I was a girl scout. I am a girl scout. I am a Mom of girl scouts. I am a girl scout leader. I strongly believe that the practice of many scouts is ruining the experience for others. I call my girl scout troop, The little troop that could. With out getting into the back story here, I took over an active troop that was losing it's leader to military moving. Probably the same way I will end of up losing the troop.
As a girl, I came to loathe selling cookies. The younger & cuter you are the easier it is to sell. Simply because it is harder to say 'No', to cute little Daisy's and Brownie's, then it is to say 'No' to older, full of attitude, pimply, 'I'm to good for this' teenagers.
As a Mom, I have tried to teach my girls it is not about the prizes they get for selling cookies. It is pure and simple a fundraiser, and about being a part of something bigger then yourself, bigger then your troop. I have always thought is was interesting that cookie sales was right around the same time as World Thinking Day.
As a Leader, I try and teach my troop the same I do as a Mom. The politics come in- as not all the parents in my troop teach their girls that same as I do. Not all the parents agree with me that it is not about the personal prizes the girls get.
At the start of cookies, my troop set a goal to sell enough cookies for each girl to earn a t-shirt incentive. They voted to pool all the cookie sales. Meaning, if it takes 115 sold cookies to earn a t-shirt, and girl A sells 110 and girl B sells 120, girl B will pool her extra 5 cookies and both girl A & B will get a t-shirt. EXCELLENT! Equality on incentives in the troop.
I am finding myself ordering 9 more cases for my troop to sell half way thru cookie sales simply because one parent does not agree with her daughter's vote. Yep- you read that right. One parent does not want to pool her daughters extra cookies. I can not, nor should I, tell this parent that in doing this, the child is taught selfish ways. Politics.
So here I sit, ordering cookies, when I want nothing more but to make my last deposit and be done with cookie sales. I even find myself contemplating signing up for another site sale (yet I still loathe them) to help the rest of the troop earn the same amount of cookies as this single girl, so I don't have to explain to them about what I see as selfish choices, and going back on her word. (be impeccable with your word) And we've come full circle...
1 comment:
OH Mandi, that is SO disappointing! I wish all people would teach their kids integrity, but I suppose the best we can do ... is what you do ... teach your own kids as best you can.
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