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The Pinewood Derby


Last night was a milestone in our family:  our last Pinewood Derby.  My youngest son is 10 years old so he is graduating from Cub Scouts in a few months.  We've been doing Pinewood Derbies for a long time--since 1998 or 1999 (I can't remember if we did one when we lived in Maryland or not).  With six boys, we've made a lot of Pinewood Derby cars. Scott has let our boys be the chief engineers and he has just been the support staff.  They haven't been beautiful cars and they haven't usually won.  But the boys have had fun making them.  I'm not so sure about the actual races.  I asked my son last night how he felt about his last Pinewood Derby and he said, "Terrible.  Because I didn't win."  He wasn't moping around but clearly he wasn't feeling that cheerful about it.  I'm not worried about my son--he'll be fine.  But I do worry a little about the other boys who didn't win.

My first question is, what is the goal of the Pinewood Derby?  I went to a big Cub Scouting website called USScouts.org and got this statement about it:  "The purpose of the Pinewood Derby is to help the Cub Scout build a team relationship with their parent or helper, experience the sense of accomplishment and the excitement of competition, learn Win/Lose good sportsmanship, and to have fun."  Is that what happened last night?  I'm not really sure.

We had lots of good cars there last night.  The boys had a great time watching their cars.  There were 26 heats so every car got raced a lot of times.  I think everyone had fun until the end of the night.  At the very end, the Cubmaster awarded six large medals.  Three medals were for the fastest cars, and three were for the coolest-looking cars.  We have 13 boys in our Pack so half of the boys went home feeling like winners and half went home feeling pretty disappointed.  I saw a little boy, a new Cub Scout, looking pretty sad at the end of the evening.  Maybe we should have talked more about feeling happy for the people whose cars did well.  But we didn't and I don't know if it would have helped.

One argument that I've heard for handing out awards is that there is competition in life and we shouldn't be afraid to give awards to boys who have done well.  But is it really the boys that have done so well?  I think it's the dads who have done the most work on the cars.  My experience with Pinewood Derbies is that the cars who do the best are the ones who have the most competent and motivated dads who largely make the cars themselves with some input from their boys.  The boys who win are winning because their dads tried the hardest.  The boys who lose are losing because their dads either didn't help as much or didn't know how to make a really fast car or didn't really care.  I'm all for awarding outstanding effort and learning how to work hard but I don't think the boys are the ones who worked so hard.

But my main problem with this competition is that the reason we do Cub Scouts is because we are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I'm not sure we would be doing Cub Scouts if it wasn't part of our church program.  I'm really sure that I wouldn't be the Pack Committee Chair for 5 years now if I hadn't been asked to do it by the leadership of the ward we attend.  So the Pinewood Derby is really a church activity.  It felt like one and it was one.  Do we want these boys going home from this particular church activity feeling labeled as a winner or a loser?

One of the great things about the gospel of Jesus Christ is that everyone can be winners.  ALL of us can make good choices in our lives, obey the commandments and receive eternal life because Jesus Christ atoned for ALL of us.  Those are the feelings we should have at church.  There are plenty of opportunities to win and lose in sports and music and school and the rest of your life.  More and more I'm feeling like the Pinewood Derby should not be an activity associated with church unless we can find a way to downplay the competition.  It should be about dads working with and having fun with their boys and everybody feeling happy that they participated in a Cub Scout activity, whether or not their car won.

Comments

  1. DataDavidApril 14, 2013 at 8:42 PM

    I agree the competition isn't really the point because it doesn't reflect the boys efforts. I think a lot of people solve the problem by giving everyone a medal, giving rise to the entitlement generation. I don't think that giving everyone a medal is the best solution. It would probably help if there was one small medal for the winner and more praise for everyone who participated. Maybe even highlighting a boy who did the most work on his car and how he did it would increase focus on the process...

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