4. Common Questions
Some Common Questions
Yes. As a program for the entire family, Cub Scouting can teach your son or daughter a wholesome system of values and beliefs while building and strengthening relationships among family members. Scouting gives you a pretty neat platform to equip your daughter or son. We provide other mentors to help your son or daughter grow but you are also an important part of their development in scouting. Your role decreases as your daughter or son gets older.
But your role in the troop can be passive. We don't expect a parent to leap right in. But, be warned, Cub Scouting might touch you as it touches your son or daughter and you might eventually get 'the fever' that many of our leaders got from Scouting. But you are encouraged to go at your own pace.
Do the Parents Have a Role?
What Do Scouts Do?
Some of the best things about Cub Scouting are the activities the youth (and sometimes you) get to do: camping, hiking, racing model cars, going on field trips, or doing projects that help our community and the people who live here. Cub Scouting means "doing." All our activities are designed to have the boys and girls doing something and by "doing" they learn some very valuable life lessons.
What is the Mission of the BSA?
...to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law.
How do our Scouts Achieve Their Goals?
Activities are used to achieve the aims of Scouting—citizenship training, character development, and personal fitness. Many of the activities happen in the den (with the children in their grade) or with the entire pack (with all the grade levels). Our Scouts always have Go-and-See's and plenty of outdoor and indoor activities to help them achieve goals.
What Supplies and Equipment are Needed?
At minimum, each youth in Cub Scouting will need a uniform and a handbook. Each year, the handbook changes, as does the cap and neckerchief, but other uniform parts remain the same for at least three years. When a youth enters a Lion Den, they have the choice of the Lion Den T-shirt or the blue uniform shirt they'll wear in the coming years. When a youth enters a Webelos den, they may need to obtain the khaki-and-olive uniform.
How Old (or young) Can a Youth be to Join?
Cub Scouting is for boys and girls in Kindergarten through fifth grades, or 5 to 10 years of age. Youth who are older than 10, or who have completed the fifth grade, can no longer join Cub Scouts, but they are eligible to join a Scouts BSA Troop.