The directions online are correct, or at least they were as of a few weeks ago when I last walked a parent in our troop through it.
Whether the parent can fix the parent/scout connection problem depends a bit on where the issue exists. With the scout’s name, BSA ID and DOB, the parent can create a connection in Scoutbook. I was just explaining how to do that in another thread here:
If the issue is related to the parent/scout connection in the BSA membership database, that has to be set by the registrar, or someone else with the registrar’s tools. I believe that has to be done in-council, rather than being able to be done by any of the volunteers on the boards here (at least not in general).
A lot of the complexities occur due to the creation of duplicate accounts, whether due to data entry error (e.g. spelling/DOB issues, use of nickname vs full name) or due to intentional action on the part of a user (e.g. like manual account creation by unit leaders, creation of a new account by the user due to changes in contact info or forgetting that an account already exists). There’s only so much “intelligence” embedded in the “intelligent system” that tries to catch new accounts that actually belong to people with existing accounts.
