My 11 year old brother joined Boy Scouts of America a few months ago. He had been begging my parents to let him go on an overnight trip for a while until finally my parents agreed. So last weekend he went on this long awaited trip. He lost some tournament and as punishment (or a cruel joke) he was tied to a tree and the other kids threw pine cones at him for 30 seconds. Some kids were nicer than others and threw open cones where as others through the hard kind, which ultimately resulted in the entirety of my brother back being bruised.
I always thought that Boy Scouts (BS) were about teaching kids good values and helping others, and I don’t know that this particular incident was teaching them that. In fact, to me, it only teaches violence. Interestingly I found this article on the BS page http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/HealthandSafety/GSS/gss01.aspx. Here is a direct quote “The quality of the program and the safety of our youth members call for high-quality adult leaders. We work closely with our chartered organizations to help recruit the best possible leaders for their units.” I wonder what kind of leaders will grow from the above mentioned behavior.
However the trouble didn’t end there.
Later in the trip my brother was attacked by a dog, which belonged to a nearby owner. The dog bit him on his back and behind. And here is where things got even more interesting; even though the counselors on the trip were all fathers, nobody took my brother to the hospital for a check up, nobody requested paperwork from the dog owner regarding proper immunizations, nobody recorded the incident, and worst of all nobody called my parents. In me opinion, this group showed nothing but irresponsibility and it scares me that these people are responsible for children.
Once my brother got home, once again the counselors did not approach or apologize for what happened. In fact, after some research it became clear to me that some people accept this abusive behavior from the scouts as a norm. As a mother of two, it is beyond me why someone would want to send their child to a place that teaches the wrong messages with obviously no responsible supervision.
We will be pressing charges.
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