Many people talk about the F-Talks they got from me, what is an F-talk? It is a time when I sit down with a Scout, (sometimes an adult) and discuss their behavior. In most cases we talk about how their actions meet the expectations of the Scout Oath and Law. I ask them to reflect on their behavior and and tell me how that behavior meets those expectations. I have even done a few with the committee. We would talk about all kinds of things, here are some of the reasons I have had to give F-Talks
-Lettuce soccer
-Throwing a hatchet at another scout
-Threating to kill your Patrol Leader because he said a scout had to do dishes
-Burning another scouts uniform
- Patrol not working as a Team
-Troop not working as a team
-Cutting down live trees
-Peeling birch bark off a live tree
-Drag racing after a Troop meeting
-Car Surfing
-Pine Needle Tea
-Carving your name in a picnic table
-Using an active wasp nest nest as a piñata
- Continuing to hit a wasp nest like a piñata with one eye swollen shut from a sting from the last time
-Leaving dirty dishes on the table and going to program
-Leaving a trail of candy wrappers around camp
-Gambling in their tent
-Pouring water on a grease fire
-Spraying OFF into the fire
-Playing with fire
-Violating Totin Chip Rules
-Not going to bed in a timely manner
-To many scouts in one tent
-Fowl language
-Not getting meeting plans done for Troop meeting
-Not showing up for a meeting you were running
-Struggling to live by the Scout oat and law
-Using drugs
-Cheating
-Signing off advancement that wasn’t done
-Parent hazing a scout
-Scout being a bully
-Using fireworks at camp
-Filling the sheep herder with wood, so you didn’t have to restart the fire later
-Filling the sheep herder with wood so you could see flames come out of the smoke stack
-Putting a snake in someone's face to scare them
-Hiking/Biking to fast.
The finer points of not handcuffing yourself to another scout and losing the key. And the list goes on
Not sure why I put up with this, but it made for interesting conversations. One thing I did, I rarely yelled and never during an F-talk. Now I have had them sit there till I calmed down, which might have been worse than actually yelling, they did enough yelling and panic attacks internally because they knew what they did was wrong and they probably would not win any debate with me that what they did was justified. I have had SEVERAL scouts come back me later in life and say THANK YOU for setting me straight, I was kind of a jerk back then. So if you had an F-Talk for any reason, what was it and what did you learn from it??? Do you remember F-Talk someone else got?
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