Thinking about letting my daughter join Girl Scouts?
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at
2:37 am
My daughter is 4, but I’m thinking about home schooling her starting NEXT year (kindergarten) and am looking into different activities for her to do outside of home, to make friends, have fun, and try new things.
I was never in Girl Scouts, so I’d love to hear from people who have been in it, or have kids in it. Can you tell me what you think of it? What kinds of things do they do? I’d love any information and personal experiences. What do you like about it? What do you not like about it?
Thanks so much!
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I learned how to thread a needle in Girl Scouts when I was about 6.
Went on short hikes, made s’mores by a campfire, etc. Talk to the GS Leader.
My daddy have an underground group that rape Girl Scouts. You must make her carry a condom or she will get pregnant!
The idea is good, but the main thing is that is your daughter mature and ready for the girl’s scout?
Young girls first joined the Brownies [for the younger girls] then around 9 or 10 yrs, joined the Girl Scouts. It’s a great program to learn about life, the outdoors & getting along with schoolmates her age.
Ughhh my mom made me go for like ever
It was a good social experience but it was a hassle
You have to follow all these different projects to get badges and then you have to buy the badges and you can’t miss a meeting cuz then you don’t get the badge and then you’re behind
And for some reasons I have memories of the whole experience being very "jesus friendly"
Almost as if it was a church thing…..
Good community projects and things though
It can be good for her. She’ll be a daisy at this age and they do lots of crafts and community projects to earn badges. Yes, you have to buy them, but they’re relative cheap and you can get used uniforms. You can earn badges for almost everything from learning to sew to learning to change a car tire. I was in girl scouts from 1st grade up until I graduated high school. We went camping, hiking, did clean up projects around the town, etc. I learned to sail and got my qualifications to be a lifeguard through the girl scouts.
At 4, she would go into daisies. I remember liking daisies very much. I made a few friends that I had playdates with outside of meetings too.
I would make it a point to meet the troop leader and get to know who your daughter is going to be around. At the age of 4, it’s important to make it a good experience so that she’ll want to go on to brownies and girl scouts when she gets older.
It’s a great organization, though her experience will depend largely on the particular troop, and the particular leader.
The youngest girls (kindergarten/1st grad) start off as Daisy Scouts — simple activities where they can earn special badges.
Then they progress through Brownies and regular scouts, and activities get more advanced, and they do service projects, camp, etc.
BTW, the last poster’s experience sounds unusual. You don’t have to attend every meeting, and it has nothing to do with Jesus. While there is some assumption that Girl Scouts believe in God (of some sort), it’s 100% NON-denominational (unless the particular troop is sponsored by a church and designed to be only for members of that church), and if a leader tried to evangelize or
I started in Girl Scouts when I was 5 years old and stayed all the way through high school. I’m actually a lifetime member, although not active at the moment. They do all sorts of things, much of it depends on the leader, the troop, and where you live. As Daisies they do alot of crafts and some social learning activities. I remeber my Daisy troop kept scrapbooks of all our activities. As they get older, they can go on camping trips, attend scout camp, and work on all sorts of merit badges- ranging from technology topics to "girly" things like dance and theater, to more traditional outdoorsy activities like hiking or fire safety. What the troop does should ideally be focused on the interests of the girls. I love the out doors and my middle school years in scouts were somewhat rough as my troop mates all wanted to do dance badges and make up and all sorts of things I was just not interested in. I stuck it out though, and we got a better balance in high school, when more girls with interests like my own joined. And of course, learning to compromise with the majority and do a badge I disliked every now and then was a valuable skill to learn too.
At your daighters age though, its almost all fun and games and it seems to appeal to a broad range of girls. I would encourage you to try it out. Talk to your leader and you can probably even volunteer to help out at some meetings which will give you a feel for how the troop works and what scouts is all about. -Neb
i am currently a girl scout, and i love it. if your daughter joins girl scouts now, she will be a daisy, the youngest girl scout level. daises usually do simple fun projects, the do crafts for the season ( christmas trees, mothers day cards ,etc), play games, learn about different things, have fun with the friends they made. depending on their troop leader, they sometimes go on trips on the weekends. older girl scouts work on patches, by completing various fun activities. some leaders take the patches more seriously than others. most of the time girls don’t ever realize they are earning patches when they do these activities. i loved my experience in girl scouts. it was always a fun time with my friends. your daughter would benefit from being a girl scout. she will love it. h
Girl scouts is an AMAZING organization! I’ve been a girl scout for the past nine years. I started when i was five and now I’m fourteen and I’m going to continue to do girl scouts until i graduate from high school. I love it SO much.
Younger girl scouts tend to do things like singing songs, doing crafts, and playing games. But that’s what little kids want to do. You’re daughter will love getting to meet new people and hang out with them. My two best friends I’ve meet through girl scouts.
when you daughter gets older though. she may find those things getting boring. This happens about fifth grade. A lot of people left my troop then. But once we got into middle school we sort of stopped doing the badges and fun little kiddy games and started working on the awards. There’s three main awards in girl scouting: bronze (you do around sixth grade), silver (you do around eight grade), and gold (you do around tenth grade). Up until the bronze award you (or who ever is the leader) will probably be needing to organize all the meetings and what the girls do. But once you get to the silver award the girls will just do it on their own. My leaders hardly do anything. It’s just my troop. We organize things and do the awards on our own.
Girl scouts has taught me how to be an all around great person and respect others. I know how to deal with all types of people. I know how to organize things. I know now that if i want something i have to work for it.
But since your daughter is only going to be a daisy, all this stuff seems fairly far away. But you should defiantly get her involved in girl scouts. Especially since she is being home schooled. It will be a great way for her to make new friends.