Parent Camping Guidelines

Thank you for volunteering to help out on a Troop 1607 outing! Adult volunteers are essential to any successful troop camping event. While parents are always welcome at any event, there are some important things to understand before your first trip.

An Adult’s Role in Troop Camping

Scouting is a youth-led program. This means that all troop and patrol activities are planned, prepared, and run by the scouts, under the advisement of adult scouters. Scouting is designed to help scouts learn lifelong skills that include outdoor skills and practical skills like cooking, but more importantly, to learn and experience leadership and the many “soft skills” that come with it.

An adult’s job on a campout is to ensure that the scouts have the opportunity to develop that leadership. This is not always an easy thing to do, in fact at times it is quite difficult. Some scouts take to leadership more readily than others. Often, when a patrol of younger scouts is working at building a campfire in wet weather, and having a few difficulties doing it, it is tough not to just step in and do it for them. Especially when the Scouts are cold, wet, hungry and grumpy (and your scout is one of them). Doing this may solve an immediate problem, but it does not help in the long run. It deprives the youth leaders an opportunity to both show and develop their leadership skills, and it undermines their leadership status with the younger scouts. The right approach in a case like this would be to get one of the youth leaders and ask them to check in on that patrol and to help out if necessary. That youth leader will hopefully use their experience to teach the younger Scouts how to build the fire in wet conditions.

The adult’s role on a campout is more of a supervisory role. Adults are there to provide the transportation to and from the event, to make sure that no one gets hurt, and to occasionally provide timely pointers to the youth leaders. Actual leadership and teaching during campouts is handled by the scouts, which is a core feature of the Scouting program.

Adult Expectations on Outings

Defer to the youth leaders.

The youth leaders are responsible for the scouts in their patrol/troop. Patrol leaders are the primary leaders in Scouting, who should always be the first person turned to for questions and assistance. When a scout, even your own child, asks you a question such as “how do I turn on this stove”, “how many miles of hiking do we have left”, etc, you should always direct them to their Patrol Leader. Adults should only intervene in the youth leadership when there’s risk of immediate danger or damage.

You’re here for all the scouts, not only your child.

While you’re on a campout, you’re attending not as a parent but as a volunteer, and as such you are responsible for all of the scouts, not just your scout. Just as you expect other adults to be responsible for your scout on a campout when you aren’t there, you have to be responsible for their scout when you are there.

Let your scout be with their friends.

Many times parents want to share the camping experience with their scout on a troop event by sleeping together in a tent with them. While that is a great thought, national Scouts BSA rules don’t allow scouts to share a tent with any adult. This is their chance to bond with one another and to build life-long friendships. We would encourage families that want to camp together to definitely do so, just not at scouting events. Similarly, you should allow them to fully participate in activities like hikes, games, etc, with their peers by choosing to hang back with the rest of the troop adults during those activities.

Try to avoid your scout’s camping area.

This is especially true on your first few campouts with the troop. Oftentimes if a scout’s parent is in the immediate area, a scout will naturally defer to the parent. They may just expect the parent to do things for them like putting up tents, getting the fire going, getting the food cooked, washing the dishes, etc. One of the main goals of Scouting is for scouts to learn independence, and having the parent hovering in their campsite discourages that. Please give your scout, and all scouts, the opportunity to challenge themselves and grow by letting them handle these things for themselves. If they need help, a youth leader will be there to help them.

Pack separate bags.

You have your bag, and your scout has theirs. Scouts shouldn’t be wandering into the adult’s camping area to ask their parents questions like “Can I get my mess kit from your bag?”. All of their items should be in the bag they are responsible for.

Troop rules apply, not home rules.

Just as you expect people to comply with your rules when they are in your house, your Scout will be expected to comply with our troop rules, even if they differ from yours, when on a campout with us. If your Scout’s bedtime is 8:30pm, on a campout they will likely stay up later than that. If your scout’s bedtime is normally 1am on a Saturday night, they will likely be asked to quiet down and go to sleep long before that on a campout. Please support the Troop’s rules while you are camping with us, and leave matters of discipline to the appropriate leaders.

Avoid disciplining your own scout.

This is oftentimes a tough one for parents. Too often parents see their own scout doing something that other scouts are doing, and will only say something to him about it, neglecting to mention anything to the other scouts. This leads to the Scout wishing that their parent wouldn’t come on campouts. Parents sometimes are embarrassed that their scout is behaving in a way that they feel they shouldn’t be, even though the Scoutmasters are aware of it and don’t feel it is a problem. Please try to avoid singling your scout out for any special criticism while you are along.

Participate in the troop’s activities.

Parents should refrain from pulling their scouts out of troop/patrol activities to do other things, and must always inform the Scoutmaster and SPL if they need to leave the camping area.

Be aware that things may not be as clean or comfortable as you’d expect at home.

Scouts may not be washing their hands or brushing their teeth as often as you would like, and things will generally not be as clean or tidy as you would have them at home. Do not single your child out especially while on the campouts because of this. Also expect that dishes will not be as clean as they are at home, and that the food cooked by the scouts may not be as healthy or well-prepared as a home-cooked meal made by an adult. Remember that cooking and cleaning are part of the learning process for the scouts, and that no camping activity will ever be as clean and comfortable as your home life.