Glen Rock Parent

Glen Rock, NJ's forum for parents to speak out, react, inform and engage

How about some thin mints?

Posted on | February 5, 2010 | View Comments

Thin_Mints_PkgIt’s girl scout cookie time in Glen Rock. An annual ritual performed by millions of girls nationally, this rite of passage has become far more of a chore for parents then for the girl scouts themselves. How much actual selling of the cookies does your girl scout do?

The intent here is not to ridicule the kids. They’re kids after all and likely have absolutely no desire to sell cookies! The point is to take a look at this tradition with new eyes and not just go through the motions “because you did it” or “we’ve done it every other year.”

Many folks’ experiences typically end up as follows:

-       hit up the neighbors

-       bring the order form to work and guilt trip your co-workers with cute pictures of your kids (along with promises of kid delivery when cookies arrive)

-       guilt trip your local family into ordering

-       and, when all else fails, buy a bunch of boxes yourself

What does this teach our girls? Some would argue this sets up an educational opportunity where goals can be set, achievement plans created and success measured and rewarded. In reality, this usually doesn’t happen.

Your scout will agree to a quota and make attempts to sell to neighbors which is limited to your immediate vicinity since it’s Winter in Glen Rock and walking around the neighborhood is not very much fun.

You can’t ask your friends to purchase because they are likely going through the same dance. You child’s “network” is not large enough to promote enough sales. That’s where the parents step in.

The race is on to be the first at work to bring in the order form and spam the inboxes of your colleagues. Even if you get to be the “cookie person” at work, your child has zero exposure to this (perhaps only on delivery of the cookies they may get to see their buyers). Ultimately, you end buying an unnecessary amount of cookie boxes that, after months of gorging and re-gifting, you end up throwing away.

Again, what does this teach our girls? It likely teaches them nothing.

Do you have tactics you’ve used in the Glen Rock area to get your girls to sell more cookies? Have you had different experiences?

We’d love to hear from you in the comments.

* The views expressed in this post are those of the author based on experience both as a seller of scout-related goods and a parent of goods-selling scouts. Your mileage may vary.

Bookmark and Share
Contributed by: Jeff Gothelf. on February 5, 2010.
Category: Community, family, fundraiser

Comments

blog comments powered by Disqus