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Our den overfloweth with scouts
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___Every other Monday or so, our house is invaded. The Cub Scouts have landed.
___Although there are only nine of them, including my two, they seem to fill our den to overflowing. And the more meetings we have, the more we understand why scouting leadership
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ALISON WINGFIELD
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manuals recommend a den size of six boys. They must fear for the sanity of the leaders if the group is any larger.
___Actually, we have some great boys. But they are boys, and therefore have an abundance of energy. Trying to channel that energy in constructive ways so we can accomplish what we need to keeps us on our toes.
___In our favor is the lure of earning cool badges for their uniforms. The boys have not reached the stage where Cub Scout uniforms are uncool (or whatever the current lingo is). Right now they like to wear their badges and belt loops and pins and beads. And getting more is ever-present on their minds.
___Cub Scouts is a wonderful program. Through some very basic requirements, the boys learn all sorts of good things, such as how to take care of the environment, bicycle safety rules and respect for each other and their leaders. Of course, as parents we have tried to teach these very same things, but when they are written in a Cub Scout handbook and you have to fulfill the requirements on the Wolf Trail to get a Wolf badge, then the lessons seem to sink in much faster.
___Recently, I was helping out in Garrett’s class, which several of the other scouts from our den are in. I was trying to line them up to go to P.E., and some of the boys were being rowdy. I finally got them to quiet down, but as they were going out the door, I heard one of our scouts chastising another one, saying, "You’re supposed to respect your Cub Scout leader!"
___If only our own kids would pick up on that idea.
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___There's just something about a boy in uniform that makes all the difference. Our scouts all pass through some magical transformation on den and pack meeting days--a transformation that makes them look well-behaved eventhey really aren't.
___Alison and I
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MARK WINGFIELD
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look upon our Cub Scout leadership experience as a kind of mission project. It's a way we can have a positive influence in helping teach a group of boys basic morality and citizenship.
___But some days it seems we learn as much or more as the boys.
___My heart broke the day two of our dens combined for a field day to meet the badge requirements for certain athletic activities. My job was to make sure each boy knew how to throw a baseball or a football. More than one of the boys appeared to have little--if any--experience throwing a ball. I was saddened to think of how missing fathers and overworked mothers leave some young boys with no one with whom to play catch. And I redoubled my resolve that I would make more time to play ball with my own boys and their friends.
___All the boys in our den love the recognition they get in Cub Scouts. But it seems to me it's the ones who have the most and the ones who have the least who want those badges the most. The reasons are somewhat different, for sure. But the desire to be recognized for doing something on their own is the same.
___Already this year we've seen scouting become a bright ray of hope in the life of one boy who has known a huge amount of pain and difficulty in the past.
___It's things like this we need to remember when the actual invasion on our house begins for a den meeting. It's easy to get distracted, though, when second graders are swinging from the ceiling beams.
Mark Wingfield is managing editor of the Standard. Alison Wingfield is a freelance writer. The Wingfields moved to Texas from Louisville, Ky., where Mark had been editor of the Western Recorder, in which this column appeared weekly.
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