Welcome to my world ... of Boy Scouts.

Every year my son's troop receives 5-8 11 year old boys who have maybe spent a handfull of nights in a tent with dad (sometimes mom). They've never had to be involved in packing for trips, planing ahead for weather, buying food, cooking, cleaning, being near fire - let alone lighting matches, or handling anything sharper than a butter knife.

Many of them have really not spent any time away from their parents, except for school ... and even then, some of them are home-schooled and have NEVER been away from home or parents.

Its great to see them grow. Parents are absolutely SHOCKED when their sons head into the grocery store with their patrol-mates and start buying food with no adult assistance.

The weekend before last the troop headed out on a weekend campout. Friday's weather was beautiful. Near 70F and sunny. BUT the weather forecast for Saturday was for temperatures to drop into the 40's with heavy rain. Fully half the boys arrived packing nothing but cotton shorts and cotton t-shirts ... and when it would rain they wouldn't bother putting rain gear on, but rather would change into dry cotton clothes every so often. Eventually the dry clothes ran out and they found themselves FREEZING. By darkfall Saturday night parents had to be called to come get them. BTW, several of the boys had been camping with the troop for 3 years!

They still don't seem to want to carry knives. Not sure why. I think the school has grilled into them that carrying knives is, well, something just not done. Most of them have a knife in their pack though.