My son has been involved in Cub Scouting since the earliest entry level, the Tiger Scouts, in 1st grade. First of all, I do believe that the experience is very den and pack dependent, as I can imagine girl scouting is. I did NOT put him in the pack from his school at that time because I had heard scuttlebutt that it was poorly led and just worthless.I knew another parent (from a sports team) who was going to lead a den from a different elementary school and joined that pack. What a great decision!
This leader was terrific.She understood DS was different than other kids and allowed him to be "the expert" sometimes to get him involved. DS switched schools a few times, was homeschooled for a spell, and was accelerated twice. This does not make a big difference to the other boys...he was never in their class. Sometimes he feels a bit out of the group due to their being in the same classes over the years but he really is different enough from them that this may be for the better.
Cub and Boy Scout is also age and grade related, although I can imagine them making exceptions. We offered our son the chance to accelerate to Boy Scouts after the second grade skip but he did not feel that it was HONORABLE to skip key parts of the Scouting path since his ultimate goal is Eagle Scout (and he didn't want to miss "crossing over the bridge" next year to Boy Scouts).Because he is going into 7th grade and his den mates are going into 5th the after school meetings have been hard to make but the leaders understand and encourage him to make up the group work as needed...that will probably continue this year. He does many more electives on his own than his denmates.
I believe that there are MANY leaders in life who have been Eagle Scouts but that is really due to the fact that they have the determination, initiative, and citizenship key to making it all the way through. As Chenchuan noted, I think that it needs to be a child's passion that leads them, however. There are "hot" and "cold" times with my son's involvement in Scouting and we would never force him to do it but I think that it is the presence of any long-term goal that makes people leaders in society.Parents pulling a kid through Scouting is not going to do it.
