Has anybody ever been in the brownies, girl guides, similar?

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Has anybody here ever been a cub scout, brownie, girl scout, etc? I was in the brownies and I enjoyed it, however, I wasn't that keen on guides. People were not as understanding of AS in those days, it was pretty much the "disability means wheelchair" attitudes in those days. I actually spoke with a lady who was a guide leader a few months ago, and she said that this girl with autism had joined her troup, and that she had really come on and achieved things.

Has anybody here got any similar experiences?

I was in girl scouts when I was six and we did activities like art, sang, puppet shows, and I loved getting new badges and my mom sew them on my vest. I had two others she new sewed on and I don't know what happened with them. I even remember selling cookies and I didn't really understand it so mom did it with me. I had no idea what was going on then when I did it. Then I remember delivering the cookies which was lot of fun. Mom take me to each house in her car and give me the cookies to take up to the house. I even get dropped off at the house after school where girl scouts was at.

I went to rainbows (I think this is only a UK thing dunno) from age 6-7. Brownies from age 7-11 and then guides at 11 and left early this year. Even though I enjoyed it I was glad to leave guides because it was getting extremely boring and there was mostly kids there by then. I enjoyed 2 of the camps/trips with guides but I went on 3 (one of them was a disaster) but the other 2 were extremely fun. I liked brownies but I didn't get on with brown owl and was always getting into trouble with her. I don't remember all that much from rainbows except I was the tallest and oldest there.

I was in something that is similar to girl scouts through my church when I was younger. I don't remember much except that I didn't really enjoy it. I was much more content to stay home and read my books.

I went to girl guides for a couple of years. I didn't know that I had AS at the time and like usual, the other kids there didn't really like me. There was no one in the group with disabilities and everyone there came from the same school so it gave them all a chance to pick on me at school AND at guides.
Thanks mum for forcing me to join up...not.

Both of my boys are in Scouts - One is a Joey and the other is a Cub.

My wife and I are now both scout leaders too.

It's been great.

Our initial intent was to give the boys something social other than soccer which was frustrating them because they couldn't keep up with the ball. I've since decided that scouts is by far the best weekend activity you could do for an aspie. There's a lot of social contact (practice) and it's all done under the watchful eyes of leaders. We can observe our son's interactions and can talk to him after hours on ways he could improve socially.

Scouts is very structured, there are lots of rules and there is a huge amount of scope for activities.

I get the feeling that about a third of our troop seems to have aspergers or some similar social issues. They're all coming on in leaps and bounds though.

I was in Girls Scouts from 7-12 years old. I did enjoy it, It was structured the same as Boy Scouts. I loved earning badges and going camping and on trips. The Girls in my troop were from school, I knew them already. I only would interact with them during meetings, activities etc... I really had only 1 close friend from Girls Scouts that I would hang out with outside Scouting activities. Of, course I was the only with autism in my troop. I stopped going at the end of sixth grade.

I am familiar with Scouting in NL. It is a good place for children, since it has structure and offers a lot of interaction with peers. Quality of the units differ, it depends on the leader and the general attitude in the group.

From what I hear, sometimes it is a really good place for Aspies, sometimes not, but it can be a good thing to ask about other units.

There are also other Scouting-related activities. Some churches have groups affiliated with them. In Europe there are organizations that belong to the catholic church, in an organization called FIMCAP. (patros, chiro, Jong Nederland, etc.)

I was kicked out of scouts for disobeying orders. but anyway- I hated it, too much discipline.

I was in the cubs. I liked it. I even liked the camping.
I wasn't so keen on the scouts with all those older kids. I remember one of them once at scout camp giving me a minor beating because I couldn't stop coughing at night.

Cub Scouts was generally fun for me, as the Den was small and we only gathered in the Pack for things like the Pinewood Derby (I won that both years that I participated in it). When I got into Webelos, I started to hate it - the higher ratio of scouts to adults led to discipline problems for some individuals (at my expense). When I entered Boy Scouts, the religion-based structure of it seemed very foreign to me. I attended a week-long Boy Scout Camp, an experience that I didn't particularly like.

Warning, topic-divergence:
There's one thing about scouts that makes me wish I had never been interested in any of it (although it is unique to my situation) : My participation in scouting is how my mom met the guy who became my stepfather. One of his sons was in scouts too and is the same age as myself. I don't know if anyone can imagine the level of misery this would beset an undiagnosed aspie. If any single mothers of male aspies are reading this, take note of my experience - don't marry anyone who has male children, especially if his boy and yours are within 3 years of age of each other.

I was in Brownies, the year I was in Canada.
While I enjoyed most of it, I did get the feeling that most of the girls there hated me or at least did not like having me around. Except for this crazy girl who was super optimistic I knew from my school. But I think she was in a higher ..rank or something.

My absolute favourite activity we did was make 'crystal gardens' with salt and some type of detergent. So pretty and awesome.

I went to Rainbows and Brownies but I didn't go to guides.
I think I liked Rainbows (can't really remember it) but I absolutely dreaded going to Brownies. Some of the girls were really mean to me and I could never understand why. When I was asked to hand out sheets they used to knock them out of my hands so I would have to pick them all up again and they would rip up my work and try to trip me over. I didn't really think anything of it at the time.