So pull your son out, and send a note to every parent explaining precisely why you thought you couldn’t continue sending your kid to this troop. You might start a trend.

I’m very interested in making sure that kids who play sports feel safe and challenged at the same time.

Shit, someday I’ll write about my softball coaches.

I am dealing with a parent in my son’s scout den who is an ASS and has repeatedly victimized my son verbally at scout activities. It seems to be sport for him, he ENJOYS it. He makes comments to my son (who has fine motor skill problems) like “I see you have to have your mommy dress you” (when I fix his kerchief), or “hey, look at who came in wearing a dress” (when my son has failed to tuck in his shirt). Despite being talked to, he continues. As a matter of fact, that almost seems to fuel him.

Because there is a zero tolerance policy, the council directed the pack to expel this parent. However, the leader at the pack level tasked to do the job has not acted on it. Interestingly enough, the leader is also a teacher and therefore a mandated reported and certainly someone who I would expect would be versed in what constitutes inappropirate behavior towards a child. ANd yet has chosen to dismiss my complaints and instead protect the interests of the abuser.

His reasons? “This parent is so PROUD that his son is in scouts, and I just hate to make him miss that experience with his own son…” He has also cited my son’s disability as a reason NOT to kick the guy out, because my son “has issues” and is probably “reading the guy wrong” and “other boys know how to put up with this sort of thing and just roll with it”.

Yeah, its not the guy. He’s a father, so he must be “good”. He’s a guy, so he must be an asset to scouting.

Certainly better than the complaining single mom and her disabled son.

Anyhow, I had not blogged about this issue because I wasn’t exactly sure how far I wanted to get into it, but after reading your post I think I will. I think sometimes we all need to be reminded that even in seemingly safe and nurturing environments, abuse and victimization can and do occur, and often those other people in a position to stop it don’t–because they are afraid of the reaction or fallout, or maybe because they just don’t want to be rude. And in the absence of checks and balances, the abuse can thrive.

It disturbs me because it lets people like your asswipe camp counselor off the hook. Here’s a guy who’s married and a father and *clearly* acting inappropriately toward young girls. But he’s okay, because he’s married, and a father.

My church never really did outings or camp — or if they did, I never knew about them because they were for the people who actually went to church on a more-than-desultory basis. But of course, there are opportunities aplenty for priests to be alone with young kids. One of our priests was, in fact, sexually abusing the altar boys over a period of years and was whisked out of the parish one year. In fact, the diocese replaced *everyone* in the parish, except maybe the nuns (we moved away that year, so I don’t remember). Guess they didn’t want to rise any suspicions (it was 10 or more years later that victims started coming forward. They were altar boys, and it was a big honor and important to their families).

THANK YOU!! Forewarned is forearmed! The best defense I can give my children is a solid grounding — a background of non-judgmental information about sex and frank discussion so they know the subject is not off-limits; clear communication about what is age-appropriate; clear instruction for how to spot inappropriate conduct, and clear direction for how to deal with it. If I do my job right, any of my children in their prepubescent years ought to be emotionally capable of coming to me or to another responsible adult and saying, “Mr. Z did X. Is that okay, or is that something he shouldn’t do?”

Also, I’m very concerned at accounts I have read over the years about people knowing of and ignoring adults with a history of sexually charged behavior with and access to children. It is my experience that people can turn their heads more easily when nobody requires them to take responsibility. I recommend the following question:

“Will my child have contact with anyone here that you have reason to believe may be sexually attracted to children?”

Anyone with a brain knows that if they have been ignoring the rumors about Mr. Davis, and they say no, then their ass is now on the hook in both a moral and likely a legal sense. (That’s a very broad answer, and legal situations will vary by state and by the person’s position, but I am a lawyer, and as a rule, someone who makes an affirmative misstatement on that subject or omits important information when asked directly is in a lot worse position than someone who simply never speaks out — the latter can more easily claim to have had no duty). If the person you’re talking to dodges the question or acts like the room just got very warm, then you know there is a problem.

Also, I look back and remember distinctly being about 11 and having a serious crush on a male counselor and he courting and responding to me in a way that gives me creeps to this day. I was allowed to cuddle with him almost continuously and while it meant nothing more than attention to me, looking back, I can’t imagine why on earth it was allowed by the other adults there. I am certain that he was/is an active pedophile and wonder every now and then how many young girls he’s preyed on.

I also remember in my junior high years two pastors who were there as counselors who made constant passes at me and a couple other females, whether physical touching, comments or ‘massages’. I knew by then that they had sexual atraction, but again was not old or mature enough to understand exactly that what they wanted was more than simply flirtation, that a girl should not construe sexual advances as approval of her as a person, or how inappropriate it was considering their age.

I was never instructed on how to protect myself, about sexuality, puberty nor given any concept of what boundaries were, I did not make the same mistake with my girls.

I didn’t have a pervy camp counsellor but I had my pastor, who made what are now obvious to me as overt sexual passes, but I was a young teenager and they kinda went over my head. Stuff like mentioning how big my breasts were, and when I fell in love with my best friend, asking me “what we did” in a very non-pastorly manner.