problem with cubs

[tigermoth]

I am feeling really annoyed this morning with both my son and his cub troop leaders.

Yesterday when I picked up my son from cubs the leader told me at great length he had been messing around in the session. He wasn't the only one, but he was apparently the worst. Consequently he won't be allowed to go to a cook out on Sunday or attend the annual weekend camp they are holding soon. I was quite shocked to say the least, and both dh and myself had words to say to my son when we got home.

However, before cubs yesterday, my son had a great day at school, no bad points and lots of good points, and had played very nicely with a friend at home (another cub). When I dropped both boys off at the scout hut, my son was really looking forward to the session. So I was surprised to find his behaviour had deteriorated so much in just over an hour.

I am usually happy to reinforce the cub leaders discipline procedures. I ask how my son has behaved every single time I pick him up, so I know has goes to many sessions (especially in the last months) when he is either OK or good. I know my son can be challenging and I nearly took him out of cubs six months ago, because he seemed to be losing interest and so becoming naughtier than usual, but the cub leader phoned me and said how much he wanted my son to perservere and come back. I let my son make the final decision - he wanted to keep at it and in fact has been very enthusiastic about attending the activities.

In the past I have been in total agreement over the leader's discpline measures - ie my son had to miss a trip to Thorpe Park for messing around at a sports day and he was only allowed to attend half the session for three weeks to reinforce the good behavior message. This has all been fine by me. Good behaviour is a health and safety issue after all.

However I am now feeling that these discipline measures are getting heavy handed and inappropriate and it's not just my son who is being punished. Whenever the leader talks to me, it is done in front of other parents who are collecting their sons. The leader cannot go into a private room because he has to keep a watch on the pack, I understand this, but he does tend to go on and on at length. Even if other parents cannot hear what is being said I am sure they get the general idea. This coupled with the fact that my son is the only cub to be excluded from events makes his problems really public. After yesterday I am beginnnig to think that the leaders have decided that he has to earn the right to go on activities - he is not automatically invited. Considering that the cubs are not angels, I am beginning to feel my son is being singled out unfairly. I am all for punishing bad behaviour in the session, and telling me about it so I can further punish at home if necessary - I just feel cross that the punishment is being carried on outside and in public. Everyone will know the reason for my son not attending events and it stops my son and I being able to integrate happily with the troop.

I have noticed that parents now never offer to give my son lifts to and from events. When my son went to Beavers, these same parents did offer lifts from time to time. Many times I have turned up to collect my son and seen other local parents take a car load of cubs back - with space for one more. When I am waiting around with them I often overhear them arranging lifts togther etc but no one asks me, or rarely says hello to me. I know they would take my son if I asked or say hello if I smile, but I really am getting a bit paranoid. Why should I always be first? These are parents of boys in my son's class at school who have been to playdates and parties at our home. We are not strangers. I went to an AGM meeting recently and not one parent came to say hello to me. I am just getting fed up with making the effort.

I am also cross that the leaders, apart from my son's own pack leader, won't talk to me directly if my son has been misbehaving. If they are happy to look after my son during an activity day, I think they should be happy to tell me if he's been good when I collect him. Yesterday I was told that my son had also messed around when he did his cyclists badge last weekend. He was in the care of other pack leaders, but no one came up to tell me he had been less than good. My son had told me the day went OK, and still maintains that he wasn't told off, so how am I to know there are problems and how can I deal with them myself? Apparently his name was mentioned when they had a pack leader meeting and that was the reason why he's been excluded from the weekend camp event. I just get the impression that pack leaders are talking behind my back and have labelled my son as a troublemaker wiht a question mark over his attendance at any cub event, and it makes me really cross. Other cubs get punished in the sessions themselves. If my son needs extra discipline then there are all sorts of other methods they could use, I'd have thought - like setting him an extra task, making him write lines at home with me, or letting him earn extra points for his six if he is good, etc.

The pack leader is going to phone me to discuss this further. He knows I am not happy with this method of disclipine and very cross that other pack leaders won't talk about my son to my face. Any thoughts on what I should suggest? I am really fed up with this.

janh- sounds totally unfair. As you say I would have thought cheating young children was a worse crime than being cheeky to a vet nurse!

Glad you agree, Jimjams! There isn't any routine de-briefing anyway after work experience (there definitely should be!) so I think I will write a letter to the teachers involved after the Easter hols.

It's an incredibly variable thing. DH used to do it, as a local IT manager, and spent a lot of time showing them as much as possible to make it worthwhile (and did less work himself as a result). When I was at Sainsburys I was impressed with the way they would give students a bit of time in all departments so they got s good idea of what goes on. Others, apparently, look on it as an opportunity to foist boring jobs onto somebody else.

DS has mentioned a few aspects of the week he did - like, when a fairly tedious job came in he says he heard one of the nurses say "the slave can do it". When he was in surgery with the vets, if he asked one of them what she was doing she would explain, another would look bored and give a patronising answer and then a nurse would tell him to get on with something else. Another boy from school is with a vet practice in our town and is having a much more instructive time, more observation and less shit-scrubbing.

He doesn't deny that he did have a bad attitude but he feels a lot of them did too. His train was cancelled on his last morning (it really was, DH was at the station with him) - he rang up to say he would be late, but when he arrived he was criticised for "missing his train" because the message hadn't been passed on. I'm beginning to feel he was a bit hard done by! (Another factor in the de-briefing letter?)

Janh - I sympathise with you totally. I have a ds who is 16 years old - the wind is always in his face. Nothing is his fault and he tends to moan a lot of the time. Then it turns into a bit if a 'cry wolf' scenario and you don't believe them initially when they are hard done by.
Last week my ds came home and said that he had been banned from using the computer station because he had been accused of generating a pornographic e-mail from his school e-mail address and sent it to 2 girls in his year. This was pending an investigation by the school IT department. I quizzed him over every possible reason this might have happened. He was upset that I was even suspecting he had but totally denied any involvement. I was working the next day but DH made an appointment to discuss it at the school. However, the next day the assistant head phoned to apologise and say that the e-mail had been sent by another pupil, from another school, who had the same name as DS. It was an inappropriate cartoon. DS did not receive an apology - the teacher just told him he was 'off the hook'. The more I think about it I believe ds has been treated abominably. He does not want me to progress it though. I think that children of his age are treated with such disregard by most adults and no wonder they develop an 'attitude'. I think I will go to the school though and ask that all my children have their e-mail access withdrawn until such times that they are able to provide unique school identifier numbers. That way i will get my point across without upsetting my ds.

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robinw, have you actually bothered to read my earlier posts?

I am not excusing him. He did behave badly.

I am angry that the school apparently thinks that cheating younger children is OK while cheeking adults is a capital offence.

Lighten up and give others credit where it's due. You have made what I consider some offensive and know-all remarks about tigermoth's family arrnagements on this thread. Why this tendency to assume the worst of others' parenting skills?

janh, you have my sympathy too. Lots of it. Reading your posts again, the thing that comes through strongly is that you are simply searching for the truth. It's awful when you are not there, isn't it, and you hear it all at second hand? Time and time again you've said your son did not have a great attitude. You are certainly not excusing him. Robinw, I don't know how you have got the impression that janh is making excuses for him, as your message implied.

I agree with mears, if we assume children don't have good attitudes, why assume that the adults caring for them unfailingly do? I think it was awful that mears son was simply told he was 'let off the hook'. He was totally innocent - why no apology from the adults for something that I'd have though was a was hugely sensitive matter for a teenager?

Janh, I think deceiving younger children, then lying about it to the teachers, is more serious then your son sounding off to the nurses, especially since that boy was presumably meant to be working with those children on his placement. The nurses attitude to your son's questions sounds pretty varied as well and as for the reprimand about lateness, that is bound to have set things off to a bad start and you know that was certainly not your son's fault at all. Are the same teachers involved in making placement decisions for both boys? I definintely feel you need to talk to the school - it seems unfair that one boy will get a new placement and your ds won't.

Placements are opportunities for students to prove themselves, yes, but also they are two way things, a way of finding out if they want that sort of career. When you start a job, surely you have a greater obligation to make it work out because you have accepted a specific offer of employment. When I was a student, our class received placements in various advertising agencies. The results varied hugely. Some students found they didn't get on in a particular placement for all sorts of reasons, others got the placement from heaven and thrived. Some agencies went out of their way to integrate their students, others ignored them, sat them in an empty office and the students perhaps stopped turning up. If that happened, the college worked with the student to find out what went wrong and get another placement for them. It happened all the time. Sorry I am rambling, but just to say, janh, I think it's not on for the school to make no attempt at finding you son another placement. Perhaps they intend to do so later on? definitely talk to them about this.

As for me, no I haven't spoken to the cub leader yet but will phone him tomorrow evening - would do so tonight, but I will be at the book launch. It did occur to me that perhaps the cub leader has been trying to phone me, but can't get through because I am on the internet talking it through here

I'll let you know what happens.

Tigermoth and Janh, haven't been around so I missed this lot but I hope you find solutions for both your boys.

I cannot believe what I am reading Tigermoth, and I haven't really got past Saturday am. I am and have been for the last 14 years and assistant Cub Scout Leader (ACSL). Both my parents are also involved with scouting. Mum is the Cub scout leader (CSL) and Dad is the Group Scout Leader(GSL) I have never banned any cub from an event. They have to earn their place by earning points especially for camp but we have yet to tell a boy he cannot come and certainly not without giving him a warning first. That usually works. have you had a conversation with the GSL? If you get nowhere see if you can get the name of the Assisstant district commissioner (cubs). failing that, have you thought about changing packs? He might get on better with a new Leader, it seems to me that there may be some sort of clash developing and your son is taking the brunt of it. I know from experience that some boys (and girls) are just out to cause trouble and come hell or highwater that's what they will achieve, but baby tigermoth doesn't come across like that! He sounds mischeivious, but what child isn't in fact I would be quite worried if he wasn't. Is he the only leader if not can you talk to the others? Do the other leaders at the badge day know baby tigermoth or are they basing their opinions on what his leader is saying? good luck

mears, sorry I missed answering yours this morning, I love your expression "the wind is always in his face"! They do make life harder for themselves than it needs to be, don't they?

Not sure what I would do in the position you're in. I would certainly want your DS to receive more recognition of his total innocence than "you're off the hook", but as far as that's concerned I suppose you have to go along with his wishes.

Having a unique school identifier sounds like a sensible idea and surely not too difficult to organise. I think after what's happened they should be only too pleased to consider it - and to give students the benefit of the doubt in questions of identity until it's done. (Presumably your kids have email provision at home too so wouldn't be completely deprived while they waited?)

tigermoth, what you say about the placements being a 2-way street is exactly how I feel. Your experience, where all the students went to the same type of office, is a perfect example.

My DS has friends working at a solicitor's where they spend most of the day playing computer games, apparently, but when my DD2 did her work experience at a different solicitor's she worked the switchboard, did filing and accompanied the duty solicitor to the police cells and the courts etc.

Can't think of a simple solution though. They have to find a place for everybody and so have to accept some places which are less suitable than others.

Hope you have a productive discussion with the cub leader when you eventually make contact!

WWW,I thought I hadn't seen your name recently, I was thinking about you today and wondering where you were! Hope everything is OK? Thanks for good wishes - DS said he had a wonderful time today reading in the sunshine (think he was a bit bored really though...)

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scuse me tigermoth - dont mean to be sticking up for you - know you can do it perfectly well just wanted to offer another view

robin - i didnt read tigermoths postings the way you did, in fact i got the impression she wanted to handle the situation as diplomatically as possible, exploring all the options. i was shouting at my monitor " i would bloody well go in and tell them what for" before posting a little more demurely "make sure your son is playing on an even field"

i think often times parents take other parents or adults views about their children as gospel, without trusting their childs version. i can trust my childs version. am sure tigermoth can trust her child too.
it sounds as though tigermoth is sensibly weighing up all the options and taking on board advice given.
i must admit i was taken aback when robin asked about tigermoths partners involvement, in true tigermoth style she answered the question sensibly and thoughtfully. me.. i would have told you its non of your business.
had it been differently phrased i may have answered differently .

robinw, "a bit hard done by" is hardly making excuses for him.

You recently said on another thread that teachers (and other adults) don't "take against" children (or other adults) without good reason.

I think you have an unrealistic attitude to children and adults - people in general, in fact. Obviously you have the ability to take a completely objective view of everybody involved, and the circumstances, whether you know them or not.

When you have your own fairly stroppy boy, who you know to be a perfectly nice person (most of the time), you may take a different stance.

The teacher involved in the work placement also organises the Duke of Edinburgh's award scheme. He and my DS have both put last Friday's upset behind them and had a really good chat today about the camping expedition the DoE students undertook at the weekend. Maybe he knows my DS a bit better than you? He is a good kid, but cocky, but he will get over that. I'm tempted here to use the Winston Churchill quote about the lady MP who said he was drunk, but will refrain.

I stand by my earlier point that you have a distressing habit of looking for the worst possible explanation of why a situation has occurred, and it doesn't help anybody. The point of mumsnet is supposed to be that it provides support and advice, not the kind of undermining "helpful" advice that you specialise in.

I don't want to get involved in the specifics of the children mentioned in these examples, as I don't know the full facts but IMO writing letters to schools, cub leaders or whoever seems totally over the top - unless all reasonable avenues of face to face discussions etc really haven't worked; or very serious danger/abuse is involved.

I would have been mortified if my parents had written to my school about anything - I really feel that children have to learn how to resolve these sorts of issues themselves without expecting mum or dad to bail them out. Even thought my DS is only 2 if he is in the care of a friend/child-minder or playgroup I fully support whatever action they feel appropriate to deal with discipline etc & don't want to get over-involved in the matter after it has passed. If I felt I couldn't accept this I would never leave my child.

On the subject of work experience, I used to work in the fashion industry & of course we were inundated with requests for school placements; I was one of the few managers that would actually agree to take them on because so many others thought it just wasn't worth the time & effort - but, in nearly all cases, they seemed to have a really over-inflated opionion of themselves & what they should be doing; quite honestly,even in an exciting industry like I worked in 80% of the work is pretty dull & monotonous & despite having a mega-salary, company car & all the associated perks I still spent a lot of time on really trivial stuff & it galled me to have 14 year olds refusing to help out with the routine office work - as one of them left & we had a de-brief (she had been the least co-operative ever, refused even to answer a phone) I asked her what her career ambitions were - 'to be a barrister or brain surgeon' ........... get real!

ScummyMummy
I have just read your post and I think it is one of the most thought provoking post I have ever read on Mumsnet. The advice can be applied to so many situations facing us mums in the next few years.I love the idea of taking yourself out of the equation and making them responsible for their own behaviour
Thank you

Lindy, I will repeat to you what I said to robinw - when you have your own stroppy boy - especially a 15-16yr-old - you will be in a better position to judge how a situation like ours should be handled. A 2-yr-old is not the same thing at all. My DS was adorable at 2 and no trouble at all.

Maybe you will be lucky - maybe your DS will be charm personified and people will be falling over themselves to offer him work experience and calling you daily to tell you how wonderful he is.

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Janh, Tigermoth I don't have anything helpful to say as my children are obviously so much younger than yours. Your posts however just highlight how different the challenges of parenting are when you are dealing with a nine or 15 year old compared 3 year old. I was a hideously stroppy teenager (and a rabid womens libber) and have no idea how my parents put up with me let alone how I went on to do the job I've done for the past 16 years. I hope I can be as balanced and patient as you both seem to be.

I am also intrigued by the number of contributors who were chucked out of Brownies etc!.

Tigermoth, janh
as bells2, I too think you are doing a grand job.

janh - please, don't take my comments personally, as I tried to clarify, I don't want to make 'judgements' on the cases here, I was just trying to explain my own point of view.

By the way, I can assure you that my two year old is in no way adorable, he is an incredibly difficult, demanding child who drives me to distraction (has already had to be sent home early from a toddler group outing).

Yes, I shall be interested to see how I cope when he's older, I know it's very easy to envisage how you think you'll behave in situations that you, as yet, have no experience of.

Again, sorry if my comments caused any offence, certainly not intentional, I think this is a really interesting discussion.

scummymummy, very inspiring post that I have mentally filed away. Very refreshing.

Janh and tigermoth I think you both are doing a wonderful job and trying to work out whats best for you and your boys. You're obviously very loving parents. You're doing your best. Fingers crossed you see some improvement.

poor tigermoth, you sound like you are having a dreadful time. I went through the whole brownies, guides, venture scouts thing when I was growing up, then took beavers and cubs so maybe I can give you a little insight into the way these people are behaving. Firstly the way you have been treated is appalling. What you have to remember is that on average these people tend to have a great sense of self importance, they think that they have the authority to tell you how to bring your child up which is unnacceptable. When I took cubs we never, however undisciplined a child was, excluded them from activities, basically because this singled them out to the other kids and made things a nightmare for them. This may well be the reason the parents are backing off too, they may be listening to their little darlings repeating what the leader is saying. Its a difficult situation. I wouldn't bother getting an opinion about your sons behaviour from this jumped up set of people. If you are genuinly concerned go to the school as them if his behaviour is unacceptable and deal with it from there. Cub leaders are not trained to deal with real disciplinary issues in children and frankly shouldn't even try. As for the current situation, is there no other pack he could attend? ALternatively once you have all of the facts, you should put your assertive hat on and speak to them frankly, if no joy then get in touch with the Scouts and have a chat with them, I am absolutely sure they will be as horrified about this as I am, rule one, never single a child out and undermine the childs confidence. I hope it goes ok for you let us know what happens x

Wow, I don'twant to open myself to abuse, but I have to agree with Lindy about work placements. I work in a college and go through the agony of work placements evey year. Inevitably some students have totally unrealistic expectations of what working involves. We had one student ring up (male) in tears after two days at work. The cleaner had failed to appear and - not unreasonably - his employers asked him if he would vaccuum the front entrance so there would be a good impression for the customers. He did not see why he would have to do "womens work" (his own words) despite us pointing out to him that we all do what is necessary when the situation demands it. I had another who walked out of work experience after 2 hours because they asked him to do some filing. He thought that as he was on an advanced level course, filing was beneath him. Who amongst us has the luxury of someone to do our filing for us?

We also visit students in their workplace. I saw one who had been treated wonderfully, was involved in all aspects of the office life and had even been given a design project all of his own. Still the boy complained!

Adolescents are strange creatures. I constantly find myself having conversations with concerned, involved parents about aspects of their children's behaviour which they have no knowledge of. I have one student who is a lovely, charming and intelligent student. The only problem is that he never attends class. His parents are amazed as they drop him off at college every morning at 8.30am, apparantly he has a very good relationship with them and tells them about what he's doing at college every day. The problem is that he's lying. It only came to light when we threatened to withdraw him form his course. This is not an isolated incident. In any class I teach I can point out 2 or 3 students who's behaviour inside the classroom would shock their parents, however involved and committed to their child's progress they are. And yes, I do meet and talk with the parents. The gap between my experience of the student and theirs of their child would be funny if it didn't have the potential to affect the child's future prospects.

Hi, Lindy, I'm very sorry about that, I was just feeling stroppy myself last night (I wonder where he gets it from...?). Of course your post was completely reasonable and non-judgmental - and true.

Thanks, everybody, for kind words of support - it's a tough job but somebody has to do it.

(Incidentally I have just remembered another excuse for DS; the weekend before he started at the vet's he had been on the Duke of Edinburgh's expedition practice trip - 2 5-mile treks with full pack, and not much sleep on the Saturday night because it was s-o-o-o-o c-o-o-o-ld. On the Monday morning he was still a bit groggy and the first time he had to hold an animal for an injection he came over all queer and had to go away and sit down. They may have thought "we've got a right wuss here!" and altered his tasks accordingly.)

morph, I was glad to read your contribution, I have come up against this kind of personality in the past but when I tried to discuss it with other parents their response tended to be "if they take the time and trouble to run the pack then they can do it any way they want." One woman in particular used to manipulate the Brownie waiting list in order to admit the girls she knew and exclude those she didn't. (One of mine never made it to the top of the list despite being on it from 6-9.) She also used to make a point of keeping all her Brownies until they were past 11, and amazingly they used to win the local rounders and netball tournaments every year! (The fact that they were playing 7-10 year olds in the other packs did not detract in any way from her glee.)

On the other hand, thank heavens, I have also dealt with some wonderful leaders who do a great job and really like and appreciate the children they work with.

Janh- in case there was any confusion, I think your boy sounds ace! Really wasn't trying to imply that he deserved all he got- I think he will dine out on the story of being kicked off his work experience placement for years to come... much as we are all boasting about being expelled from Brownies/Sunday school/whatever. And he'll probably also benefit from recounting how bloody unfair it all was, how the nazi animal lovers made him wash the steps and took against him from the start, how he managed to swing it at school despite teachers with skewed value systems who were actually less angry with a cheating, advantage taker who nicked little kids' Pokémon cards! I think this is why I would advocate parents distancing themselves a bit from things sometimes a la my last post. The kids have more fun that way! With the cubs situation, for example- sounds to me like Master Tigermoth is having a whale of a time being a little bit naughty (but NOT unspeakably dreadful) and silly with his mates at cubs. He's not stupid so is aware that the boring cub master is anti him doing this, and perhaps unfairly so since he is sometimes singled out for doing stuff when others are not, but HE DOESN'T CARE because he likes cubs- wants to stay. So the only person really suffering here is Tigermoth who is worried both that her son isn't behaving and that he's being treated unfairly. If she can say "you guys sort this out, it's not my problem" everyone wins as far as I can see. Though I very much agree that this can be easier said than done, Janh. And also agree with monkey and custardo that there are situations when this sort of parental withdrawal just wouldn't do at all and strong action is needed, for example if a child was very unhappy, being bullied by other children or adults or a teacher required parental support for a child's severe behavioural problems. But I do think that often children are more resourceful and resilliant than we think and can solve some of these things and take responsiblity for their positive and negative actions in quite excellent ways as they get a bit older.
Robinw- Really really really can't agree with your assessment of Janh's and T'moth's sons as having "problems". They both sound like lovely, spirited, intelligent, fun-loving kids to me, with wonderful parents. Personally I think it's very important for kids to be able to be a bit bad sometimes. I regret not being badder than I was as a kid, even though I had my moments and still do. I am quite enjoying my sons' attempts in this direction, whilst trying to educate them as to what is and isn't ok.

I agree with you about being 'bad' occassionally Scummy and that the best way for children / adolescents to learn the consequences of their own actions is to leave them to it sometimes. My own parents adopted a complete laissez faire approach to our upbringing and while it had its drawbacks, overall it worked.

I also can't imagine not wanting to give a lift to someone's child simply because they are sometimes prone to high spirits.