K has been with Girl Scouts since Kindergarten; first as a Daisy, then a Brownie and now a Junior. Some years she was really into it, others not so much but has continued to ask to be part of a troop to be with her friends and get to do cool stuff. This year we spent some time talking about what she liked/disliked about being part of girl scouts and particularly part of a troop and what she really wanted to do this year. It was good to hear her talk about how she liked being part of the group and how much she wanted to belong to something. However, she also expressed frustration at the meetings not always going the way she wanted and how long it took to earn badges. Though it's never predictable, among the "I don't care" and "go with the flow"attitudes she expresses most often she regularly goes through periods of self-starting, competitive and motivated behaviors where she will want to do things herself, do it to her standards and be in control.
When she started asking about doing more badges I got the idea to offer her the chance to decide what, above and beyond what the troop would be doing, she wanted to accomplish in girl scouts. We started by pulling out her guidebook binder and started reading through the descriptions of what different badges required, what other things (like my my promise, my faith) there were to do and what it would take for her to complete the activities. I think she was a little overwhelmed at first with the amount of steps and pages that went with each badge but when we broke it down and talked about what steps/things she would actually need to do it became more palatable. We also pulled up the council events homepage and looked at what kind of badge or patch earning activities were being offered came up with a few things she wanted to register for.
She decided that she wanted to work on the Drawing badge first and then join some workshops that focused on Jewelry and Sew Simple. I also talked to her about learning a skill that she could then take back to teach her troop to earn a build your own badge. She's thinking about it.
I'll be posting more of her Journey here.
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