Bo Duke
(Jason) 50 characters is NOT Enough!!
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2011
Ok, so we just moved to a new city and state. My son and I were involved in Cub Scouts last year (Tiger/Bobcat) and I was Asst. Den Leader. Almost all Dad led...camping, woodworking, carpentry etc.
At his new school/pack/den..it seems to be all mom led??? I went to the first den mtg...we wore our uniforms as we were used to. It was about 6 moms and a couple of high schools girls leading the den mtg of about 12 boys. We were the only ones in scout apparel. There did not seem to be much personal interaction with the boys, just rotating them through stations to "accomplish" activities. I tried to hang back (to see how they did things/ don't want to step on any toes).
I was very disappointed....not with the moms, I'm glad they were leading. Where are the dads? My son also plays football and almost every dad is there for every practice T/Th 5:30-6:30 and games on Sat. Not one other dad bothered to take his son to scouts on a sunday afternoon!?
What are y'alls thoughts?
I am more than happy to try to help the den, but not real comfortable being the only dad. I'm also not sure all the Leaders/helper s are certified/youth protection etc.(high school girls) I can do alot of the activities with my son outside of the meetings, but this so different than we were used to.
Any scouting DisDads...advice?
Thanks for the chance to vent.
I would do what you did. Sit back for a meeting or two at the most. I also would find out who your district director is and speak with him. Ask questions but don't say, "well we did it this way." So ask questions and make suggestions. See how the pack meetings are. If they are just the same then I would defiantly talk to the district director. They should, but may not be aware of the situation. My oldest boy joined as a tiger last year. I became his den leader. Now this year my youngest son is in it. I am his den leader. My wife is our older sons leader. I have also now become the Cubmaster. There was lots of unorganization and we haven't been a quality pack for the last several years. I hope to change that. I talked with our district director and he knew a little bit about how things were going but not all of it. We were actually losing scouts to the unorganization. Also you may want to talk to your charter organization and see what they have to say.