Tomorrow (Saturday) my older son will do his Eagle project in Boy Scouts. We already have 109 hours of work (of which, a little over half was all his own work) into the project, and that is just the planning and preparation. Tomorrow we will do the substantive work. He will lead us in a project planting trees in a nearby national forest with the USFS. In addition to the scouts and scouters from our own rather small troop, we will also have volunteers from the community doing the labor.

For the most part the preparatory stage has gone well. The only major complication were 3 school projects assigned in these last 3 weeks of school to accompany the 2 ongoing school projects he already had. That unexpectedly and seriously compromised his time to gather community support for the project. I am so looking forward to completing the actual work and putting the deadline behind us.

Time to get a few hours sleep. I'll let you all know in a few days how it went.

John

John,

I think I know exactly how you feel - it will turn out fine, I'm sure. It's kind of like letting him ride a bike without training wheels - step back and let him ride, er, manage the plantings... he has to be in charge of the project. If you get some overwhelming urge to "help" him, take him off and make your suggestion(s) privately and let him decide what / how to do. I know, it's hard, but...

I was really comfortable letting our youngest totally manage his own extremely ambitious Eagle project and he was awarded his Eagle earlier this month, so it works. Of course, his two older brothers had to put up with me trying to "help" on thier projects... this stuff is really hard on us dads, eh? <img src="/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Have fun and congratulations on guiding him along to this point. Here's where he spreads his own wings...

WWW,

Tom

Tom,

Hi!

First of all, Congratulations on raising 3 Eagle Scouts. That says a lot about their father (and mother). You have obviously done a wonderful job raising and educating your 3 sons on their practical life skills.

Believe it or not, I don't think I usurped or encroached on his leadership role in this project. I have been constantly reminding myself to let him take the lead and do the work so that he will learn from it, even when he makes mistakes. A big reason for that has been the numerous small battles we have had re meetings. He has been SPL a little longer than I have been Scoutmaster. It has been hard to let him lead the boys, so I hear about that constantly. I also heard about the problem of giving orders to my younger son at Scouting activities, at least until he realized that the alternative is taking orders from his older brother. But even that seems to be coming along fairly well.

Fortunately, we did not have any major problems at the project. We had a very good turnout of the scouts and scouters from our troop and a sister troop. The surprise was that we had absolutely no volunteers outside of scouting and USFS volunteers. Either our compromised publicity was insufficient, or a fairly easy outdoor activity was just a whole lot harder sell than I would have ever guessed.

He has been spreading his wings quite a bit over the last year. This summer, he will work as a camp counselor (mostly life guarding) at a nearby BSA camp. He did that last year as a volunteer. This year he seems to have wangled some pay for his work. I am very proud of him since he is accomplishing a lot more than I ever did at his age (newly 15 yo) away from home.

Thanks for the good wishes.

And best wishes for your entire family,

John

Hi back, John!

Congratulations! Good deal - tell us about the ceremony after it happens - I got choked up at each one of them at various points in the ceremonies <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Hope your son enjoys working with the boys at camp. Our eldest did 3 summers, but school has him in a hammerlock this summer, so that's all for him. The other two are working two jobs each this summer - Vista grants with ARC for community emergency preparedness and pizza delivery after that - tuition coming due soon, lol. College has them all by the throat...

Enjoy your family time - hope you don't have any bad fires this year.

Best,

Tom

[color:"blue"]Taquatschin Netopalis[/color]

Congratulations!

I have one Eagle Scout that is now 20 and he is an engineering student at ASU. I have another son that is a Star scout. He plans to make Eagle. I also have twins that will be Webelo II and Boy Scouts next year. Last pinewood derby!

The hard part is wanting the Eagle project to be successful but not stepping in and taking control. You have to let the scout manage the project. Advice is good!




I hope you son has a great Eagle Court of Honor!

Tom & Craig,

Thanks very much.

John