Parents and New Leaders Guide to a Boy-Led Troop

Welcome! Whether you have just crossed over with your son from Cub Scouts or just joined Boy Scouts, we appreciate your enthusiasm and encourage your participation in the troop. The three aims of Boy Scouting are character development, citizenship training, and mental and physical fitness. To accomplish these aims, Scouting employs eight methods: the ideals, the patrol method, the outdoors, advancement, association with adults, personal growth, leadership development, and the uniform. We encourage you to take the Boy Scout training offered on-line and by the District to find out what we are trying to accomplish and how you can help.

One of the major differences between Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts is the very important method, leadership development. In order to teach leadership, you have to let the boys lead. In fact, one of the more vigorous debates you can have in Scouting is over the feasibility of a boy-led troop. Some adult leaders will argue that while a boy-led troop is the BSA ideal, itʼs not possible in their particular troop for any or all of the following reasons: the boys are too young, too lazy, too irresponsible, or just not interested. A boy-led troop is more work for the adult leadership, and therein is the problem, and our need for your cooperation and help. It is so much easier for the adults to just take charge themselves than to teach the necessary leadership skills to the boys.

“Empowering boys to be leaders is the core of Scouting. Scouts learn by doing, and what they do is lead their patrols and their troop. The boys themselves develop a troop program, then take responsibility for figuring out how they will achieve the goals. One of our most important challenges is to train boy leaders to run the troop by providing direction, coaching and support. The boys will make mistakes now and then and will rely upon the adult leaders to guide them. But only through real hands-on experience as leaders can boys learn to lead.”