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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2386 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 24, 2024

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Are there inexpensive enrichment activities I should consider enrolling my ~5 year old daughter in?

I was in Girl Scouts, but it was getting pretty dodgy (heavy cookie sales focus, zero outdoors skills) even then, and I haven't heard great things lately. 4-H is still good as far as I can tell, but for 10 and up. Someone I know tried Mormon and Evangelical groups (for a bit older kids), and said the boys groups were fine, but the girls were doing kind of the larp housewife stuff people have been commenting on lately. A co-worker has her first grade daughter in gymnastics and she likes it, but I think that's kind of expensive for me at this time.

Boy scouts rebranded a while back and now has girl's packs/troops. It's not as widespread though so you might not have a local group. Also some of the opportunities won't be available to the girls as they don't get enough participants (though that's more of an issue at the high school level).

I used to work for the local Boy Scout council and found myself advising my old troop on how to deal with the situation through my contacts after the scoutmaster was given answers he didn't like from the District Executive (no real surprise there). The exact problem was that the daughter of one of the more active adult leaders and her friend wanted to join, and while there was a girls' troop relatively close, the leader basically said "I'll be damned if I drive to two meetings and manage two sets of events, etc." So we ended up chartering a troop with two girls that I ended up being the assistant scoutmaster of under the scenario of "We'll call your bluff." It basically operates as a patrol within the larger troop because as long as we keep the paperwork separate, the Council isn't going to pry too deeply into our affairs.

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