Talk to me about Girl Scout Cadettes

[ang79]

Both of my girls are in Girl Scouts. I have been DD2's leader for the past 4 years (2 years Daisy, 2 years Brownie). She will be bridging to Juniors soon and there is a dedicated Junior leader (who my older daughter currently has and loves). My DD1 will be moving to Cadette's, but she is undecided about continuing. Part of it is that the mom leading is planning on doing a combined troop with Cadette's and Seniors (she is currently running her older daughter's Senior troop and her younger daughter will be a new Cadette). She is a long term GS mom/leader and has led both of her daughter's troops in various years. She was the leader when my DD1 was in second year Daisy and both years of Brownies. She is a great leader, but my daughter is not thrilled about having her as a leader again since she had her for 3 years before and that she will be splitting her time and focus between the two different levels. She has asked if I would consider leading Cadettes. I know most of the girls in her troop between them being friends with my DD, at school (I substitute teach in the district), or just from the past few years of scouts and they are a good group of girls. But, I can't say that 6,7, 8th graders are my favorite age to work with (they kinda intimidate me, all the drama, etc.!) Also, most of these girls have been in scouts from K or 1st grade and have had some very experienced leaders. I was not a scout as a kid and my only experience so far has been what my daughters have done and what I find online to help plan activities and badges. So I'm good with anything up to Jr. level, but after that I'm lost! Anyone here lead a Cadette troop? What has your experience been? What types of badges and awards do you work on at that level?

[California]

What about being a co-leader with the mom who's offered to do a joint Cadette/Senior troop, with you focusing on the Cadettes? That way you'd have her experience to rely on.

The flow for Cadettes with my daughter's troop is to complete one Journey together over 1-2 months, and then start working on the Silver Award. The Silver Award is done either individually or as a very small group (https://www.girlscouts.org/en/our-program/highest-awards/silver-award.html (https://www.girlscouts.org/en/our-program/highest-awards/silver-award.html)) And, of course, in the midst of this there is Cookie Season, and some field trips, encampments, and times when they volunteer to help younger troops.

Middle School can be a wonderful time to work with Girl Scouts. If you have a fairly responsible group, this is when they start really developing their own leadership skills, with you taking a supportive and organizational role to help them achieve their goals.

[sariana]

Do you know any contacts at your Service Unit (the next level up from Troop)? Thy should be able to help you find a training session. IME these are free, and it's a good way to get a sense of what's involved.

The program provides all the materials you need to plan activities. How you go about doing that is very individualized. Keep in mind that one of the tenets of Girl Scouting is that it is girl led. Girls at the Cadette level should be doing a lot of their own planning, with less and less input from the leaders as they get older.

Are there at least 2 other adults who will be willing to work with you? A Troop is required to have a Leader and a Treasurer at least--they must be 2 separate people for legal reasons. I can't remember if a Co-Leader is required or just recommended.

[citymama]

My older DD is a Cadette. I don't know exactly what they do as they meet right after school at a meeting spot very close to the middle school and walk back home as a group. One nice thing about this age is they can now get themselves places! It's the same troop leader since they were Daisies. I will say that troop leader and the group composition makes a big difference, so if she's not comfortable with this person or the other girls that's something to take note of. I am pleased DD is continuing as the girls have formed a strong community. The older Girl Scouts I know seem to be the world's nicest teenagers, so I feel like it's generally a good thing to encourage if it fits into your life!

[sariana]

What types of badges and awards do you work on at that level?

https://www.girlscouts.org/badgeexplorer

If it doesn't take you directly to the Cadette badges, just use the drop-down menu to select the grade level. [ETA: Yeah, it's just linking to the main site, so you'll need to select the level.]

[ang79]

What about being a co-leader with the mom who's offered to do a joint Cadette/Senior troop, with you focusing on the Cadettes? That way you'd have her experience to rely on.

The flow for Cadettes with my daughter's troop is to complete one Journey together over 1-2 months, and then start working on the Silver Award. The Silver Award is done either individually or as a very small group (https://www.girlscouts.org/en/our-program/highest-awards/silver-award.html (https://www.girlscouts.org/en/our-program/highest-awards/silver-award.html)) And, of course, in the midst of this there is Cookie Season, and some field trips, encampments, and times when they volunteer to help younger troops.

Middle School can be a wonderful time to work with Girl Scouts. If you have a fairly responsible group, this is when they start really developing their own leadership skills, with you taking a supportive and organizational role to help them achieve their goals.

I did think about that and may talk to her more about it. Right now her older troop meets on Monday evenings at a church. If I were to continue leading scouts I would prefer to stick to Thursday night meetings (which both girls have currently), as M,T,W we already have other after school activities, so a GS meeting on top of those would be crazy and no time for homework. And, I have built a good relationship with the staff at the church I hold my current meeting at and we have done several service projects connected with the church this year, so that would be nice to continue as well. Not sure the other leader would be willing to co-lead on a different night or at a different location.

In all honesty, I was looking forward to a break from leading next year. I have had fun with scouts and the girls and parents in my troop have been great to work with for the most part. But, after 4 years of being the one planning everything and being in charge of cookie season, etc. a break was looking nice (though I would still help out with the girls' troops as needed). But, I think my older DD sometimes feels like younger DD gets more of my attention, since I've been her leader for 4 years. And I know that the Jr. High years are just tough in general, with changing bodies and hormones, changing schools, changing friendships. And the girls in this troop are a good bunch of girls, so I'd love to see DD1 continue with them and also have a solid group of friends to be connected with among all the changes. I think knowing I'd be committed to that age group for 3 years is just a bit overwhelming to think about (as I deal already with almost daily mood swings and drama from my 11 yr. old - not sure I want to take on 10 other girls of the same age!)

[american_mama]

double post

[american_mama]

I am very active in Girl Scouts, a current Cadette leader for DD2 in 7th grader and led DD1's troop all through Cadettes. DD1 is in 10th grade and still very active in Girl Scouts.

The best stuff in Girl Scouts is as they get older! Activities my Cadettes have done that were popular are: food pantry stuff (packing food into winter Blizzard Bags for Meals on Wheels, sorting food at a regional food pantry), a babysitting night, outdoor art badge (which included painting an entire railroad bridge with a Girl Scout cookie mural), cooking, end-of-year camping trip/amusement park visit 2 hours away, 5 day trip to Savannah, GA (birthplace of Girl Scouts), archery event at our local camp, planning a Girl Scout Olympics as a recruiting event at their middle school, and selling cookies door-to-door at local fraternities and sororities. Not all of these activities are badges, but if you want to know some consistently popular Cadette badges, I suggest Night Owl, Special Agent, Digital Movie Maker, Comic Artist and Woodworking.

My older daughter's troop had some social drama which I sometimes felt unequipped or even uncomfortable addressing, but overall, was manageable and helpful for me to get a sense of different personalities and issues facing girls this age. For instance, on our long drive to Savannah, the other girls (8th grade) were talking about the end of year dance, how they felt leaving middle school and one of the girls' first boyfriend. DD1 does not talk about any of these things, so it was interesting for me to hear. When that same girl on the trip got mad at another girl and stopped talking to her for two days, that was irritating and difficult, but if I like the good, I have to accept the bad too.

In contrast, DD2's troop (mostly 7th graders) has much less drama. So some of it depends on the girls.

There is a big dropoff in Girl Scouts over the middle school years, so anything you can do to support your daughter's interest and supporting the troop is really helpful. This also lets you direct the troop in the direction that your DD wants or that interests you... more community service or more outdoor stuff, whatever your priority is. Just like your other leader, I wanted to combine my 9th and 6th grade daughters in one troop (although it didn't work out); many leaders combine at this level for family convenience and to get a certain critical mass of girls.

I wouldn't lead your own Cadette troop unless your DD just hates the idea of continuing with the current leader. You don't want to and, because of the dropoff each year in Cadettes, starting with a bigger troop is probably better than breaking into two troops. However, I would decide what things you want to be heavily involved in and offer that to the current leader. For instance, you might be the Cadette leader for activities but not do any of the administrative troop stuff. This is a stretch, but perhaps you could all be one troop with you and the existing leader as co-leaders, but Cadettes and Seniors meet on separate dates and times. You could keep your night and location (which would require getting a second adult there for two-deep leadership) but be part of the existing leader's troop. Plan one event a month that is the whole troop together to have some group identity, sell cookies together, have one bank account. This actually sounds like more work to me, but I offer it as a suggestion.

Another possibility is an all-together new schedule. We switched to Sunday afternoon meetings at the public library in Cadettes since there were too many conflicts on weekdays. I know one troop that age meets Fridays at 4 pm when there are few after-school activities. If you meet weekly, you may want to drop that down to every 2 weeks, or one every 2 weeks and one outing a month.

As a leader, the two things I would most like from a troop parent are 1) a cookie parent and 2) someone willing to be our second adult on outdoor stuff and overnights. I have all the training and I'm willing to do the outings, but I've had to beg to find a second adult on 2/3 of our overnight trips over the last year (and both of those were indoors in heated buildings, not so rough!); it would be so great to have a regular go-to person for those kind of outings.

Even if you don't like the idea of doing cookies, ask yourself if that is ALL you were doing and not all the normal troop activities, would that be ok? Having a cookie mom is a very, very big help to almost all troops, which is why I am stressing it.

Other ideas for parent help you could provide the existing leader:
* lead whatever activity you want at a meeting, or half a meeting. Make the offer specific so the leader schedules it. If you like to cook/craft/do phtoography/discuss movies/whatever, find a badge or just come up with a fun activity unconnected to a badge and offer to lead it or teach it. If you or the troop is a big believer in girls leading badges, then offer to help your daughter do one, make it great, and gives others a model of how to do it.
* teach advanced skills like serious hiking, knots, compasses/geocache/orienteering, fancy outdoor cooking.
* offer administrative help - be the treasurer or parent communication person, maintain a Facebook group or remind.com whatever, collect photos
* be the craft expert
* be the song/performing expert
* be the fun expert - teamwork games, current music, bring the latest trend into a meeting or event
* be the field trip or outside speaker expert

So, consider any of those roles.

Also, one more thing about the range of how troops operate.... The model of Girl Scouts is for girls to lead more and more of their activities as they get through middle school, but I don't really sweat that. I say this so you can see the range of how a troop might be run. I think girls stay in GS because the activities are fun and interesting, and that is hard to achieve when middle schoolers lead many activities and badges at, well, a middle school level of quality. Instead, I try to emphasize leadership through special events (for example, babysitting night and leading a badge day for younger girls) and through the Silver Award. None of the girls in my first troop earned Silver, in part because I exerted a lot of effort trying to get the girls to lead badges, so I have now changed my priorities.

[jent]

Thanks OP for starting this thread! My DD would also be moving to Cadettes next year if she continues. I stepped up as leader this year after the former leader & er daughter decided they were done with scouts. Like you, I'm not sure whether to continue. I think the girls really enjoy the troop but they have a lot of competing interests; if I stay and encourage them, I think many will stay with scouts but if I leave I don't think there will be a troop. American_mama, your advice is so, so helpful! I am copy-pasting this into my compilation of all things Girl Scouts.