Campers won’t settle down at bedtime? Try these four tips

Heading to summer camp or your unit’s first summer campout?

If you’ve camped with Scouts before, then it’s likely you’ve encountered energetic boys (and Venturers, too) who have a hard time settling down at bedtime.

The woes of Scoutmaster Knott in the May 1950 edition of Scouting magazine will sound familiar. In this tale, the Skunk Patrol continues making noise “like a hog-call contest in Times Square” late into the night. His solution? Calisthenics and trash duty in the dark hours. Before he knows it, the boys drop into bed, exhausted.

The article offers four timeless tips for helping “boy-discipline in camp”:

1. Horseplay on the first night — or any night — will not necessarily wreck the republic. (And it may make better medicine than the repressive discipline used in stopping it.)
2. The approach is the thing.
3. Hard work and hard play — before Taps — makes Jack a sleepy boy.
4. Whatever your “system,” be firm, be tactful and you’ll be respected.

Anything to add to the list? What kinds of bedtime enforcement work for your troop or crew?