In fact my son is a Scout. He joined a great troop last year. During his first Scout camping trip ever the overnight temps went down to four above zero, and he came back a different person. Since then he's learned a huge amount about taking care of himself in tough conditions and I'm so grateful to his scoutmaster and assistant scoutmaster.
He wants to be a Marine and I'm doing all I can as a mom to encourage him in his goal. I bought him a bb gun, a good bow, a knife, and all the other non-pc stuff he needs, and when he gets slightly better grades he'll get a .22. But he and his buddies still like to act like young children sometimes, and since I'm four times as old as they are I do think of my son as a little boy. I'll probably still think of him as my boy when he's a big hairy man on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
A friend of mine has a 12 year old son. He was terrified, I mean TERRIFIED of storms and loud noises. Did I mention terrified?
He went to Scout camp where they had a whopper of a storm come rambling through. He toughed it out.
When he got home, a little storm was coming through and his mom wondered why he didn't head for the basement. He said, "Mom, that's just a little storm, nothing like the one at scout camp in a tent."
He came back a different young man.
Congratulations.
You've begun to witness a revolution in your child.
After a couple years, you'll realize that those little boys you're used to seeing around town, even though they might be over 20, were not Scouts.
(PS: when I was seventeen, I was TEACHING survival skills to a couple hundred of them a year... I've seen how it makes a difference!)