Reasons for Teenagers for Join Civil Air Patrol’s Cadet Program


I was recently asked by the parent of a prospective new Cadet what we were ultimately trying to teach the young people in our program.  The answer formed scarcely before I knew it; “How to better deal with the problems of ‘real’ life”.  I explained that if a Cadet gets nothing else out of the program, then I would feel it would still be worthwhile.
 
I went on to explain my reasoning.  Our Cadets learn valuable skills such as leadership, critical thinking, moral leadership, and self-confidence.  However, working with other people from different backgrounds can be very challenging and learning those social skills early on will set Cadets ahead of their peers who only have had to worry about themselves.  Cadets develop this valuable skill to reach goals early on in their CAP careers.

As they advance, Cadets are tasked with ever increasing levels of responsibility and leadership of the less experienced Cadets.  From Flight Sergeant to First Sergeant, then Flight Commander to Executive Officer, and perhaps Cadet Commander these Cadets run into everyday problems that they are required to resolve.  As Parents and adults, we know the myriad of problems associated with running a family while balancing a career.  These Cadets get a chance to experience such problems on a much smaller, controlled scale in the safe environment of Civil Air Patrol (the “Leadership Laboratory” as it is called).

The ultimate leadership challenge for Cadets is to serve on staff at an Encampment.  This is the setting where a young leader is required to have responsibility of a flight of Cadets (or possibly a Cadet staff) for 24/7.  Despite being under constant Senior Member supervision, they are given a wide latitude to make all decisions, good or bad (short of risking safety).  We give them the best tool for learning to deal with life’s problems: the freedom to fail. It usually comes as a great shock to the mid-level Cadet who first realizes that not all his charges remembered to bring some critically mandatory item and it is then up to them to rectify the situation.  They quickly learn that not everything goes according to plan and that they must:  1) stay calm,   2) improvise, and  3) work on a method to keep the problem from recurring.  The seasoned Cadet, a veteran of several Encampments, has learned to prepare in every way possible, but realizes that things will go haywire from time to time and to work around the problems that inevitably arise.

One of the hardest things to do with Cadet leaders, as a Senior (Adult) Member is to trust them enough to allow them to succeed or fail.  When they stumble we pick them up, brush them off, and see if they’ve learned anything from the experience.  When we are ‘finished’ with these Cadets, they are young adults who are generally better equipped to handle the curve balls life will throw at them.