Scouts and guides provide ‘mental health boost for life’
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Re: Scouts and guides provide ‘mental health boost for life’
#2This is a counterpoint article to this:
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.
Re: Scouts and guides provide ‘mental health boost for life’
#3It might be one of the cases where correlation doesn't imply causation. For an objective study, we would need to assign children to groups randomly. Otherwise, we can miss various obscure selection effects. (For example, if children who are more likely to be scouts, are also likely to be from a particular socioeconomic background).
Re: Scouts and guides provide ‘mental health boost for life’
#4I was in scouts and cadets here in New Zealand when I was a teenager and continue to spend a fair amount of time in the outdoors (I also did Outward Bound when I was 16), and I can definitely relate to the researcher's findings.
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.
Re: Scouts and guides provide ‘mental health boost for life’
#5I was a boy scout in the late '70s and early '80s. Loved it, and although I was too young to care at the time, my son will probably not join because religion. Yes, they have a "non-religious promise" now, but you're still subjected to it. I don't care for it, and my son will (like I did) get to choose for himself but (unlike me) without being forcibly subjected to the propaganda.
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.
Re: Scouts and guides provide ‘mental health boost for life’
#6It might be one of the cases where correlation doesn't imply causation. For an objective study, we would need to assign children to groups randomly. Otherwise, we can miss various obscure selection effects. (For example, if children who are more likely to be scouts, are also likely to be from a particular socioeconomic background).
This is almost certainly the case. Being a scout/guide strongly correlates with parental income in the US at least – I don't know how it is in the UK. But if that is true, the headline might as well be "Being rich provides a mental health boost for life".
Re: Scouts and guides provide ‘mental health boost for life’
#7Worth pointing out that this refers to Scouting in the UK. While other scouting movements are based on the original UK scouting movement, there are notable differences between all the scouting movements so this doesn't necessarily apply to other movements. Regardless, good to see some solid press for scouting, gave me some of the best experiences of my life and via Gang Show introduced me to performing arts which plays a huge role in my life.
Re: Scouts and guides provide ‘mental health boost for life’
#8On the flip side I personally found the Scouts to be a safe haven for bullying that, when it happens to a child at the wrong time, will wreck their mental health for years to come.
Re: Scouts and guides provide ‘mental health boost for life’
#9This is a counterpoint article to this: 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…
I also got a lot of benefits from my years as a Scout, as did my brothers, but I think that it might not be a good fit for all children and some might not get any benefits from it.
Re: Scouts and guides provide ‘mental health boost for life’
#10On the flip side I personally found the Scouts to be a safe haven for bullying that, when it happens to a child at the wrong time, will wreck their mental health for years to come.
Yeah, I agree that the Scouts can be a bad place for that kind of things, which is why I think it might not be good for all childrens.
(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)