You have to keep the girls engaged in order to keep them Scouts. Most girls are not interested in an organization that only has them picking up trash in parks on Saturdays and visiting Senior Centers.
BTW, Girl Scouts is its own charity. The idea is to develop “courage, confidence and character” in the girls. Part of the way they do that is through service to the community - but when you buy girl scout cookies, your money isn’t going to fight AIDS or feed the homeless. Its going to programs that Scouts feel build “courage, confidence and character” in girls and young women.
I don’t think a spa day builds much courage - but I can make a good case that it develops confidence. And character is developed in working together as a troop to manage your money - and very shortly with these girls - to get together as a troop even when your “very best friends” are not in the troop and you have little in common with the girls in your troop other than they are in your troop. For middle school girls - that right there is a huge character builder. To take TIME to spend with, work with, and support a girl outside your own little clique. Where we don’t encourage that as adults, its something girls loose in late elementary school - and if they are lucky, rediscover as adults.
I think there may be some courage associated with developing a plan for how to spend the money and presenting it to your peers (for a lot of girls, anyway).
Also, not every activity has to touch on every value, and hell, some of them can be just about having fun. As others have mention, if there’s no fun involved the girls are just going to drop out.
And Build-A-Bear is not without controversy. I know a crazy mom who has spent the past six months pursuing a vendetta against a parent, a school and the entire Build-A Bear franchise over a party her daughter attended. The daughter is adopted and the Mom freaked out over the wall when her daughter came home with an adoption certificate for her new teddy bear, Mom feels that this was insulting to adopted children and the adoption process and feels her daughter was traumatized by the party…although I doubt the daughter would’ve given it any thought at all if not for her Mom’s reaction.
I was a Girl Scout. My mom was a troop leader. My mother also had a firm policy of not leading any troop her daughters belonged to, she went out of her way to enroll us in different troops. I think this was a great policy, we were allowed to enjoy the experience without having Mommy hovering about and it removed any suggestion of favoritism.
And if you lead your child’s troop you will probably play favorites at some point, or at least appear to…do the other parents have reason to think you promoted your daughters suggestion above others or that the other girls backed up your child in order to please you?
I remember a situation in my scout troop when we were all lined up to have our leaders help us with an aspect of a project, we were very young and all needed help threading needles. And the leader pulled her child out of the line and helped her first, while mumbling under her breath that there was no way in hell HER daughter was going to wait in line to get time with HER. A small incident but one I remember 47 years later so it had some impact.
So my recommendation would be to stick with troop leading but you will lose a lot of the drama if you lead a troop your kids aren’t in. And if you don’t want to do that admit your motives and don’t compain about the time you put in.
No, the main goal of scouting is to develop leadership among youth. They wont learn to lead by being told what they can and cant do, other than within guidelines for safety). We can guide them, but any time we intervene, we’re imposing our choices on them, because it’s so easy to influence children when you’re an adult and a leader.
Interesting to note that in three pages in this thread, though there’s plenty of disagreement, you’re the first to refer to another poster as a dipshit or an imbecile or anything similar. We are in the Pit, but it backs up my statement - you dont know anything about the scout programs.
Why dont you just buy imitation Girl Scout cookies at WalMart?
Your mother is admirable, but it doesn’t usually work that way.
There isn’t another troop I can put my daughter in. The other leader for girls her age in my area won’t take her. And frankly, if I’m not doing it for my daughter, I don’t have time to do it. And most leaders I know don’t. They work full time jobs, have families, are active in their kids schools - and pull off leading a girl scout troop. For me, girl scouts is a chance to connect with my daughter.
There are women who become lifelong leaders. I’ve been privileged to know some of them - they continue to be involved in the movement long after their own girls have moved on. But regionally, we have 51,000 girls - and something like 50 of these women.
I signed up to be a Spark leader this morning (youngest of the Girl Guides of Canada) This thread was the push I needed. (I was thinking I would enroll my daughter in the fall - and they needed leaders.
7 yr old’s spending a day on nails, make up and hair?
Not my 7 yr old, thanks anyway. I don’t care what you call it, or where you hold it, that’s not what I signed my kid up for.
That’s what they voted on, is your defense? What if they’d voted on learning to pole dance? I’m sure there’s some exercise to be had there, maybe a hygiene lesson you could slip in that would make it all okay.
Of the money earned selling cookies, only 5% goes to charity? I’d want to know that before I bought cookies. I’ll be asking, in future, thanks for the tip.
I wouldn’t be complaining either, I’d be yanking my kid out and into some other more age appropriate activity.
Actually, for our council about 70% of cookie money goes back into Scouting. Scouting, as I said, is its own charity. It depends on the Council, but troops themselves get between $.50 and 1 a box. We get .50.
None of the money goes to supporting other charities from the council, although the girls can choose to give their troop cookie money to another charity. Its a nice thing to do, but frankly, for many troops, we sort of need most of that money just to run the troop. Books, craft supplies, camping weekends and badges add up. This is especially true when the girls are younger and you can’t buy enough paintbrushes and craft glue to keep up. As they get older, they care less about the crafts - and they sell more cookies - and if you can keep middle schoolers, you can start thinking about doing something cool as a troop. Girl Scout troops basically run off cookie money - some troops also charge a small amount for dues (we do, the $2 a meeting I get in dues offsets my out of pocket expenses. Plus not all girls sell cookies, so this way, everyone contributes at a base level toward the basic supplies.)
Council uses their portion (about $2) to support Girl Scouts. About half of that budget goes to camps. Some goes to other girl related council activities (badge workshops, for example). Some goes towards administration (someone has got to train leaders and coordinate cookies).
About $1 goes to Little Brownie Bakers (one of two bakeries that does cookies for Girl Scouts).
But, by all means, do ask girls coming to the door what cookie money is used for. Hopefully, they know. They are supposed to. And if you don’t approve, let them know. Its part of what they should be learning - that if they choose something really frivolous, they might sell fewer cookies than if they choose something educational.
And, by all means, yank your girl. Or find a different troop for her. Or be the leader, which is the original point of this post. My guess is that it isn’t uncommon for leaders at the Brownie point to HOPING every other girl drops so that their girl can be a Juliette and they don’t have to put up with other people’s kids or the other parents - especially after a meeting where 3rd graders try and decide what to do with their cookie money.
(I only have one of my five, and it isn’t the girl, its the mom. But some days its like “please…she can just drop if this isn’t meeting your expectations.”)
The good one or the bad one? 'Cause my [del]crack cocaine[/del] cookie supplier switched to the bad one this year, and next year I’m going to have to phone around to find a local council that still uses the good one. (Good one defined as the one that makes lemon cream cookies instead of a cracker with 1/512ths of an inch of lemon frosting. On the bottom!)
In my area I just have to ask if the Thin Mints are in the foil wrapper or the clear wrapper. The foil wrapper are the normal ambrosia. The garbage the comes in the clear sleeves is well…not ambrosia. It’s the grocery store ripoff as far as I’m concerned. If they’re going to be selling those ones, I’ll just get the Keebler Grasshoppers.
Do people really think that when they buy a box of Girl Scout cookies, the money is going to “charity”? I thought it was pretty obvious that it went to fund troop activities, and the level of vitriol in this thread directed towards a Brownie troop spending a fun spa day together is totally unbelievable to me. My daughter’s Daisy troop went to the movies as an outing, and I can provide you with the local council’s mailing address if you’d all like to start an angry letter-writing campaign about that.
I have known leaders like that. On the flip side are those that are harder on their daughters because they are the leader. Those girls have to help with the carrying in and toting out of all the stuff at meetings. They are the girls who always go last so the other parents won’t get the impression their mom is favoring them. Your advice of enrolling them in another troop (if possible) can be good for them too.
You signed your daughter up to only do community service and badges? Those things are a big, big part of Girl Scouting, but there is nothing wrong with a little bit of fun thrown in. If it is all work and no play she probably will not last in there long. Also, why is it not age appropriate for girls to play dress up? If that is all they did I would certainly understand, but what’s wrong with dress up, or a tea party, or things like that occasionally? I wouldn’t equate pole dancing with what theses girls are doing.
It’s Girl Scouting not the Army!
Little girls love nail polish and new hairstyles. Is this only not age appropriate because it’s at an establishment and not someone’s home? If grandma curls your daughter’s pony tail and gives her pink fingernails are you going to boycott trips to the grandparents? To equate this with pole dancing lessons is over the edge even for here.
Most kids aren’t going to become instantly vain because they get their nails done once and have their hair cut. Any that do would get that way no matter what. It’s dress up for an hour, what kids have been doing for centuries.
I would only worry about germs after reading some articles about the sanitizing at most nail places being less than perfect. I would let my kid get polish but no filing.
If my child did all the other appropriate scout activities I wouldn’t mind this. My sons were in boy scouts and they went to the paintball range once in a while. I think scouts paid for half of it. So what. Other times they were volunteering in the community and helping keep the scout camp repaired.