Parents Information

How You Can Help

Troop 53 has always encouraged parents/guardians to be actively involved with their son's Scouting career, whether or not they are registered Adult Leaders. It seems the National Office of the BSA has finally come around to our way of thinking — at least officially. I found the information below on one of the pages of the new Adult Leader Application and thought it worthy to publish on our site.

National Parent Initiative

The National Parent Initiative has been designed to increase youth and parent recruitment, retention, advancement, participation, dedication, and a passion for Scouting. Your involvement and commitment is essential to the success of your child’s Scouting experience. We encourage the parents (guardians) for each child to:

1. Participate with them.
2. Go to and observe their meetings.
3. Be part of their unit’s program — both weekly meetings and outings.
4. Support the program financially.
5. Coach them on their advancement and earning of recognition awards.
6. Help in at least one support role during the year.

— from the new Adult Leader Application
BSA item # 28-501D

The most successful Scouts are the ones whose parents are actively involved in the Troop program. Out of the sixty-something Troop 53 Eagle Scouts only 3-4 have earned that achievement without an active parent. It is to your son's advantage for you to be more than a "dump-and-run" parent. If you have the time for the dang thing to load (it's very bandwidth intensive, even the "low-speed" version) ScoutParents.org has a lot of interesting and useful information about Scouting and your parental role.