Preventing the Middle-School Fizzle
April 18, 2023
By Calley Pate, Wai Lani Service Unit Manager
Middle school is the age when most Girl Scout troops start to fizzle away. The girls get busier with their extracurricular activities, making new friends, going to different schools, and let’s face it, some of them may think it’s just not “cool” to be in Girl Scouts any longer. However, for young women this age, Girl Scouts can be a lifeline to a successful future. So, can leaders help keep these future Cadettes engaged?
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Spark Future Talk
To combat the fizzle, I’ve always include "future talk” in my meetings. “Future talk” is really just sharing tips on how Girl Scouting can help them get into the college of their dreams and obtain scholarships to help them pay for it.
I started to implement this tactic with my troop during a trip to Savannah, Georgia, the summer after the girls finished sixth grade. Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is in Savannah, and while waiting in line at Leopold’s Ice Cream, my daughter started dreaming of going to SCAD and living in the adorable town. While we waited in line, the girls started to search online to compare tuition costs at SCAD with those at some of the schools within their state. They quickly realized that private schools such as SCAD cost a great deal more, which prompted a discussion about scholarships. While still standing in line, they started to search for scholarships and discovered that there are scholarships that they could apply for while in middle school! I have continued the discussion during our troop meetings noting how completing Girl Scout High Awards (Bronze, Silver and Gold) will help the girls obtain even more scholarships and how the achievement will enhance their college applications.
Inspire with Role Models
Another tactic that we use to help our girls see a future in Girl Scouting is that we surround them with older Girl Scout friends. Our Service Unit, like many others, has very few older Girl Scouts to serve as role models for our younger girls. We have gotten very lucky the last few years and have “adopted” a few older girls into our troop. While they are a part of their own troops, they also attend our meetings when they are available to help mentor the girls. They also assist us with planning our Service Unit encampments and attend the events to hang out with our girls. For their efforts, they earn volunteer hours that are needed for the Florida Bright Futures Scholarship. They have truly been embraced by our girls as their big sisters and they all really enjoy spending time together. One of these wonderful young ladies graduated early last year and wasn’t ready to leave Girl Scouting. She’s now serves as an adult volunteer and one of my troop helpers! My girls have gotten to watch many of these older girls navigate and achieve their Gold Awards, submit their applications for college, graduate and go off to school. They see how Girl Scouts has helped them reach their goals—big and small!
Grow Your Troop
When girls in my troop entered seventh grade, I let them invite friends to join Girl Scouts. They all attended different schools and had different friends, so why not encourage them to share their love of Girl Scouts with even more girls? Our troop also welcomed a few Girl Scouts from other states and Girl Scouts who lost their troops due to the “middle school fizzle.” Even a few friends who have never been in Girl Scouts before were invited to participate. Many of these girls didn’t have traditional extracurricular activities, so their parents were glad that their girls had activities that excited them. This effort helped grow our troop from 7 girls to 17 girls! There’s a learning curve when you have new girls join an existing troop, as each girl may not have the same level of dedication to the organization. Some girls attend just to have fun with their friends, and that’s ok. Out of our 17 girls, about 10 are in some stage of planning or working on their Silver Award. We don’t make it mandatory to work on a Silver Award, we simply show them the advantages and let them decide what moves them.
Focus on Sisterhood and Supporting Each Other
Attendance can be tricky for middle school students as they increasingly have more and more homework and a greater demand from their other activities. There are nights when they miss our regular meetings. Some can only make it to half the meetings due to homework; and at some meetings they actually help each other with completing their Algebra homework. We hold our meetings for two hours, twice a month. The meetings include a little bit of socializing and a little bit of planning.
Our meetings can look a little chaotic because years ago one of our mentor troops told us how much Cadette/Senior/Ambassador Girl Scouting meant to them during middle and high school. This was their time to get away from the daily drama at home and school and be with “safe” friends who supported and loved them no matter what. These girls are not all best friends outside of school—but they are the truest form of friends I’ve ever witnessed. I’m pretty sure they would do anything for one another. They have a level of vulnerability with one another. They’ve seen each other cry, they’ve seen them face their fears and they have seen one another on their worst days. There’s no judgment. So in order to be more girl-led in middle school, we provide the girls time to socialize during our meetings and remember why they built this village of friends.
Let Girls Lead
The core of our meetings also looks different. Some days we’re planning Service Unit events for other troops. Some days we’re planning a campout for ourselves. Some days we’re brainstorming Silver Award ideas or breaking up into groups to get stuff done. Leading up to a recent meeting I was swamped at work and had very little time to prepare for the meeting. Our Service Unit’s World Thinking Day was only four days later and our troop hadn’t planned anything other than our country we were going to represent. We didn’t have time to let the girls plan the meeting, so I gathered all the supplies I could think they could possibly need and decided to wing it! I set up four stations and let the girls divide themselves into groups. They decided which project they worked on based on their own preferences. With a few directions, they were off. They created an entire display board on Columbia, 100 SWAPS, shopped online for decorations and planned one activity for the Service Unit—all within two hours. All I needed to do was print off a few photos and paste them to the board. This meeting really made me realize how much they are capable of doing on their own and how girl-led they really were.
Invite Guest Speakers
For two years, our troop had been wanting to earn the Animal Helper badge. While one of our groups was planning its Silver Award, the girls connected with a lady who had a therapy dog and an amazing story. I privately messaged her and arranged for her and her dog to attend our next meeting. Turns out, this lady was not just a dog rescue volunteer but also an adjunct professor at a local college and a medical rescue parent for dogs with severe medical issues. She was the perfect person to help with the Animal Helper badge! We watched a few short videos on her puppies before she came and then let the girls tell their pet stories, sharing how several of them had rescued pets themselves. Everyone in the room was so happy to be surrounded by these dogs. Our guest shared stories and talked to the girls about therapy dogs, fostering, and working as an animal rescuer. There was very little planning that went into the night because I knew that the girls would lead our guest speaker down the conversations that most interested them. By the end of the night, many of the girls were already dreaming of the day they would be old enough to be an animal volunteer and help out at our local rescue and adoption center.
Keep Adapting & Planting Seeds for Future Opportunities
I hold out hope that I won’t lose these girls next year when they go off to high school. Our core group will remain strong and I’m excited because many of them will be going to the same school next year. They all have goals to stay with Girl Scouts through high school like their mentors. I will continue to adapt and find ways to keep these girls focused on the future, while keeping their Girl Scout experience fun and engaging. They have dreams of a group trip to Alaska their senior year of high school and I’m excited to see where their dreams will take them!
