Lately I’ve been feeling burdened and not enthusiastic about my role as a cub scout webelos den leader. Yesterday I remembered why it is worth doing. I’ve got 6 boys in my den. They all show up to the meetings bright eyed and happy to be there. Only once in more than a year did I have a boy who wanted to be somewhere else. Because I am the mother of one of the boys, I know that the boys may moan and groan about having to go. They kick up a fuss about having to leave their games or their friends. But once they arrive, the are glad to be at cub scouts. They are excited to be in a place where a pair of adults have planned an activity or project just for them. Some of the projects are less exciting than others, but we try to make sure that we don’t trip their homework alarms even when using worksheets.
Right now my den is working on an athlete badge. This means that we go into the gym and take measurements of how many push-ups they can do, how far they can jump, how fast they can run. We’ll repeat these measurements for the next few weeks tracking progress. The boys loved it. They had a chance to run around for an hour and show us what they can do. I was a little worried about this badge because my Link is measurably not as good at these physical activities as some of his peers. We had one boy do 50 sit-ups. Link did 4. But not once did any boy make a disparaging comment to any other boy. All the emphasis was on each individual seeing what they could do and improving.
The emphasis on physical activity is going to be good for Link. Being stronger would be good for him, make him more confident, and now is a good time to push for it. Link continues to be fascinated with jumping rope. He brought it with him to scouts and was better at it than the other boys. That was a big boost for him. The only drawback is that he jumped around so much yesterday that he is very sore today. He hobbled and winced his way through getting dressed. I hope that he doesn’t let the pain of muscle soreness put him off of jumping rope.
Good for you! I know that for us as Bear Leaders sometimes Ross has been the only good responsible male role model some of these boys have. Boys need to feel important, special and loved and I love the cub scout program for helping us do that for these cool boys we get to interact with.
LightningBoy likes indoor activities, and we’re not sports people… so he needs the pysical activity at webelos too!
p.s.
do you know how hard it is to type with a mint chocolate chip icecream cone in one hand? lol!
Oh, I know how much that soreness can hurt! *chuckles* I remember how sore I was just the day after I got my Wii, and that’s nothing, compared to jumping rope and exercising all day! Just remind him that each day it gets a little less sore, and eventually, you’re not sore at all afterwards! I’m excited for him. That little boost that, yes, you CAN be the best at something, can seriously make a child’s week, month, even year!
As a Cub Scout I only had one or two friends at any given time. The rest of the boys were mean, to varying degrees. (I wasn’t out of shape, but not caring about athletics took away cool points for me.) But I enjoyed working on earning badges and usually loved going to Cub Scouts solely because of that. I would say that as long as the boys are involved in activities with measurable achievements (recognized by badges), more boys will enjoy themselves than just the ones who like doing stuff with their friends.
For example, later I became an assistant Scoutmaster for an 11-year-old patrol, and the boys there all had a great time working on various badges. Then one of our most enthusiastic boys turned 12 and left our patrol for the older group, which did nothing but play basketball. That burned him out pretty quickly.
Fry bread
I helped my Aunt with a younger group of boys one afternoon, after going to water aerobics with her. They can be a handful, but it was fun helping them make Indian Fry Bread. They all fought over who got to measure what ingredien.
Ona