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Adult Facilitate Boy Led

“Common sense is not common practice”

The greatest example of “adult facilitated, boy led” for me was SMC abroad.  An entire four-day camp led entirely by boys.  Now, some of you may be saying, “yeah, but those were high school boys”.  True, but the principles work at every grade level.  They just have to be adapted to be age appropriate.

Keys to Success

• Embrace the patrol system
• Protect your key leadership positions
  • If you pay me what I am worth you will see my best work.
• Allow for some growing pains
  • Sometimes it’s not all going to go exactly as you planned or on time, but you can always go to plan A. The boys need to take ownership and be held accountable.
• Get parents involved
  • Parents want the young man to be a leader and if they know he has a leadership role that comes with responsibility they will usually embrace the extra time commitments.
• Candance of Accountability
  • Chan turns 16 and we give him permission to use the car each week with the agreement that he will clean the car every weekend. The first few weeks we make sure he is upholding his end of the bargain, and he is doing great.  Then, I have to go out of town for a few weekends in a row and when I come back I find the car hasn’t been cleaned.  “Hey Chan, why hasn’t the car been cleaned?”  Chan, “we still doing that?”