>Our own troop has tended to be more solicitous of the boys'
>comfort than I have wanted. A lot of basic planning,
>preparation, equipping, and skills have been given short
>shrift.

How many of you have heard parents (the ones that never volunteer to come and help) "concerned" about things like camping and hiking in the rain or snow? Good Lord, one of the things we're trying to teach the boys is how to handle themselves in less than ideal conditions!

We try to make sure that the boys are reasonably ready to deal with conditions that may arise, and do it with a positive attitude. On a recent 2 night camping trip, we had fairly high winds, and driving rain on both nights. On the first night, a pair of scouts were the proud owners of an indoor swimming pool, inside their tent, at around 2am. Their rain fly had half blown off, and was shredded by an overhanging branch as it flapped away. Now, there was a lot of commotion, and confusion initially. After looking over the situation from a distance, with another adult on the trip, we decided that since it was warm out, and they had good rain gear, we'd let them deal with their "shelter" issues. We went back to the adult tent, and "listened" for problems, but, basically let them fumble around until they had the situation under control again. They never actually came over to ask for help, which was great, since they took some pride in solving the problem themselves.
There were a couple other boys with some water problems too, who woke with some damp sleeping bags that first night, for various tent setup reasons.

When the weekend was nearing an end, everyone was talking about the flooded tent, and laughing about it. They were all pretty happy that they made it through the weekend, with some jury rigged tarps over 2 tents, and some creative use of a couple poncho's as a rain fly on another. (On the second night, everyone had adapted in some way, and stayed dry.)

When we arrived back at the church, where the parents meet to pick up the boys, they started telling the mom's and dad's about the weekend while moving gear from one vehicle to another. We soon had a couple parents expressing their concern. They seemed to think we should have cancelled the camping until a weekend without any rain. It was all we could do not to laugh. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

One of the parents has a son who absolutely loves being outdoors hiking, camping, and fishing. The parents don't. They are the type who will call to see if a trip is being cancelled, because rain is in the forecast. At one point, they talked about maybe taking their son out of the program because they didn't think it was appropriate to go camping, knowing it might rain. I asked one of them if they would rather that their son learn how to handle themselves now, with adults there to coach them, or do they think it would be better to forbid their son from participating? I then said something like: "You could stop him from doing it now, but, your son loves the outdoors. When he's in college, he'll want to do this with his friends, and he'll go out in the woods anyway. We're trying to help him be prepared to handle himself responsibly when he's older, and there aren't adults around to provide the structure and guidance."

(Don't get me wrong, we're not crazy, and wouldn't suggest taking the troop out under severe conditions that would be inapproriate / unsafe.)

How do other folks deal with parents like that? <img src="/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />