Hi, I was just wondering whether when your on camp you have to go swimming or whether you could sit out of it?
Did mum state in your TG21/23 that you have a medical condition that prevents you swimming?
No one can force you to do anything you don’t want to do.
Why wouldn’t you want to?
Indeed not. But they can ask why you’re wasting their time and the time of all those who have wasted their time preparing activities and opportunities for you.
I’ve encountered more cadets that don’t want to swim at camps or just generally over the last few years.
Some because they can’t swim, which IMO is a tragedy, but mostly IMO because it’s all a bit too much hassle and the smattering of female cadets citing ‘time of the month’.
If they come saying anything than being honest in that they can’t swim (or it’s an injury preventing them in which case a visit ot the med centre is in order) and let’s face it swimming sessions at camp are now more in do what you have to and get out without any social time, I will stop them doing other things and tell them that. You know what swimming kit miraculously appears and they go swimming and enjoy it.
In life we all have to do things we don’t like or don’t really want to, which seems to be an understanding a number of youngsters (and adults) don’t have, proabably because parents/schools say it’s OK you don’t have to, if we start kow-towing to them they have no hope left. These kids are going to get a rude wake up call when they come into the real world. There are a whole host of things I’d sooner not do, but because of contractual obligation and or sense of it’s what I should be doing, I do them.
I was asking for a friend of mine who has a drunken tattoo he is ashamed of to the point where he won’t show it in public
@Glass Half Empty 2: However you are part of a voluntary youth organisation, young people attend the cadets because they choose to, and therefore if they don’t want to take part in an activity (which they have paid to be a part of), then that is their choice, why force them into it? They are not contractually bound to do so, nor are they morally obliged to, or any other fancy worded reason.
Sadly one of the main reasons young people do not want to go swimming is as a result of negative body image and the feeling of being judged by others. This is a reality of the world these kids are in, everyone is judged on their appearance, and who can claim some of the kids for not wanting to be judged? It’s not about kow-towing to them, it’s about their person choice, the same as adults have, if I paid to go on holiday (which in essence is what camps are for young people), and there was some kind of organised activity that I didn’t want to go on, then I wouldn’t do it.
Ah bummer! :ohmy: We’ve all been there…
If it’s the common issue of negative body image (which is a grand shame), then swimming may well exacerbate the anxiety; which surely must be understandable amongst any rational person. Get your friend to come clean to the OiC and I’m sure they’ll be able to openly discuss the options.
Your friend may be relieved to hear that drunken tattoos are actually quite common…
As GOM quite rightly points out a lot of people put a lot of effort into organising/running camps and the associated activities. Staff are not contractually obliged to attend camps, but they do because they get some enjoyment (personal and seeing cadets experience things) and understand the benefits, which may have involved going through hoops to get the time off in the first place, given how late camp notifications seem to be getting. As staff it grips me that cadets don’t do things, but normally you don’t get a reason like you do at a camp. In this exampls I know a load of people who have got tattoos they regret having done, either when a bit tipsy or stone cold sober, but they get on with life. This is what we should be advocating. All the suggestions given seem to pander to the predicament.
I’m sorry (well actually I’m not) if my thinking is not inline with others thinking, but anything that happens to someone under the influence of alcohol or drugs doesn’t get the sympathy vote, in rare instances are you forced or coerced to get into this state. Would you be so sympathetic if someone lost their driving licence etc because they drove after knowlingly having an alcoholic drink? I’ve woken up feeling the worse for wear after a few beers and never had a sympathetic ear. So someone saying I want to be excused because I’ve got a tattoo that was done when I was a bit ‘merry’ shouldn’t expect a shoulder to cry on. We can’t be expected to make allowances for this sort of stupidity, just because they are cadets. The fact it’s regretted afterwards and is a problem is neither here or there, we’ve all done things and regretted it straight away, but get on with it. If that’s not what people would like or expect me to say so be it. I didn’t experience a soft soap approach from my parents, but none of this mumbo-jumbo, claptrap existed when I was growing up. And our kids didn’t get it either. My mum and dad had a good chuckle as did my mates and workmates after having one of my eyebrows removed, after falling asleep at a party after drinking too much.
Their better option would be to feign a headache or something similar. I’m more likely to accept this sort of thing as a reason, than some sob story about a drunken mistake. Why just because I’m a youth leader should I treat or act towards other people’s children in a way that my kids wouldn’t recognise on matters like this, escapes me.
As for “negative body image” this is media driven celebrity culture BS and the sad thing is people pander to it with no checks or balances. When it comes to children, parents should be addressing it from the outset, not playing along with it. There a lot of people who make a lot of money out of it by preying on the vulnerable and the stupid. If parents were better at their jobs (or more so took the time) they wouldn’t let their kids get to feel like this. Our daughters, especially, succumbed to this rubbish, bits too small, too big, wrong shape (according to whichever magazine/paper they were reading or TV programme they watched at the time) but after getting told by us every time they tried to indulge us in this nonsense, that are the way inherited genetics intend them to be (getting a tattoo when drunk isn’t genetic), they have grown up to read and laugh at it. Lord knows where they’d be if we played along.
It amazes me that staff are prepared to fall over themselves and make allowances on this.
In response to Grim Reaper’s post…
The cadets volunteer to be part of the ACO, and they further volunteer to go to camp - explicitly accepting the requirement to place themselves under orders for the duration of the camp.
They can choose to leave the camp at any point - assuming that they have means of getting home, and of course, that they have told the staff.
OP, i think your friend is just going to have to grip himself and get on with it - unless he plans on forking out to have the tattoo removed or covered over he’s talking about not stripping off at the beach and not getting naked infront of lovers for the rest of his life. if that doesn’t sound fun he may as well get used to people seeing it and being more comfortable with that - ACO camp would, to me, seem like an excellent starting place for that process. its less harshly judgemental than school, and it doesn’t have the same potentially negative consequences of whipping out his Swastika tattoo out in front of his Jewish girlfriend…
i see both sides - i think (having a 10yo daughter) that by pandering to the ‘i can’t be seen in a swimsuit because my boobs aren’t big enough’ body image problem we actually make it worse - we are saying to the individual ‘yes, i understand, i don’t think people who are as fat/ugly/skinny as you should be seen in public either…’, i also understand the view that the ACO is to some degree about challenging young people to do things outside of their comfort zone, and just pandering to the ‘i don’t like the rain’, or ‘i don’t like the dark’, or ‘i don’t like having to iron my kit’ is doing them no favours at all, either as members of the ACO, or as people who will get a very unpleasant shock when they go out into the big nasty world.
that said, if a cadet really doesn’t want to do something (i had little interest in flying, others had little interest in shooting), i’m not going to waste precious resources making them unhappy - if they want to sit it out fine, but they won’t be nipping down to the Regt Flight, or Aircraft Servicing while everyone else goes swimming…