Building Courage

Girl Scout Mission

Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.

The mission statement begins with building courage. How do you build a girl's courage? Let's start with a definition

Merriam-Webster defines courage as mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. Mental or moral strength implies an internal battle. When a task before you scares you or you tell yourself that you can't do it then you face those fears and do it anyway—that's courage.

Often in scouting we focus on the outward aspects of our program and not on how they meet the goals of our mission. We worry about whether the day's activity will be fun, or which recognitions the girls will earn, and don't think about whether an activity takes inner strength. Nevertheless, opportunities to practice courage will abound. Our mission is to help create these moments, recognize them when they occur, and encourage girls to be courageous when given the opportunity.

Helping girls to fight inner battles sounds more complicated than it is. Three important aspects of courage building should be incorporated in a troop's program.

Variety
Each girl will find different things to be scary or difficult. One might find working with scissors scary so doing crafts may become a lesson in courage, while another girl might instead fear meeting bugs in the out-of-doors. Unless our program covers a wide variety of activities, we may stay in the girls' comfort zone, losing opportunities to build courage. Overcoming fear also requires repeated exposure—once isn't enough. When an activity pushes the girls' comfort zone, it's something to go back to.

Acceptance of struggle
Don't save girls from the things that scare them. Let them face their fears and be their own hero. It can be difficult to watch a girl struggle. We naturally respond to a child's difficulty by jumping in to help. This can reinforce her fears rather than build courage, because she needed to be saved. Provide encouragement, but allow her to summon her courage and push through the fear herself.

Role modeling
Leaders must also show courage when faced with our own fears or difficulties. Don't be afraid to be bad at something. Facing our own fears along with the girls can show them how to summon courage. Haven't pitched a tent before? Let them see you're not scared to try. Getting out of our own comfort zones teaches girls it's ok to be scared about something as long as we still go for it. We also need to strike the right balance between courage and safety. While it is appropriate and necessary to make sure that activities are safe, we need to do so with an attitude of "we can do this if we just follow certain safety precautions" as opposed to "we can't do this because it's not safe." Safety can too easily be used by a leader as an excuse to cover her own fears about doing something. The girls can tell if you're scared about something and you need to show them how to summon courage to accomplish appropriate activities in a safe and sane manner. 

How do you build courage with your girls? Share your experiences in the comments.

Smitty

Outdoor Program

New Blog. First Post. I was planning to start this off with a different series of topics, but on the heels of the Convention and all of the press about Outdoor Program, I've decided to throw my hat into that ring. So what does Smitty think about the importance of Outdoor Program in Girl Scouting?

Girl Scouting's primary goal is to grow girls into responsible, mature adults who are ready to tackle the world with their leadership skills. Accomplishing this requires at least two significant factors:

1. Engaging girls with the program - "If we build it, they will come."
   Girls know when they're having fun and when they're not. Girl Scouting is an optional activity in their lives. It better be something they want to do or we're going to lose them.
2. Exposing them to new challenges
   You don't build leadership by just talking about it or doing what you already know. Girls need to be stretched in ways that challenge them in order to grow. (Lots more about this in future posts).

Outdoor Program is probably the number one thing we can do that easily meets both of these requirements. In their report More Than S'mores: Successes and Surprises in Girl Scouts' Outdoor Experiences, the Girl Scout Research Institute reports that girls have extremely high enjoyment levels of the outdoor activities they participate in. Furthermore, girls who participate less frequently in outdoor program enjoy it even more. It seems like a no-brainer that increasing outdoor programming could correspond with increased enjoyment of Girl Scouting and potentially higher membership levels.

Many girls get little outdoor experience outside of Girl Scouting. This was somewhat true for me growing up. My parents actually liked to hike occasionally, but I only camped through Girl Scouting. Camping, hiking, outdoor cooking - these are the types of activities that build skills in a fun way. It's not school style book learning. When you take girls outside they get out of their comfort zone and have to learn new skills, face their fears, and work together. These are the experiences that build leadership.

The report recommends that Girl Scouts get outdoors at least once a month. We all know that program materials have a huge impact on what leaders and girls choose to do at meetings and other activities. Unless the program materials have a large variety of outdoor experiences built into them, where is this once a month outdoor activity going to come from?

Based on how outdoor program so integrally meets the needs and goals of Girl Scouting, I think it should be a significant part of what girls get from their scouting experience and we need much more of it in official Girl Scout program materials.

Do I support an Outdoor Journey? I suppose if there must be Journeys, then there absolutely should be Outdoor Journeys. But I'm not really a big fan of the Journey system and would prefer a step backward to a more traditional badge based program model.

Lastly, I do want to point out that despite my strong support for outdoor programming, I stop short of the position that Girl Scouting = Outdoor Skills. There are so many great experiences for girls that build leadership potential and we need to use every tool at our disposal to keep Girl Scouting engaging and challenging, whether that's a camping trip or a night at the opera.

Smitty