Scouts and guides provide ‘mental health boost for life’
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
When you're 2 days walk from civilisation, it's pissing down with rain, and you're cold, wet, hungry, and tired, you get a different perspective on life and the "soft" challenges that you face in life back home.
By "soft" challenges I mean things that aren't really life threatening, if you fail to pay the bills, you aren't going to die. If you get soaking wet and get hypothermia in the bush, you could very well die (although it's very unlikely in a structured environment like scouts).
I used to ignore problems that I didn't like, and more or less wait for them to go away, this approach obviously didn't work too well. One thing that spending a lot of time in the outdoors did was teach me that when you're in the shit, the only thing that you can do is keep on going forward. When it's dark and cold, and you're tired and your feet hurt, sitting down and resting and waiting isn't going to help you, you need to keep on walking to the hut. And there's nobody else who's going to help you; you can't phone a friend and get them to do the walking for you.
The teamwork skills you learn are different to the ones you learn in a soft environment too. Everyone works together for a group benefit, because you're all stuck there together.
I've never served in the military, but from the people I know that have, they pretty much learn to take the same attitude. I think that these experiences are something that everyone should have exposure to earlier in life. I've had some experiences where I was absolutely miserable at the time, but in retrospect have been very powerful character building and learning experiences. I spent a week cold and wet in the rain, with a wet tent and a wet sleeping bag on Outward Bound and for 2 nights I was sleeping on an open sailboat and managed about 3 hours of sleep total, I hated it at the time, but it was one of the most character building experiences of my life in retrospect.
I was lucky enough to be in a large, non-religous troop that happened to have a bus & be very well organized (4 Junior Assistant Scoutmasters!), definitely a great experience, only wish I had gotten further than life.
The aims of Scouting are: Character development Citizenship training Physical fitness
The methods used to achieve these aims:
http://www.nesa.org/methods.html
Learning to live with others is one of the things achieved via the patrol method. This tends to develop citizenship.
Still, it's a bit different for the scouts since you will live for extended periods of time together, like 10+ days for the summer outing.
I don't know where you live, but in certain places failing to pay your bills means you end up in the cold rain with nothing to eat.
you're not going to freeze to death in southern italy
For example, you might quite easily freeze to death at the top of Mount Etna! (And/or burned to death).
I do quite fancy visiting Sicily & Syracuse though!
That's still not the same as dying. There are homeless people who still manage to get by for years on, despite having no means whatsoever.
In my mind, that's not a different perspective. It's the same perspective, applied elsewhere.
Many other people would not make it long term in such a situation, and I'm not trying to imply it'd be an enjoyable life, but I do wish more people had skills to survive the environment just outside their homes.
One of my Scouts likes long-range bicycling (mountains, centuries etc). He had engraved on the headset of his bike "There's only one way to get home" to remind himself that its all up to him.
I've only recently been noticing how applicable the lessons I learned in the Royal Marines are to software development. Thanks for putting it so eloquently.
The phrase used in the US military for this is "Embrace the suck". Which means "The situation is bad, but deal with it."
When you're cold, wet, and tired it helps to pretend you love it. It's infectious, too.
It is actually a good feeling when you realize you're not as fragile as you thought you were. "I would have thought that I'd be miserable in this situation, but I'm actually OK" is a good thought to have.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/smile-it-could-ma...
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/pdf/StrackRRR_manuscrip...
The problem with this phrase is that the U.S. military takes it extremes, telling soldiers to suppress inborn capacities for empathy, particularly in regard to civilians and "military-age males" routinely maimed and butchered in the course of its day-to-day operations. Inevitably resulting not only in mental health issues for the soldiers when they return home, but ultimately, failure of the overall mission itself.
Milford?
good point.
(This is not just anecdotal but are findings that the RDP (Ring of German scout organizations) made a couple years ago.)
I do see scouts take lots of active outside trips which can help with mental balance. Doing white water rafting, being thrown overboard, fighting elements, being cold and wet, seeing occasional physical injuries and the beauty of the stars in a desert can put minor life disappointments into perspective for a long long time. My 2c.
We went to mountains, deserts, rivers and lakes. We swam in a lake on an island in a lake. We canoed, hiked, camped, cooked, woodworked, laughed and ran.
Our Troop tried to keep event costs down to around $15, so everybody could participate. Succeeded for the most part. And we did regular fundraisers so anybody who wanted to go, had a way to get there.
Scout Troops can be expensive too. Our district has that kind. That can drive the perception of the demographic. But our Troop was top-rated in our District for years. And not because of money. It was because our youth led a very rigorous program, invested themselves in it, and expected a lot from one another.
That's actually the whole point of Scouting - getting the youth invested in something worthwhile. In the process, modeling behaviors and training skills and leadership.
I do feel bad for the other troops in our area though, I know at least 2 folded while we were going strong, one got kicked out of the district cause the BSA hates gay scoutmasters, and the other had no place to meet and severe funding issues. Running a troop requires a ton of parental involvement and effort, and outside the Mormons most troops are dying in the US.
It is really quite sad, but I get why. None of the gay guys in my troop could participate in leadership due to the BSA's policies at the time, and in a small troop that is lethal, you need every warm body that is willing to do the fundraising, planning, organizing, paperwork, etc. and they are few and far between
The gay youth in my Troop never had a problem taking leadership roles. The BSA national (read: Mormon) policy was no gay Adult leaders?
Stuff like "farm community....2 jobs" tends to obscure actual family income. Do you know what income percentile they were in?
> driving a truck
The median annual wage for a trucker in the US is $73,000.
This is not to doubt your comment -- just to put it in some perspective. Until you compare it to the whole country, you might just be saying that they were at the upper end of the middle class, but just didn't fit an idealized profile of a rich person that you have mentally imbibed.
I'm biased to pile on too social science studies but the study in question made efforts to address these considerations.
From another article [0]:
"On average, scouts and guides were 15 per cent less likely to
have developed mental illness or depression by middle age,
even those from poorer backgrounds whose initial risk was higher."
I'd argue that they didn't make enough efforts.
... snip ...
"Family aspiration was estimated from parents desire that their child leaves school at the minimum age, asked at age 11."
There was no judge of parental involvement beyond whether parents had a desire for their children to go to university or get A-Levels.
Going with a scout group usually means that you wont be relying on the parent as you want to stay as a member of the group of people your own age.
You'll start to feel tired and sore at some stage, and it may start to rain. But if you've prepared properly (and the scout motto is "be prepared"), then you should be ok.
It's just a matter of getting away from it all, and perhaps embracing the suck as mentioned above.
They analysed data from a long-running study of almost 10,000 people across the UK who were born in November 1958. They found that 28 per cent of the study’s participants had been involved in the Scouts or Guides, and that these were 15 per cent less likely to suffer from anxiety or mood disorders at the age of 50 than their peers who didn’t join. Scouts or Guides were not more likely to come from families of any particular social status. However, people from poorer backgrounds do have a relatively higher likelihood of mental illness – but this effect seemed to be reduced or even removed in those who attended Scouts or Guides.
[1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2112209-scouts-and-guid...
Submitter but not involved in the study
Generally you deal with it as quickly & safely as possible, get the rest of your patrol to rally and do what is needed to get said person into a stable state, while sending one member to alert your assistant scoutmaster so that further help can be at the ready. That doesn't mean you get to shirk off and not go get his asthma meds, or get the guy with hypothermia some wool clothing and figure out a way to get him warmed up in short order (throw 3 people in a sleeping bag, or a warm (but not hot!) shower if you are lucky to have one).
If there is one thing I learned, Cotton Kills!
(referencing its heat wicking effect when wet)
Or just switch anxiety for depression - i.e. everyday depression and 'clinical' depression are not the same thing.
These children are often particularly socially awkward. I'm not an expert but I think that this group of children may be more predisposed to mental illness.
http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2016/10/05/jech-2016-20789...
They're comparing with people who went to other groups, and concluding that there is a quality of scouts and guides in particular that is protective.
I do wonder if there is still selection bias, since you may choose to avoid certain types of group, and attend others.
My daughter did Sparks & Brownies and it ended up being a big clique of kids who all went to the same church & school and in the end she (a hyper sensitive, artistic, intellectual type child and a more solitary, introverted type) hated it and asked to quit it.
I went through the same thing with Scouts when I was a boy.
The kids that remain after the first couple years of cute crafts and silly games are the kids who like following along with group activities, like doing group organization stuff, and deal well with social groups and (often) cliques.
Basically like sports, like a lot of elementary-level school (and a lot of other things in our society) -- the "odd" kids are selected against.
So no surprise there's "good mental health" for people who are good at conforming to the norm. Because that's literally the definition of "good mental health" encoded in the DSM. A disorder there is a deviation from the norm.
Most parents think their children are unique. That's why sending them to a group that wears a uniform is so important.
This was my first thought. I would bet it has more to do with the kind of parents who would enroll their kids in scouts (either for socioeconomic reasons as you mentioned or maybe just whatever else that means about the type of parents they are)
In my city, the schools in the lower economic status did not even have a scouts/guides program and the ones that did were mostly in schools where the middle class/upper middle class kids went to.
Please though, give the researchers some credit. Controlling for demographic factors is sort of the bare minimum for something like this--which they attempted to do by including two "social position" factors in the model.
They also included some factors relating to childhood (presumably pre-Scouts) mental health, which might also help address selection bias.
It was intense but really great. Days were from 6AM to 21pm. I really appreciated how everything was structured and very organized. Pressure was there and could be felt, the purpose was to learn everything a soldier needs to know, so the purpose was clear and well defined. You could not hang there and pretend that you don't understand why you're learning this or that.
Everything was demonstrated, explained and shown.
What I remember from these two weeks is how 3 guys started threatening me because they thought I reported the showers not being cleaned properly, while I was just talking about using flip flops in showers.
Lack of popularity caught up on me, and a guy threw a fake grenade at me, and I went to emergency care but lost no hearing, but could not complete the training, so I came back disappointed, but still happy of those 2 weeks since most of my scores were okay.
So like usual, those types of programs are great, but unless you prevent people from behaving like predators, people won't take is seriously.
(I had been a Scout for a few year and got a lot of benefits from it, but I know that my brother bullied a lot the younger scouts, so this is a real problem)
But for sure, do what you think is best for your kids.
I don’t have kids yet, but I think that scouting is a good option. Still, the experience one child will have will vary wildly from one scout association to the other and one local organization to the other, mostly because it depends a lot on the people he will end up with.
Also congrats on your engagement ! I always had a lot of respect for those who helped run our groups.
I was a cub in the early '90s in a deprived ex-mining town in the UK. Fighting and bullying were rife.
My parents were warned by other parents they knew not to send me to the scout troop, as it operated more like a gang than a troop.
All that said, scouting has changed since I did it. We had a pretty heavy focus on pioneering (my favourite memory is being given an hour to build a suspended platform 2m above the ground before a fictional flood came), first aid (still invaluable today) and orienteering. These days it's the above as well as everything from computers to being a chef and performing arts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scout_Promise#Alternative_prom... https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belofte_(scouting)
Of course if you're not a member of the "World Organisation of the Scout Movement" you can do whatever you want :-)
I'm an atheist and a Scout leader in the UK. When writing my programme I always include a spiritual component to it but leave it non-religious. We definitely discuss and explore different religions (in past year visited a Mosque, an Abbey and a Synagogue to learn about their cultures) but never focus hard on a religion or even suggest that holding a religious belief is necessary to be a Scout.
Recently at an event where I renewed my promise I took the Atheist promise which is as follows:
I promise that I will do my best Uphold our Scout values Do my duty to the Queen Help other people And to keep the Scout laws
I find the majority of Scouters I meet, despite saying the original promise follow this non-denominational one throughout their Scouting. We promote the "worldwide family of Scouts" more than a religious grouping.
If you do look for a Scout group for your son, make sure to talk to the leader there. Different groups approach the issue differently so try to find one that suits you and lets your son avoid being 'forcible subjected to the propaganda' though it can be good for a young person to experience it and make that decision for themselves.
Well I'm an atheist and a republican, so that wouldn't work for me.
The duty to the Queen bit is a little bit more tricky. I'm a republican (and a scout leader) and concluded I was happy to follow the wording. The reason being that it doesn't define the scope of the duty, especially not in terms I would find problematic. The traditional scope of the duty is to keep the peace and not commit treason, both of which are required by statute law in any case. I don't see it as incompatible with wanting a change in the country's constitutional arrangements. And certainly the Scout movement wouldn't insist otherwise.
"To uphold our Scout values, to do my duty to the country in which I am now living"
It's a shame to make something like this religious because I think I would have really enjoyed everything else about the scouts. I'd do the same with my children in the future if the tone is the same.
That would appear to be "religious [fundamentalist] atheism".
Hiding our kids from other ideologies to me is like hiding them from danger (using knives say) - they need exposure to it in order to learn a good approach and how to handle it.
FWIW I was an atheist cub scout (UK), atheist Scout, agnostic Venture Scout, and ultimately a Christian cub leader... but I'm almost certain the exposure to Christian ideals in Scouting had nothing to do with my conversion. The closest we got to theological influence was as teenagers badgering our leaders as to why we had to make a promise to a God we didn't believe in.
Groups vary of course, in the UK the greatest influence is probably the individual leader. Last I knew leaders had to be monotheist, I expect that's changed now.
The church parades of my youth would convince anyone that Christianity were baloney.
tl;dr don't throw the baby out with the bath water.
I would be more fearful of a poorly run or Mormon troop myself, but attending a meeting or two and talking to the Scoutmaster/Assistant Scoutmaster will definitely let you scope it out and get a reading before you give your son a choice of getting involved. I would not deny my own son the opportunity I had in scouting assuming the BSA makes it through the next decade, since it definitely helped me form into the accepting, caring & compassionate person I am today.
I'm a den leader for cub scouts in the US. In our pack, we leave the directly-religious requirements up to the family to accomplish in whatever way they see fit (i'm fine if that includes doing nothing). Beyond that, any other would-be religious aspects are really just "be a good human" without any specific references.
At least 1/3 of my oldest son's den is not Christian.
It sounds like you were in a Boy Scout troop being run with a Cub Scout mindset, rather than one operating according to the official rules and goals. I've never seen JASM described as the highest job assignment a scout can hold; most people would say that's the Senior Patrol Leader, while JASM is a transitional job for experienced scouts to learn how to step back from being a direct leader to being a mentor who helps enable the boys to lead their troop.
I guess I should say that I gained a lot from Scouting, and Scoutmasters. Hopefully, I passed on some knowledge to the Scouts I interacted with as a camp staff member. Hopefully those Scouts gained a lot from their experiences. But all of that was outside the bounds of the Patrol Method, and at least secondary to it. The true message of Scouting appears to be "know your place". The "learn your place, and get better at things to serve the upper crust" is a problem built into Scouting at its very beginning, and imbues it to this day.
Venturing, on the other hand, is entirely youth-led, with the adult playing the role of a coach.
I'm being a bit facetious but there seems to be at least a correlation.
Bullies live happier lives.
On the other hand, some go on to head large companies and make billions where their behaviour is idolised as the way to get great things done.
> the study by researchers at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, also found that bullies had the lowest levels of depression, the highest levels of self-esteem and the highest social status.
> The study supports the evolutionary process theory that there is a biological explanation for bullying because bullies gain benefits from being aggressive. That is contrary to the theory that bullies are often exhibiting this type of behavior because they have difficult home or school lives or have been the target of bullying or harassment themselves.
Most speech like that is just rationalizations that bullied people say to feel better.
High self-esteem is not equal to sound mental health. Psychopaths have high self-esteem.
Not every bully is a psychopath. Unwarranted self-esteem leads to problems in life whether it's high or low.
I'm not going to dwell into self-esteem and socio/psycopathy labels.
1. When you have nothing left to give, sometimes will power and discipline are the only things left in your toolbox that will get you where you need to go.
2. Self reliance - as someone noted earlier in the thread about a cyclist "there is only one way home." It also gave me the skills and a sense of confidence in my ability to survive without any of the trappings of city life. If shit falls to pieces, as having depression has proven to me it can and has and could again, I know I'll survive, regardless of anything - because I have the skills, the will power and discipline to survive the worst.
So... I have a sample size of one that goes against the grain of this research. Of course, being 15% less likely doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full or wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantment of later year…the alienation from the sources of our strength.” ― Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-introduces-nat...
The NCS is being beefed up to become almost mandatory for young people. Whereas UK Scouting has quite rightly pointed out they they've been doing this for over 100 years already.
I can first hand (and second hand via my daughter) validate that being an active Scout brings many benefits to the child, and helps shape their identity for life.
There's something about getting a bunch of guys out in the forest that brings out the worst in us I suppose. People who I would otherwise assume to be nice talking about ethnic cleansing positively.
It's a strange, macho environment that I didn't expect after such a fun time in the states...
I do imagine having a few openly gay scouts in our troop and good leadership did keep things from skewing far right, its hard to advocate against a race or orientation when you spend hundreds of hours with people of said race or orientation over the course of a year doing constructive things.
We had a great scout here from Hong Kong on exchange, so not all scouting programs outside the US suck! It may just be a bad troop too, the Mormon troops in the US are like a whole different organization policy wise. Very clannish.
Maybe those who develop it in later years have less chance because you're less likely to join if you're prone to depression in the first place? Mehbeh?
edit: I was never bullied. Had some fun times, but mostly struggling to keep head above the pits of darkness. Good parents. Lucky guy. I always appreciated my position from an abstract point of view.
Best way to describe it: Fatigue is an emotion (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3323922/). You can only work through fatigue for so long. That's what it's like with depression, except sleep doesn't refresh you. Wake up and it's still there. Crippling.
http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2016/10/05/jech-2016-20789...
Apparently it's looked down upon enough that it's best to keep it quiet, especially if you're trying to get a room in a house rented by students.
Can a Dutch person comment on this? Is this true, and if so, why?
Being in scouting can be perceived (in NL at least) as for nerds/geeks or 'corny' (don't know what is a good translation for the Dutch 'oubollig')
Especially when the kids hit puberty (the scouts/guides age), this negative image thing among school peers can be a reason for kids to quit. When I was that age, I didn't really care about much of that sort of talk and really enjoyed my time at scouting. Although there definitely was a negative image among school peers.
The image is changing for the better though. I certainly would not hide it.
I heard some nice stories from the scouts/guides at high school telling they hiked through the woods for the weekend with a backpack and went canyoning etc, while their non-scout peers only played video games inside.
When I was older and went to university, I noticed a lot of people did scouts when they were little kids. Not sure why they quit.
The social aspect is definitely a plus in some professions.
I remember more details: this was about the 'instemming' (in Delft), a sort of interview you need to go through to get a room. So I suppose being uncool could be a factor there.
There are some student-scout groups in some Dutch student cities, maybe Delft has one too.
You really don't think that it's important to understand the factors that affect people's quality of life, or how groups interact? You don't see any practical applications for this? No possible way that understanding group dynamics could pay off, say in an workplace or military situation?
Those with better mental health are more likely to do Scouts and guides in their youth.
Conversely, looking at the source journal article, the researchers did actually check for confounders in several ways, giving some credence to the idea of a causative effect of scouts participation on lifetime mental health.
http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2016/10/05/jech-2016-20789...
>This study used a prospective cohort design, controlling for many of the factors that might affect participation in Scouts–Guides and later life mental health. Most of these measures were collected in the appropriate cohort sweep. The possibility of residual confounding, particularly due to missing or poorly measured socioeconomic variables, was further examined using three methods, a negative exposure control, an exploration of ‘dose–response’ and a measure of differing regional rates of Scouts–Guide attendance. Although there was no evidence of a dose–response relationship, the other methods supported the plausibility of a causal relationship.
If you already know that correlation != causation, then his quip is useless. If you don't, then those two words are also useless to you.
Either way it's a useless post and if he can't be bothered to explain more, then don't bother making the post.
"[T]here are multiple threats to the validity of such an approach. We were particularly concerned about factors affecting a young person's probability of attending Scouts–Guides, which could also be protective of mental health in later life. To test for this possibility, we used three approaches. First, we explored a form of ‘negative control’ exposure. Specifically, we investigated whether attendance at other types of organisations (voluntary groups and the church), and other outside school clubs, which might have a similar set of common factors encouraging attendance and which might be protective of mental health in later life, were also associated with better later life mental health, conditioning on scouts–guides attendance. The absence of an association would suggest that an unmeasured common factor was not confounding the scout–guide association, while the existence of an association would be ambiguous with an unmeasured common factor and a third factor, independent of scout–guide attendance, but acting in a pathway through the other types of organisation on mental health, being possible. Second, we sought evidence of a dose–response relationship, exploring whether fractions of attendance were related to better mental health. Third, we explored whether the Scout–Guide association was weaker in regions with a higher proportional attendance which might suggest Scout–Guides not being the causative agent."