12 October 2008
GSUSA: Watch Your Space
Posted by admin under: safety .
This night was our monthly troop committee meeting to discuss upcoming events. Different girls in the troop are responsible for executing the program and their officer duties and our monthly committee meetings let the adults touch base and ask leading questions to ensure the girls are working on their responsibilities.
This month I was absent due to a late night at work which earned me a fierce look when I got home. Even though it was nearly 10pm there were still parents and girls at the house. The girls were working on a troop project together and the adults were chewing the fat. One of the girls, in fact, not working on the project was just sort of hanging out and pitching in when she felt like it.
After weighing her options, my wife announced, “We need to have an intervention”. That sounds pretty scary, and the subject was serious, but it wasn’t a full-blown scare the person to death type of intervention. We needed to have a talk about one of our girls and her Myspace page.
My wife and I have allowed my daughter her own myspace page, but it is subject to severe limitations. I’ve kicked friends off her list if I felt they were inappropriate for my daughter to associate with. We’ve made my daughter aware that certain things said or pictures posted were not leading in a good direction and they were removed. Most of all, my wife has the password and can and does check on what’s going on nearly every day.
When we discover that another of our girls in the troop has Myspace, my wife adds them to her friends list. If the person doesn’t accept her application soon she hunts up the parents and asks why her daughter isn’t adding her. Does she only want people her own age? One of the girls knew it was more trouble than not to accept her so she did. We found a couple of things that were not earth-shattering, but it was definitely not behavior that was leading in a good direction and that was the subject of our discussion.
The mom had already been clued in and we discussed with the girl why allowing people to make inappropriate comments without deletion was a bad idea. We also informed her of the reality that people will make judgements based on what they see. Thankfully, her profile isn’t public, but the friends that were in her network, which included my wife, weren’t acting the way 14 year olds should in a semi-public setting. It’s like acting that way at a birthday party where there are adults present.
I know there are those who advocate simple trust as the way to go to build a bond of trust so that the girl will police herself more readily. I’m not one of those. We make sure our kids stay safe by watching them, knowing when to catch them, and knowing when something isn’t an issue to concentrate on although it does get us to start issuing general advice that just happens to coincide with that subject.
The mom is worried about her daughter and that showed. My wife and I tried to discuss the subject of appropriate venues for different behavior. She heard us, but I don’t think she really listened. That’s okay. Now she knows that people who care about her are watching out for her. For some this is an unnecessary intrusion into a girl’s private business. We call it parenting and our troop is our family. Since the earliest days of the troop we’ve all been comforters and admonishers of each others children. Nothing heavy-handed. You just can’t let kids think they can get away with stuff with you that they wouldn’t with their parents because you’re afraid of what mom and dad will say. I’m happy to say that all of the families have helped each other that way. If I saw our troop dwindling or complaints being made I’d think it wasn’t a good strategy, but many of our families met and have been together since Kindergarten. While we’ve experienced the same decrease in membership that seems to accompany the Cadette transition we’ve still got a good core and a total troop size of about 15 so we’re comfortable with the way we run things.
We’ll see if this continues to work. Based on our success rate I’m guessing it will.
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- GSUSA: Drive-In Drama
- Using Your Noggin While Sledding
- GSUSA: Weekly Troop Meeting
- Philmont Planning on Getting Taller and Wider
