Active Parental Support

This page is intended mostly for parents but Scouts are welcome to read it too.  Hopefully this will help you understand how to support your Scout and his Troop, and to make sure he reaches Eagle rank.

	The best thing you can do to support your scout is to register as a uniformed Troop Leader.  This shows your scout that you think scouting is important.  When you show up in uniform every week at the Scout meeting you are telling your son that you are willing to spend some of your valuable time on something that benefits only him (Not to say that Scouting isn't fun for the adults too!).
	If you are unable be an active part of the weekly program you can become a Committee Member.  Committee Members perform a number of administrative functions which allow the Scoutmaster and his assistants to concentrate on providing a good program. They also provide quality control and safety oversight for Troop activities.  If even this is not possible for you, you can still tell your son that you support his scouting by responding to periodic requests for help... driving on campouts, offering help on service projects, bringing food to Courts of Honor, and so on.
	You can make a contribution to the Troop by offering your expertise as a Merit Badge Counselor. You do not need to be a fully registered leader to be a Counselor, but you do need to fill out a partial adult application.  You must be trained on the responsibilities of being a merit badge counselor.
	Every parent, leader or not, can play a big role in advancement just by making sure that the Scout makes it to weekly meetings on time.  Important news and instruction sessions are often offered and if a Scout isn't present it's easy to miss important stuff.  The same goes for campouts.
	More day-to-day support you can offer is to make sure that your scout completes any assignments he may have each week.  Every merit badge class requires the Scout to do some work outside of the weekly meeting.  This will rarely require more than an hour or so per week but it's easy (and incredibly common) for the Scout to forget or to just get lazy.  Offer gentle reminders to complete his assignments.  You can always contact the Merit Badge Counselor to find out what your Scout should be working on.
	On a related but slightly different subject, don't ever hesitate to ask questions of, or give your opinions to a uniformed Troop Leader.  Most of the adult leaders, especially the Scoutmaster, are busy from before the weekly meeting starts until after it ends.  They may seem to be ignoring the parents who are standing around, but that's only because they are trying to do their assigned jobs.  They may also seem be most interested in talking to each other and not to the parents.  Often this is because they are discussing Scout business, but it may just be because they like each other and have something in common.  Please don't ever feel that you can't break into the 'clique' of uniformed leaders or that you're not welcome.  Leaders often fall into the trap of keeping to their own group and not taking the initiative to welcome parents.  Any leader worth his khaki will always take time or make time to listen to a scout or his parents.  Finally, don't ever think that you're not needed.  We've heard comments before that 'There seems to be a lot of leaders and things seem to be under control so what am I needed for?'.  You are always needed, even if we neglect to ask.