Everyone safe ,hobby still going on all good

It’s to keep your child safe. These people are volunteers. They have other children to think about. I think it’s completely reasonable to be honest.

My husband is a cubs leader. Like all scout/cubs/beavers leaders, it’s an unpaid volunteer role which carries enormous responsibility for other people’s children. He has no experience or training to deal with children with SEND. No scout volunteers do. This year his unit has had so many children with significant additional needs he has come close to quitting on a number of occasions. The only reason he hasn’t is that the unit would close without him due to there not being enough volunteer leaders.

Scouting has a policy of not turning away any child, which I do support, but having seen the impact on my husband I do support the organisation asking parents to stay where their children have additional needs. It’s too much to ask of unpaid volunteers doing the role around their own jobs and lives and ultimately risks the closure of units where children’s needs are beyond the skills of untrained volunteers.

I know that’s really hard to hear, and I’m sorry about that. If it’s any consolation, none of my children have had the experience of a beaver or cub camp, or any other activity, without their dad being present, as he’s usually leading it.

OP you did everything right, it's great he got the chance to try it and enjoyed the activities, no one could predict that he would get overwhelmed and try to run away. It's a shame it didn't work out but it would have been more of a shame not to give him the chance to try at all.

Have you considered that if he is ND then it's likely to have come from somewhere (this is what our assessor said to us!). If you're always extremely sensitive then could it possibly be you? - if you think that's possible also might be worth checking out rejection sensitive disorder.

Try to see going along to the activities as a positive. You get to see the activities he's doing and watch him enjoying them. He might really enjoy having you there as well.

This is a really good point. Scouts, cubs etc have really strict ratios and it’s often a struggle to get enough volunteers to run a session, let alone go offsite. My husband’s group had three children who each had 121s at school. There simply weren’t enough volunteers for those children to have 121s at cubs. It was chaos. And a rubbish experience for the other cubs as the leaders struggled to run activities while managing the behaviour of the high-needs children and keeping everyone safe.

We had a similar situation with ds2. In the end he couldn't cope with the other children asking why I was there and so he had to stop going. Now we only go to things designed for children with SN. About half the parents stay so he doesn't feel different.

from a practical perspective, what if suggest, as a Squirrel Leader is to talk to the Beaver Leader. work out of there's something you / daddy / whoever can do to help out on camp whilst obv supervising DS so it feels ess like you're just following 5ft behind him all day. if there's smaller groups, can you just be there in title as a helper, even if you're on the risk assessment as a 121. no one needs to know Little Johnny's Mom is here to look after him because we can't trust him! so try to play it down and focus on the attending adult getting to help out and join in.

I volunteered in Beavers cos I didn't think I could leave DS under his specific circs, and now he's in Scouts and I'm still in Beavers and Squirrels and i help out in Scouts when needed so also think about is there an adult who might want to actually volunteer and would that mean he still needed his own adult 121 or would they then have adequate numbers. none of the kids care I'm such and suchs Mom. I do have to step in with eldest sometimes (he has autism) but honestly the other kids are good kids, they don't care. I think they're far more tolerant these days than we were.

you meanwhile are absolutely doing the right thing. that was a very long day even for the hardiest of kids, we did you onwards and lost one beaver due to tooth pain and one to just home sickness. the worry is the stuff about running away, and they just want to keep hom safe. that's all, it isn't about excluding him. you or Dad or whoever go, help hom enjoy it and then discuss for next term if you can scale it back.

Thank you, there's some really helpful advice and supportive comments here. I'm definitely over-sensitive, anxious and a complete people pleaser so no doubt any neuro-spicy tendencies have come from me anyway!! I think because I never wanted to stand out and always wanted to do well and make others happy, thats probably carried on into parenthood and now I just want DS to have a standard, typical experience in everything that he does so as not to draw attention or stand out. And this whole experience has probably triggered something in me. Its completely on me, not on him!

And yes I still agree that the Beavers decision is the right one and I appreciate the constructive viewpoints provided by those who have had experiences in scouting/volunteering. It must be incredibly hard to do - I barely have time to entertain my own kids after work let alone look after a whole load of them! 99% of the time Beavers/scouts has been a positive experience for DS so we'll stick with it, figure out a way for one of us to go along to support on those off site park trips etc and go from there.

I read your updates and it sounds like plenty of people said everything I would have said. I just want to reach out in empathy. My daughter is autistic and there have been various things that created surprising emotions in me throughout the years (she’s 13). It’s often something super random that trigger me somehow.

It’s really good that you’ve already worked out it’s you struggling, not him with this one. I think I projected a lot of anxiety onto my daughter for things that didn’t occur to her to be issues.

Great to see you have already figured out a productive way forward and maybe it will be quite a lovely thing for you to share with him. Of course another parent can’t be in charge of a child who runs away, that’s just not safe at all. But you can find a way to be there and help out and that might settle him down just as much as the other volunteers.

I have two friends who went along to their child’s P7 residential to be the 1:1 support. They stayed in the background and just helped when needed. The important thing was their children were able to go and participate safely and happily. This really isn’t that uncommon nowadays so I doubt anyone will even notice.

@Pinkballoons55 This is why my DH became a Beaver and now Cub leader, our DS has AuDHD and really needed a little extra supervision. DH absolutely loves his role and his Cubs love him. Maybe you or your partner (if you have one) could consider volunteering with your DS as a positive? It really could bring you closer together as well as give back if you have a little time… Just thinking, if you've got to be there anyway, why not reframe it? We did, it worked 😃

Edited to add, DH has been with the troop for 10+ years now and DD is also a leader now she’s an adult. DS left years ago though 😂

My kids have been camping in tents at the local campground with Beavers since they were 6 or 7 so I don't think it's unusual. Our troup now has Squirrels and they have sleepovers in the hall, but don't camp out until they get into Beavers. They do tend to get dropped off at about 6pm and collected at 11am, so I agree with OP's assessment that her child was probably tired out from a busy day and wanted to come home.

We can all be oversensitive and easily teary when it comes to our kids, part of the territory. It sounds like they’re rightly being cautious and hopefully your son will resettle. But I do thin Beavers is full on and not for all children. My son and his friend both loved Squirrels but when they moved up to Beavers his friend found it way too much and dropped out.