Keep the bar RAISED

As many of you know, I’m an LE trainer for council, and one night, I had a first time experience:  no one showed up to be trained!  No, I didn’t take it personally, and yes, I did show up on the correct night in the right place (!) but it did get me to thinking about how that relates to the Gold Award.

Seem like a stretch?   Okay, maybe… I can’t see into other people’s lives to find out why they didn’t show up.  We’re all busy, and we all have conflicting priorities that we have to honor.  But I also know that we are modeling the behavior and values of Girl Scouting as we work with the girls.  We are also holding them to a new, higher standard for the Gold Award, and we want each and every girl to succeed with her project, earn that pride of accomplishment and feel the satisfaction of completing the toughest thing they’ve ever done in Girl Scouting! 

As I interview more girls for the Gold Award Project approval, I am struck by the “oh my leader said it was okay to do it that way” statement that I hear from many girls.  And I have to come back with something tactful that doesn’t denigrate the leader and still say that the girl really needs to do it, not gloss over it.  I try to show a benefit for doing the step, so it doesn’t seem like more paperwork.  We leaders and advisors really do need to model the behavior we want the girls to perform. And anytime we don’t, the girls see it.  (Okay, so they can both see everything and nothing, all at the same time, but that’s a different blog...somewhere…)

We need to hold them to the standard and NOT let them slide on the requirements!  Hold  their feet to the fire and get them to really dive into their project planning to identify their issue and resources.  Sure, we need to help, but not DO for them!  That’s a hard part for me, sometimes, to hold back and let the girls suss it out for herself.  Giving clues, or making suggestions to guide (not lead) her toward where she wants to go is tough for me, and for many of you, too, I bet!  So, we continue to try!