What Scouting Gives
Speaking from experience, I can guarantee that if you participate, you and your family will obtain strong values, benefits, and rewards!
This experience will truly enhance your lives as well as others. Be prepared for fun and adventure. Expect to laugh. Experience pride in your self, your family, your community and your country.
Building Lifelong Benefits
Scouting gives your son the opportunity to try new things, be of service to others, build self-confidence and reinforce ethical standards. These opportunities not only help them when he is young, but carry forward into his adult life, as well. What children learn in their formative years is instrumental in shaping their character.
Scouting builds character by teaching confidence and self-reliance, and promoting positive role models as your child grows and develops. Through planned advancement, Scouts are always in a learning environment, increasing their capacity for goal-setting, choice making and accomplishment.
Scouting Brings Families Together. Scouting is unique in that it offers families a variety of experiences not found in other activities. In Cub Scouts, the parent is more involved in den meetings, and most activities are designed for family involvement. Den meetings last only an hour, and activities for recognition can be completed at home.
You and other qualified family members can volunteer for leader positions in the pack or can get involved in other ways, such as becoming a parent helper. The joy of volunteering is not only in helping others, but seeing your child learning, growing and Having Fun!
There’s a lot to celebrate in Scouting. Rank advancement and other awards are presented throughout the year at Pack meetings and special events like the Blue and Gold Banquet. These make for memorable family events and great photo opportunities.
When a rank advancement is presented to a Scout, his parents are also recognized, since the success is so often the result of a family effort.
What about Scouting Values
A 2005 study by Harris Interactive found that 83 percent of men who were Scouts in their youth agree that the values they learned in Scouting continue to be very important to them today—helping improve their relationships, their work and family lives, and the values by which they live. Eighty-seven percent of men who remained in Scouting five or more years attribute some of their self-confidence in their work to their Scouting experience. Half of the group say Scouting had a positive effect on their career development and advancement, and 83 percent say there have been real-life situations where having been a Scout helped them be a better leader.
- Trustworthy: The majority of Scouts agreed that Scouting has taught them always to be honest (75%) and to be a leader (76%).
- Loyal: Eighty-eight percent of Scouts are proud to live in the USA and 83 percent say spending time with family is important to them.
- Helpful: Eight out of 10 Scouts surveyed believed that helping others should come before their own self-interest.
- Friendly: Eighty percent of Scouts say that Scouting has taught them to treat others with respect and (78%) to get along with others.
- Courteous: Almost nine of 10 Scouts (87%) believe older people should be treated with respect.
- Kind: Most Scouts agree (78%) Scouting has taught them to care or other people, while 43 percent say their skills in helping other people in need are “excellent.”
- Obedient: Boys in Scouting five years or more are more likely than boys who have never been in Scouts to reject peer pressure to hang out with youth they know commit delinquent acts (61% vs. 53%).
- Cheerful: Overall, Scouts are happy with their schools (78%) and their neighborhoods (79%). However, since Scouting builds high ideals in youth, Scouts are less satisfied than non-scouts with the state of the world today (47% vs. 52%).
- Thrifty: More than eight out of 10 Scouts (82%) say that saving money for the future is a priority.
- Brave: Eighty percent of Scouts say Scouting has taught them to have confidence in themselves, and 51 percent rate their self-confidence as “excellent.”
- Clean: Nearly the same number of Scouts (79%) agrees that Scouting has taught them to take better care of the environment and that Scouting has increased their interest in physical fitness.
- Reverent: Scouting experience also influences religious service attendance. Eighty-three percent of men who were Scouts five or more years say attending religious services together as a family is “very important.” versus 77% of men who had never been Scouts.
Enhancing Your Son's Education
Scouting enhances education. Scouting in itself is an education, and Scouts are more often involved in after-school activities such as sports, visual arts or hobbies
than boys who have never been Scouts.
Scouts are also more likely to report they earn mostly A’s than non-Scouts. This is especially true of boys who have been Scouts for five or more years.
Scouts are taught communication skills and practice them regularly. Communication skills apply in public speaking, when reporting back to their patrols from meetings they attend, when setting up campouts and other trips, and in recruiting other boys into Scouting.
Camping, hiking, backpacking and enjoying what nature has to offer calls for adaptability, flexibility and planning skills above all else. Contending with the elements to keep clothing in their backpacks dry, and taking advantage of daylight to accomplish tasks more difficult after dark can make all the difference between an enjoyable trip and a forgettable one. Be Prepared!
Supporting the Scout unit takes money, and Scouts learn how to earn money through selling products, such as holiday wreaths and popcorn, or by providing helpful services, such as a car wash. More advanced Scouts track their personal spending for several months, set savings goals and learn about borrowing and investing money.
The most important skills Scouts will learn are the potentially lifesaving skills of First Aid and CPR. From simple problems, such as blisters and sunburn, to more severe medical problems, Scouts are trained to spring into action when the need arises. First aid knowledge and practice is required for rank advancements from Tenderfoot through First Class Scouts, and the First Aid Merit Badge is a requirement for attaining the Eagle Scout rank.
Helping The Community
Scouting benefits everyone. Part of being a Scout is being responsible to help others in need—and not only when wearing the uniform.
Scouting promotes duty to others every day through the Good Turn program, and Scouts are expected every day to do a good turn for someone else. A Good Turn is an act of kindness for which the Scout has no expectation of reward other than the personal feeling of accomplishment achieved through helping others.
The Boy Scouts of America has more than one million registered adult volunteers who provide leadership and support in their local communities. Fifty
percent of Scout volunteers have provided service as an adult leader for six or more years, with 28 percent having volunteered in Scouting for more than 10 years.
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