Newton's father died when he was 3 months old and his mother ditched him as a kid and when she returned years later made him quit school to take care of the pigs. The reason he went on to become the Isaac Newton everyone knows, was because of the role all the other Adults around him played, not his parents.

Don't write off that kid.

I teach part time and see this a lot. Especially from fellow teachers. Oh this kid has an alcoholic abusive dad, that kid has a mom with cancer, those 2 have family members in jail etc etc, followed by go easy on the struggling kid or this kid has no hope etc. If the kid flunks a test or skips class let it slide etc.

All this compounds the issue. What is required is the opposite of just sympathy.

Help them find their strengths and interests. Show them how to focus on positives and tune out negatives. Encourage whatever small steps you see them taking. Sensitize the other kids around them to be supportive. Show them examples of resilience and what it takes to be resilient. All these small things add up. Basically don't focus on the parent, focus on things you can do for the kid.

It's very hard to reprogram dysfunctional adults and get them to change, but kids are very different story. And there are few things more beautiful and satisfying, than watching a kid who has struggled for years and years, overcome and kick ass.

Thank you for your support. Rest easy, I'm not writing off anyone. Perhaps it was because I wrote, "They are going to grow up broken." In reality, we all grow up broken. Nothing will ever be perfect for anyone - not the rich kids, not the kids with loving parents, etc. The best I can do is teach them and give them the tools to be able to handle adversity and find success anyway.

When I was a kid, my situation was different, and it would have been easy for others to write-off me, but they didn't.

I agree with everything you're saying. I'm in Scouting for the kids, not for the adults. I don't know and will never know any of the kids' complete stories, so I hold them all equal and give them the same opportunities to become better people.

Today's kids are tomorrow's leaders.

Who are you referring to? I hope not public school teachers. They have 25-30 kids per class, little freedom to change curriculum and pressure from both administrators and parents to achieve high grades above all else.

You can preach personal sacrifice until the cows come home - capitalist societies are incompatible with having or raising children - they get in the way of the one true God, quarterly profits.

They're referring most directly to the person they're replying to, Scoutmaster, who is a scoutmaster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scouting

To me, this issue is one of the biggies. I understand where that feeling comes from, we are constantly told that everything is a competition or a race.

My wife and my sister are both teachers (languages and physics respectively), and they often encounter parents like that, who insist that their kid can do no wrong, or cannot be allowed to fail (or that any failure is someone elses fault), and it breaks the kids. Some of the kids understand what's going on and do well in spite of their parents, but others become convinced that either they don't have to take responsibility for anything, or insist on doing courses they are simply not going to do well in (like if you have solid Ds in Maths and the sciences, don't insist on doing A-level Physics, and no you are not going to medical school).

My wife's school had a family where all the kids were hard-working, conciencious and all-round lovely, but everyone dreaded dealing with the parents. Any time a kid got a bad mark in anything they would be on the phone demanding an explanation. The kids were always fine about it and knew when they had not worked on something. They sounded permentantly embarressed by their parents.

I have observed this too.

One of the most popular arguments right now against grammar schools in my country is that the kids who don't pass the entrance test will experience failure.

Plain and clear, the parents do not want their 11 year old kids experiencing failure.

If an 11 year old cannot cope with failure, imagine what will happen when they are older and fail an exam at university, or are rejected when applying to jobs.

> I'm a Scoutmaster, and I have one parent who lashed out at me because I asked him not to interfere when the Scouts were trying to do something for themselves.

Anecdotally, there are entire Troops built around that type of parent. Tried BSA for a few years as a teenager, ended up in a group with a revolving door of Scoutmaster, as every time a child gained Eagle they and their parent would disappear. If you didn't have a parent actively pushing you through the badges and ranks, you were SOL.

That won't be my troop. I'm setting clear expectations to parents from the beginning that they are only there for safety, driving kids, etc. I will make sure every Assistant Scoutmaster and Committee Member knows this. I will do my best to make sure that whomever succeeds me, will do the same including letting their eventual replacement know as well.

My goal is to make the Troop self-reliant, not reliant on me. I need to protect it from the Bus Factor.

Are you in a newish troop then? Growing up, all the troops I heard of were pretty established, some going beack nearly to the BSA founding. Typically they were associated with another organization like a church or an Elk's Lodge type thingy.

That said, I hear you on the 'paper eagles'. I saw a lot of kids with their mom just trying to get the rank for college applications and then get out. It was semi-effective. Strangely, the Mormon troops were eagle mills too, but the guys tended to stick around afterwards all the same.

As you're on HN, I'm sure you are aware of the importance of culture in a start-up. I'd say that a troop also has culture and it is very important too. Maybe read up on some of that stuff too.

Also, as I may have your ear, what's your take on girls being full integrated?

My troop is 80+ years old, however I just took over a few months ago. The troop was doing very poorly when I took over: only 7 registered youth, rarely camping, no summer camp in several years, previous Scoutmaster didn't even want to be the Scoutmaster, no Patrol spirit/identity, both the adults and youth had no idea how the program was supposed to work (no Patrol Method, no training, etc).

This was a troop that had a strong program and 30+ youth 15 years ago, chartered by a large-ish church.

I don't think the troop produced any paper-Eagles in those 15 years (I kept in touch), but when I took over, the head of the church asked for better Eagle Projects.

As for girls, I'm fine with that. Character-building isn't only for boys. There is Girl Scouts of the USA (GSA) troops that have good outdoor programs but they are very few and far in-between. They are more known for "glamping" and selling cookies. Gold Award doesn't have the same recognition as Eagle Scout. Something that I found out: GSA troops are not always sponsered by an organization, and those that are sponsered, are not owned by the sponsering organization. In contrast, all BSA troops have a sponsering(chartering) organization and the sponser owns the troop. So, GSA and BSA have different programs and fulfil different needs. It's good that more youth now have more options for personal growth.

If I had a daughter and BSA wasn't available, I would look into American Heritage Girls (a scout-like organization, sometimes called Heritage Scouts) or another program like that. The BSA has had co-ed programs for 14-21 year olds since the 1970s though: Venturing, Varsity, and Explorers. However I think it's just Venturing now, IDK.

FYI, in Cub Scouts, boys and girls are seperated by dens (patrols). In Scouts BSA (renamed from Boy Scouts where youth can earn Eagle), boys and girls are seperated by troops (but can have same number, same chartering org, etc... just separate youth structure).

> no summer camp in several years

Good God! Why even bother at that point? Camp is one of the highlights of the scouting year. It would be like skipping Christmas.

Glad to hear you are reviving things. It's a tough road and a lot of lonely work. That said, it'll be worth it a thousand times over for the kiddos.

A lot of older school BSA folks aren't that keen on the girls comming in, which is a bit funny. What with Venture Crews, girls have been a part of BSA Scouting in the US for a while now.

I remember the international jamboreesm and international troops during my time in the scouts. Nearly all other countries have just scouting and do not break it up by sex. As such, they kinda looked at us US scouts a bit askance. Everyone else was just fine with girls/boys around and had little problems (that we knew of at least). It was a new way to look at the world that we hadn't been exposed too. Neckerchief trading with the girls from other countries was a great icebreaker too :)

This saddens me too. Recently, I traveled with my 19 year old nephew to Thailand. This guy had been so coddled by his parents all through that he had no experience of doing things by himself. Once when he wanted to go to our resort room from the beach (about 500m walk) in the daytime, he refused to do so alone. He asked me to accompany him. This was a straight line walk and I said he could ask anyone if he couldn't figure it out :-/