Shopping with Cub Scouts

So, I'm the WEBELOS den leader, and I tend to run my Cub Scout den more like a Boy Scout patrol.  In case you don't know the difference, the general rule for Boy Scouts is that they do things themselves.  Therefore, I try to let the boys make their own mistakes as we go.

To that end, we went shopping tonight.  8 boys running free in Walmart with minimal adult supervision.  The two boys who arrived late could find us from across the store just by closing their eyes and following the noise.  I told them they had a budget of $60 ...

90 minutes later, with much running back and forth, they finally had everything they thought they needed ... and they spent $115.  The adults came in at the $60 budget, and we spent $50 on desserts.

I only had to tell them once to shut the fuck up that I didn't want to be kicked out of Walmart.  There were no major fights.  There were a few disagreements, but it was hard to tell the difference above the general din.  They aren't perfect on what they're going to eat (cups of soup for lunch?) ... but they did it themselves.

And, they did it in budget ... see, this is not my first time around the block, so I knew how much they were likely to spend ... I told them $60 to keep it around $100 ... and it worked!

That's how you survive Cub Scouts!

        aka: goofdad