2001-04-20 (Friday, 08:23:47)

Last night I watched one of the den mothers at Kyle's cub-scout meeting do something remarkably graceful and good. She opened the meeting by saying (as best I remember) "Something happened at school today that has me a little worried that maybe you guys don't completely understand yet what it means to be a cub scout. I heard that a kid on the playground showed a private part of his body to the other kids, but no one told a grown-up. Did any of you see that happen, or hear about it?"

Lots of hands went up, including Kyle's, although it was the first I'd heard of the incident. The den mother asked "Did any of you think about going to tell a grown-up when that happened?" That prompted lots of excuse-making: "I was afraid we'd get in trouble," or "I just heard about it -- I didn't really see him do it," or "I was afraid he'd get really mad and come beat me up or something." The den mother then explained in a very nice way what a good, loyal, honest, truthful person should do in that kind of situation, acknowledging that no one likes a tattletale -- that there are some kinds of misbehavior that kids can handle on their own -- and posed a variety of serious and not-so-serious hypotheticals to help the boys think about what to do. She finally said "Trust me on this: you will never get in trouble for going to tell a grown-up when something like this happens. And if you're not sure whether it's the kind of thing you ought to tell a grown-up, then just ask. Just go to a grown-up and say 'Is this something you need to know about?'"

It reminded me of how good it is to have help in raising kids. I would never have been able to strike the same gentle, non-reproaching, but still effective tone she used. I'm more than a little torn about supporting the Boy Scouts of America as an organization, and so we haven't been very supportive of Kyle's participation, but it's something he wants to do, and I'm not sure it would be right to let my own principles stand in his way. And I believe in acknowledging good work, like the work this woman did last night, no matter where you find it.