Doreen has a website. Nice.
WTF. This is far more mainstream than I was prepared to believe, according to the “About Doreen Virtue” page.
[troll]at least she’s not gay [/troll]
Is you daughter spouting any of this back to you?
Is she going for her Alien Abduction merit badge?
My first reaction is to say don’t sweat it too much. Then I think back on what the nuns did to me. It took years to get over some of that shit.
Be vigilant. Kids are very impressionable. It’s not uncommon for them to reject their parenting and follow some charlatan.
I read “Certified Mediums” and immediately thought “that should be ‘media’”. Oh dear.
I read “Certified Mediums” and immediately thought “of course.”
“OR”?
Stay away from this woman, OP.
I work with lots of girl scout troops, and if yours works the same way as most that I see, the leader PROBABLY doesn’t have much time for proselytizing. However, it really depends on how gung-ho she is about her ridiculous beliefs. Some people can insert them into any conversation. Given your description in the OP, if this woman is in any way an attention seeker, she’s going to be throwing out angels left and right, as she “sees” them hovering about.
That Reiki shit, too! Wow. It was debunked by a 9 year old kid at her school science fair - can’t find a link, but seen it in the past. I have an acquaintance who’s always trying to uh, Reiki at me without my permission. She got a bit snippy when I asked her to stop Reiki-ing my dogs.
I suppose it boils down to your relationship with your daughter. She’s going to come across quackery some time, and, if you think she’s ready, this might be a good chance to help her set up her own defences against it.
Oh, I can hear it now:
*“She never mentions the word addiction
In certain company…” *
In my experience, Woo Believers almost always try to spread their preferred flavor of woo to some extent. The only people more active in spreading woo are Woo Peddlers, who obviously have a vested interest in doing so.
This woman sounds like she might be both. Take that for what it’s worth.
That would be Emily Rosa:
Hear, hear. An excellent idea for training purposes. A hands-on experience with woo.
The only mention my daughter has made of any of this is that when another girl in the troop said that her dog was very sick, the woo-lady said that guardian angels watch over our pets and would help heal it.
To be fair, I’ve heard that sort of stuff from mainstream religious types - it’s just the sort of stuff said to comfort a kid.
If I were in that situation I’d keep tabs on the situation, at the very least. Are there any events coming up where you could volunteer to help out? That way you could see how the group works as a whole, and plus it could be fun.
You’re confusing the Girl Scouts with the Boy Scouts (an easy mistake at that age, depending on hair length and clothing choices).
GSA has no issue with gays or atheists as leaders or members. BSA has a different attitude.
Ask Woo Lady where the guardian angel was when the pet got sick. Out to lunch? Looking the other way? Drunk at a bar?
Funny. But poking Woo-spreaders with a stick has never had really good results in my experience (not that I can always resist the temptation).
I think I’d leave the kid in the troop but take every opportunity to debunk whatever woo she spreads.
If the source of that statement was mainstream religious beliefs I doubt you would have even noticed it.
My personal view: mostly harmless ™
She has taken on a volunteer position in an organization that values diversity and inclusion. She is giving of her time and herself. She is not doing anything illegal. She’s not breaking any Girl Scout rules or code of conduct.
Are you aware of the spiritual beliefs of every person your daughter comes into contact with? I would guess not. The only difference with this woman is that you know of her beliefs and disagree with them. I guarantee you that there are more people like this in your daughters life, you just don’t know it.
Your daughter can be an individual Girl Scout and not a member of a troop if it really bothers you.
I’m a Girl Scout leader. The leader won’t have that much time to teach your daughter woo, and you can combat the references at home. My Scouts have had to put up with non-Christian me as a leader (I bit my tongue when one of my Girl Scouts said recently regarding something or another “Jesus only cares that you believe in him”). I had the pleasure to help them sell cookies to a transvestite - I’m sure that wasn’t an experience many GS Leaders would have gone out of their way to give their girls…
But Girl Scout Leaders are rare. We have half a dozen girls in our service unit that we can’t place in troops because there aren’t troops for them. We badger mothers to be leaders because otherwise their girls don’t HAVE troops at all. Leaders are volunteer, and it isn’t an easy job - when they were little, I spent four or five hours a week on Girl Scouts (now mine are middle schoolers and Scouts is a back seat activity for them - and for me). I say this because finding another troop may not BE an option and criticizing this leader might be the straw that breaks the camels back - and no leader, no troop - unless someone else is ready to step up.
So I don’t think its a big deal, and I think you should be far more gracious to someone willing to spend her free time to give your daughter a Scouting experience.