The merits of relaxing

[Times photos: Dirk Shadd] Nicole Niquette, 9, left, a fourth-grader at 74th Street Elementary, and Tabitha Sharp, 12, a sixth-grader at Gulf Coast Christian School, have earned the Stress Less badge, below. The two members of Junior Girl Scout Troop 1220 say reading helps them relax. Nicole favors Harry Potter and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen books, while Tabitha likes Nancy Drew and the Royal Diaries series.

By THOMAS ZUCCO, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 29, 2002

Stress Less badge

You might find this just a little . . . stressful.

The Junior Girl Scouts offer a merit badge in relaxing. It's called the Stress Less merit badge, and it's one of several new badges that were introduced last fall.

The badge features a likeness of a grinning Anna Nicole Smith in the center, and in the background is a collage that includes an empty bottle of cheap merlot, a bathrobe, a half-eaten carton of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream and a prescription for some sort of anxiety medication.

This is the absolute, complete truth.

Except the part about Smith and the collage.

You really can, if you're in the Junior Girl Scouts and you study hard and know the right people, obtain a merit badge in personal stress relief.

It's not the coveted hammock-testing merit badge. But it's close.

That stress relief is now worthy of a merit badge raises several key questions, starting with what exactly one has to do to "earn" a Stress Less badge. Wouldn't you have to not do a lot of things to earn it? And if so, how would you prove what you didn't do? (This is getting far too metaphysical.)

Is the Stress Less badge available only to Girl Scouts who live on the West Coast, because the rest of the country "just like, you know, wouldn't understand the inner meaning of the concept"?

Is the badge somehow connected to the cookie selling season, which just ended a few weeks ago? (It can't be. When was the last time you bought a box of Girl Scout cookies from an actual, sash-wearing Girl Scout? No, the people who usually sell that stuff are in their 30s and drive minivans.)

Finally, isn't it somewhat disturbing that preteen girls have so much stress in their lives that they can earn a merit badge for relieving it? What, or who, caused the stress? And what happens when they get to high school and the real stress arrives?

The Cub and Boy Scouts have no equivalent merit badge. The closest they come to a stress relief badge is Bird Study. Or maybe Rifle Shooting. Or a combination thereof.

According to the Junior Girl Scout Badge Book, to earn the Stress Less merit badge, "Girls may practice focused breathing, read an inspirational book and create a personal 'stress kit' with things that help relax them."

Whatever happened to first aid and camping and knot tying? Or the bizarre badges only the weird kids got . . . like beekeeping?

Imagine your daughter coming home from a Girl Scout meeting.

"What did you do tonight, honey?"

"Well, we went to our happy places. And then we practiced our breathing exercises."

(Pause)

"Mommy needs to sit down."

But just when you have something pegged as another pointless New Age pseudo-cure for something we're not even sure we have, along comes the truth.

It turns out the Stress Less badge may be one of the most important badges a Girl Scout can earn.

Felicia Johnson, communications manager for the Girl Scouts of the Suncoast Council, explained that badges change as girls -- and the times -- change. Is there stress in a young girl's life today? Check the divorce rate. Walk the halls of a middle school. Turn on a television or read a teen magazine.

It's not a jungle out there.

It's the La Brea Tar Pits.

"Over the years, the whole tone for women has changed," Johnson said. "There used to be badges for child nurse and homemaker . . . now we have them for chemical engineering and one called Humans and Habitats that was developed with the National Geographic Society.

"It's a whole new world out there, and girls are facing new challenges."

And they need all the help they can get.

Fortunately, no one is advocating aromatherapy, which is definitely crossing the line.

Tabitha Sharp is a sixth-grader at Gulf Coast Christian School who is also a member of Junior Girl Scout Troop 1220. She saw the badge, read the requirements and went for it.

"I was just looking through the book for something different," she said. "And it looked easy. I had to practice breathing exercises and read books about it."

But you're only in sixth grade. You have a lot of stress in your life?

Kid, you don't know what stress is.

"It's just with school and everything," she explained. "And fighting with friends. Our middle school is split down the middle between the preps and the nonpreps."

Well, that makes sense. Those two factions have been at war for centuries. Since before the Crusades at least.

Tabitha started to explain what exactly a nonprep is, but thought better of it. It would take weeks.

"I'm glad I earned the badge," she added. And no, there's no connection between the kits and the cookie drive. That was not stressful. (Not to her anyway.)

But here's an idea.

Next spring, on the card table in front of the supermarket, sell the stress less kits instead of the cookies.

Bet you make a fortune.

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