My wife and I were asked to be cub scout leaders over our son’s Bears den. We had one meeting last spring before the summer break, and then a summer to regroup and plan how we wanted to tackle things. This week we had our first meeting under the new program we devised over the summer.
We survived! Actually, it wasn’t too bad. Four energetic boys doing competitive one-on-one sports is just asking for it, but it went okay. I do think that our greatest source of renewable energy isn’t solar. It’s young boys. If we can ever figure out how to tap that source we’ll be set. I’m thinking a “Dark Crystal” sort of system for draining their essence.
Seriously though, we have some good boys. One of them lost his mother to cancer a little over a year ago, and has had to take care of his younger sister. He’s a fair bit more mature than the other scouts. We have another boy who was born with a cleft palate and has been through multiple surgeries already, with several more yet to go. A third is one of the younger ones in his family, with sisters who are significantly older. And then there is our boy. They’re an energetic bunch, but they’re all fairly well-behaved, really.
I think we’re going to have fun once we get used to what they’re like, what they enjoy, and what they don’t like. We don’t have much first-hand experience with this age group, so we’ll be learning for awhile. But all in all, our first meeting seems to have been a success.