An open letter to leaders in Scouting

At nearly every leader gathering I go to I can be assured to discuss it at least once. Sometimes I overhear a conversation or it starts when I'm talking to someone. Sometimes I'm pointed out as one in the know. What's the topic? Asperger's and other Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), particularly the various and many ways of ensuring that youth members with ASD can walk the Scouting trail.

And what I hear is that many of you are struggling with various aspects of the ASD experience. Sometimes it's the child, sometimes it's the family, sometimes it's the support (or lack of support) that you have to understand and make the best of working with a child with ASD. 

I hear you. It's hard. I live with ASD every day. As a parent, as a spouse, as a child and as myself I have experienced ASD all my life in many different aspects. As a leader I have welcomed the challenge of working with ASD in our Pack, but some days I question my own sanity. And I know that many of you also have the duality of experience in working with ASD in your Scouting experience and living with it in your personal lives, whether it is with family members, neighbours or friends. We talk about it and many of you are extremely knowledgeable about ASD.

Sometimes we end up talking just about the experience, of the challenges and the glorious rewards and we both go away feeling better for having the kind of conversation we can only have with someone who has walked the walk. Sometimes one or both of us leaves still asking questions and still looking for answers. I know I do and I am sure you do too. I carry these questions around with me for weeks and months trying to puzzle an answer out for you or to find a nugget of learned experience that I can gift to the next person who comes to me facing a similar problem.

I have been fortunate lately to spend some focused time working with leaders who work with children diagnosed with ASD. 

A couple of DTMs ago I presented a talk and then had a discussion with our District leaders on what is ASD. It was a great night and we could have gone on for hours. There were many situations that we looked at and tried to nut out the best approach. Many leaders shared their own experiences and ideas and I feel this was the most valuable part of the conversation.

More recently our Group had a joint Cub-Scout camp. As my son was one of the Cubs linking up at this camp I agreed with the other leaders that I would take a backseat for as much of camp as possible to allow him to embrace his greater independence in entering Scouts*. This gave me the opportunity to observe our youth members and leaders from afar. In our Group we have a number of other kids identified as ASD, many of whom I know well as they have come through our Pack but some who I haven't had much to do with.

As so often happens between leaders our night time, around the fire conversation turned to analysing the challenges of the day. What ended up happening was one of the most enlightened weekends I've had the pleasure to participate in Scouting. Over the course of the weekend, the leaders and older PLs opened up to understanding the many complexities of working with ASD and I could coach them through interpreting what was happening and then help them to apply strategies in the moment. As we packed up and prepared to head for home we all agreed that it was an incredible learning opportunity to have this time and lengthy space to come to understand our youth members better and to grow in our leadership skills.

It highlights for me that time spent growing our leadership skills is always a good investment. When we know more about ASD it becomes a strength, something we can offer to our youth members and their families rather than something we struggle against day in and day out. We begin to see that youth members with ASD have many strengths, quirky but fun personality traits and true challenges to overcome. We come to see them again as people who we journey the Scouting trail with instead of obstacles in our way.

Why do I write this for you? Because I am passionate about a few things in life. One of them is Scouting and the other is ASD. Or not ASD but people with ASD because they are my people. I have lived with Asperger's all my life and one of the few places that I felt comfortable when I was growing up was in Guiding and Scouting. I know, first hand, how Scouting can change the life of a young person with ASD.

I admit that I have a personal bias - I want every ASD child who experiences Scouting to love it. And that means I have to help you, the leaders, to have the skills and confidence to see the child inside the diagnosis and be ready to welcome them on the Scouting trail. If I could, I would work with you one on one, travel the state and spend weekends away at camp with you. Unfortunately reality then sets in. 

Firstly, there's no way I could possibly get to all of you, unless I procure myself a TARDIS or some other temporal shifting device. Secondly, I don't necessarily need to physically see all of you. There are those around you who already know ASD as well as I do and are willing to share that knowledge if only asked. And there is also this amazing thing we have now called the internet. We can share our knowledge here and learn from each other without having to go to the expense and trouble of building a time machine.

So I want to do two things going forward. I have a little book project that I've been working on for a year now. The intent was to create a pamphlet helping leaders with the basics of ASD. The problem is that it never stops needing something else added to it. So I am going to try sharing it in smaller chunks so that the information can start to get out there.

The second is that I ask you to share your experiences and to tell your stories, to make yourselves known to your groups and regions. Ask questions, seek help, share what you know. What would help the knowledge I can share is you asking questions so we can understand what the key challenges are and adding to our knowledge there is a breadth of experience available. 

So, hopefully soon, I will share my first article with you. In the meantime, I ask you to reply below or to ask questions. What is it that you want to know about ASD? What challenges are you trying to find solutions to? Hopefully we can help each other out.

Yours in service,

Rosie/Blue Tongue

*  My son has severe ASD and I have been his carer/aide at nearly every Scouting activity he has attended as a Joey and Cub. We all want him to experience more independence so moving on to Scouts seemed the perfect opportunity to make a conscious move away from being there for him all the time.

Jungle Book Fun Programme

It was our first night back so we wanted a fun night full of lots of high energy games to consume new year enthusiasm and get things started on a positive note for the year.

Just before the last term of last year I designed a three year programme that would cover all areas of the Boomerang. We used it to plan Term 4 and it was great to open it up with the new year about to start and know what we were going to cover this term without having to bust a braincell over it!

At this time of the year we always like to gear up towards Founder's Day and so we usually work on Boomerang 5 through February. This year our District is planning a Rally to celebrate Founder's Day so we're pretty excited about having a whole day to get to know BP better.

In our planning we have Boomerangs 1 - 7 every year and then cover 8 - 14 at least once in the three year period. However I have allowed for a different take on the yearly Boomerangs for each year to keep variety in the programme and to give breadth to the work covered. 

This year we are immersing ourselves in the Jungle Book and will be covering it in four weeks. The nights are planned around the following themes:

1. Jungle Book Fun
2. How Mowgli Came to the Jungle
3. The Story of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
4. Who was BP? Friend of Rudyard Kipling

We have a bonus this year with our annual District Rally being held on Founder's Day so we will even get to cover some of the other aspects of Boomerang 5 in depth.

So, on to Jungle Book Fun, our first programme.

We meet for an hour and a half so our programme has to be very organised and focused to make sure we keep up with the Boomerangs and finish on time.

Our plan looks like:

6 pm - Parade

6.10 - Duty Sixer's Game

6.20 - Game: Banderlog's Tail

6.35 - Game: Who am I?

6.50 - Activity and Yarn: Mowgli's Brothers and Craft - Standing up Wolf

7.10 - Game: Raksha's Den

7.20 - Clean up

7.25 - Parade

Normally we have one less game and one more activity, but this is first night back so we planned for high spirits - and we were totally spot on. We could have made them run in circles for an hour and they still would have been full of energy!

Game: Banderlog's Tail

Object of the game - Bahgeera and Baloo must catch all the Banderlogs by the tail to save Mowgli

Equipment - fabric strips or streamers about a meter long, one for each Cub. 

Tip - Fabric strips once made can be used again and again. We've had a set we use for this game for about two years now. We just keep it in the game box ready to go whenever.

Setup - Choose one or two cubs to be Bahgeera and Baloo. Each of the remaining Cubs takes a strip and tucks it into the back of the waistband of their pants. The tail should dangle down and almost touch the ground.

Game play - Bahgeera and Baloo must chase the Banderlogs and catch them by the tail by pulling the strip from their pants. Once their tail is gone, the Cub is out. If Bahgeera and Baloo begin to tire they can get help from Chil or Kaa (Cubs already caught out).

Tips - Set up clear boundaries. Encourage good sportsmanship by helping up your friends if they fall over and by not using that as a chance to take their tail.

Boomerang Tie In - Boomerang 5: This is a great way to tell or reinforce the story of Mowgli being captured by the Banderlogs and being saved by Bahgeera, Baloo, Chil and Kaa.

Game: Who am I?

Object of the game - Guess which Jungle Book animal you are

Equipment - Jungle Book Animal Cards, tape

Tip - Our guys love this game so I print enough for two turns each

Setup - Tape a card to the back of each Cub. They should wait until everyone is ready to begin the game.

Game play - The Cubs must ask questions of each other to figure out which animal or character they are. They can only ask questions which would elicit a 'yes' or 'no' answer. Eg Do I have feathers? Do I have four legs? Do I live in the water? When they think they know which animal or character they are, they can tell a leader who they are. If they're correct they can go on to tell you the character name and then have another turn if you have prepared for that.

Tip - Play the first round with the better known characters. Leaders can give hints if a Cub is stuck.

Boomerang Tie In - Boomerang 5: Introduce, reinforce or test Jungle book knowledge using this game.

Activity and Yarn: Mowgli's Brothers and Wolf Craft

Our guys are all very fidgety so we often combine yarn time with craft time. We also have a short programme night so combining helps us get through our evenings more easily.

Yarn - Mowgli's Brothers

This has always been a particular favourite of mine so I like to tell this yarn. This ties into our Investiture ceremony which includes the words, "{Cub} is now a member of our Pack. We will run together, play together and hunt together."

Mowgli had six brothers and they were all very accomplished hunters. They would hunt and stalk prey together and, when they were growing up, they played together and had many adventures. 

(If you have time here you can relate one of their adventures from the Jungle Book).

Did you know that Mowgli's Brothers gave their names to our sixes? Can you name all the six colours? Do you know any of the names of the brothers? 

They may know Grey Brother, who is the most featured brother in the stories, and my guys always seem to remember Red Fang - something about the dripping blood image, I'm sure!

(Introduce the six brothers, focusing most on the colours you have in your Pack. I should go and research the characteristics of the brothers and add them here for you all. I made a handy chart showing the six brothers which you can use if you like.)

Free to download and use. Please give credit if included in a publication.

Craft - Make a Wolf Brother

We do one of three crafts to go with this yarn. In the past we have made this great Origami Wolf using paper the colour of the brothers or we have made a wolf mask on black, dark grey or brown card. We then used chalk to create the coloured fur on the dark paper. 

This year I went for something different and used this Stand Up Wolf Template. I printed it out on 80 gsm (standard) paper and being humid Queensland they didn't stand up too well. Next time I'll print them on thin cardstock.

The Cubs then wrote the name of the wolf brother they created on the inside to help them remember.

We stuck the chart up in the den and will leave it up for the rest of our Jungle Book meetings.

For the rest of our Jungle Book weeks we will refer to their sixes by their wolf's name eg Red Fang Six or Brown Tip Six.


Game: Raksha's Den

Source - I got this from a game book long ago (no longer know which book) and it is credited as being a British game.
Object of the Game - Sneak out of (or into) Raksha's Den without getting caught.
Equipment - Two chairs, two blinfolds

Setup - Put two chairs in line with a gap between them. Select two Cubs. They should stand in the gap so that one hand at the fingertip is just touching the chair top and their fingertips meet in the gap when their arms are fully outstretched. You may need to move the chairs further apart or closer together to accomodate Cubs of different sizes. Blindfold the two Cubs.
Tip - The trick is to get them just far enough apart that there is some hope of sneaking through and not so far apart that the cubs guarding the gap get frustrated.

Gameplay - The two Cubs guarding the gap are Raksha and Father Wolf. They will protect the den from predators like Shere Kahn and work to keep the wolf cubs safely inside. All the other Cubs are the wolf cubs and they must sneak in (or out) without getting caught. Cubs can crawl, slither or stalk silently to pass between the two parents. If they are touched by a parent they have to go back and try again. Successful Cubs escape the Den (or make it into safety). Limit the attempts to only a few Cubs at a time. Everyone else must sit still and quiet so as not to alert Raksha and Father Wolf to their sneaking!


Boomerang Tie In - Boomerang 5: Introduces or reinforces Raksha and Shere Kahn's characters in How Mowgli Came to the Jungle.


So there it is, our plan for our first night's programme. What was the shakedown?

Shakedown

They loved to be back. It was so good to feel their energy and get enthused for the year. I haven't been well over the holidays and I was finding it hard to get geared up for the year ahead, but they sure gave me a lot of inspiration!

I should have anticipated starting late due to parents wanting to catch up and kids wanting to tell us their holiday adventures. It was 6.15 before we got to parade.

Ha! - they wanted to play Banderlog's Tail as the Duty Sixer's Game. I had to steer them on to something else without giving too much of the programme away.

Games were very successful but there were a few tears, an icepack needed (my kid - isn't that always the way!) and some tension as overenthused kids rubbed overwhelmed kids up the wrong way. Mostly it went smoothly.

They loved playing Who am I? This is such a favourite but I am sure to play it only once or twice a year lest it lose its appeal and impact. Was blown away by our newest Cub who knew most of the Jungle Book characters - even the obscure ones! Must make sure to nurture his enthusiasm for the stories and give him a chance to shine in the next few weeks.

They enjoyed Mowgli's Brothers but the craft was a bit basic for the oldest ones. Must remember to give them something more challenging next time as an option. Also reinforced that they are almost nearly ready to go to Scouts (sob!) and that we need to start talking with them about linking which will start in a few weeks.

We skipped Raksha's Cave - can reuse it next week when we cover How Mowgli.

Finished on time and talked about the weeks ahead on the parade. They were totally psyched about Founder's Day and having our usual sleepover AND the Rally. I can't wait.


So there we go. What Jungle Book activities do your Cubs like? Did you know the origin of the Six colours? Do you like the resources I provided or have other ones to share?