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Caching As A Family


Team Jac'd

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Hey all... we were describing geocaching to a family that we know (our chiropractor actuall) and the thought came to mind that it might be useful to have a thread to discuss common caching practices for families.

 

So, to start the thread off, here are a couple of questions for family cachers. If you don't geocache as a family, please feel free to chime in as well!

 

1) One id versus each member having their own id?

2) Approaches to the actual search. Common rules people go by. I.e. do you have any rules for how to do the actual search, given the varying ages and search experience of your team?

3) How to keep kids involved in the search?

4) Things to watch out for when caching with small kids? children? tweeners? teens?

 

There is food for thought... anyone hungry for answers?

 

Poppa J for Team Jac'd

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Depends on the cache. For some, I like to keep the kids close to hand. For others, I let my son help hunt. I'm the only one in our family with a geocaching account, so I log the finds, but that part's no big deal to us.

 

Mostly I just enjoy getting out and about with my son- he loves hanging around and I let him be in charge of the GPS so he gets involved with the journey. I also generally let him pick the trade item and make sure that the trade is even or better.

 

Since I went paperless, it's a lot easier. I found a benchmark in downtown Olympia today, and pulled out hte Palm III to find caches in the area. We stopped by the library and he played with puzzles while I ferreted out the various caches/benchmarks we could visit.

 

Maybe when my son's a bit older he'll want to do his own logs, but for now he seems happy to spend time with Daddy. :D My daughter's not even 2 yet, so she only goes on the easy ones- like accessible with a stroller or short walks.

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I have 3 daughters that I usually cache with. They are 9, 11, and 12. At first we all used my account and logged all of thier finds with mine. But now they want to keep track of thier own finds. I don't mind as long as long as I do not have to type them in for them. (Otherwise I am typing 4 logs for each cache!)

 

We now have 2 GPS in our family, so two girls can use them when hunting. I am also doing paperless caching, so one girl gets to use the PDA and read discription, hints, past logs, etc. After we find the cache she then uses the PDA to log our find and record what was traded. I have them trade off so they all get experince using both the GPS and the PDA.

 

The girls are NOT allowed to be out of my sight at all during the hunt. Too many scary things could happen. (Bears, Moose, Bees, Wasps, Boogey-Men :ph34r: etc.) When we are close to the hiding spot, we all start looking for obivous hiding spots. If I spot the cache first, I move away from the spot and then I'll tell them I know where it is. They continue to look for the cache until one of them finds it. This is a little game we play because they want to know who finds the most caches in our family.

 

Each of us has our own little pack with carry with our SWAG. Each of the girls can trade an item. At first, I did not do micros with them because they loved the treasure hunt. After a while, I showed them a few micros and they thought it was so cool. Tiny little cache hidden right where you could see it, but only if you looked closely enough. My youngest doesn't mind doing some micros, but really prefers a regular caches. The older two are really enjoying the challenge of a good micro, but still like a regular cache here and there. (Gotta love the swag!)

 

Hope this helps.

 

MamaMouse and the Mouse Clan

(NenaMouse, JazzyCacher, and MineeMouse)

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We cache as a family. On rare occurances, usually while one of us is traveling, we will cache without the rest of the family. My kids are 5 and 6. So, needless to say, like MamaMouse, they are not allowed out of my wife or I's sight during the hike, etc.

 

We have 3 GPSr's. We let the kids "follow the arrow" and count down the distance. When we get close to the cache, we normally let them find it. If I see it, I will back off and maybe throw a clue at them to get them in the right direction.

 

One "rule" we have that hasn't been mentioned here yet is The children are not allowed to open the cache. An adult will open the cache and inspect it prior to letting them have there hands in it. Anything from sharp objects to other dangerous or inappropriate things have on occation been found in caches. So, I inspect it, grab the log book and make my log while they rummage through and trade out swag.

 

Whether it's a micro or an ammo can, I have "lucked out" with my kids. They seem to be in it for the same adventure I am. They think the swag is fun, and so do I, but it doesn't really seem like that's what there in it for...it's the FIND!

 

I know they're still young, and can only hope that they'll cache (and other hobbies) with us parents when they hit those tween and teen years.

 

DC

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When I first started out, I chose JAE Family as our name because I thought we would do most of the caching as a family. As it turned out I was wrong. My 7 year old has been on a fair number of caching trips including the Anderson Island Cache Machine, but unfortunately my wife is close to an "anti-cacher" and my daughter is not yet three, which makes it difficult since it's usually hard to predict if a cache is truly kid friendly, especially considering that my kids like the bigger cache containers which are usually hidden off the beaten path. My son wanted to have his own caching name, so I recently created one for him and have been playing logging catch up for him. I usually have only small windows of caching opportunity, so I usually get up early on one weekend day and try to nab about 10 before breakfast, leaving the rest of the family at home for a couple hours. My son doesn't mind caching, but about two are enough for him and soon he is whining for home. Also, I feel for those who have spouses or SOs that are less than supportive of your caching or at least don't share your enthusiasm. Sure can be difficult. - Joe

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Hey all... we were describing geocaching to a family that we know (our chiropractor actuall) and the thought came to mind that it might be useful to have a thread to discuss common caching practices for families.

 

So, to start the thread off, here are a couple of questions for family cachers. If you don't geocache as a family, please feel free to chime in as well!

 

1) One id versus each member having their own id?

2) Approaches to the actual search. Common rules people go by. I.e. do you have any rules for how to do the actual search, given the varying ages and search experience of your team?

3) How to keep kids involved in the search?

4) Things to watch out for when caching with small kids? children? tweeners? teens?

 

There is food for thought... anyone hungry for answers?

 

Poppa J for Team Jac'd

 

Our family caches under one ID name but we make it really clear in our handle: -Team- GeoBlast that we are not an individual. Recently, someone called us on this being "bad form" because we logged a cache in Denver and Hawaii on the same day. We don't have a team to pad our numbers (we only have 50 some finds) we have a team so we all can keep track of our hobby together. I think this kind of thing only matters to people who look at the amount of finds as a competition. This is NOT us.

 

We also put a forward on GC.com's bot notification mail and it goes to every family member with email. It's much more fun activity when we are working together than a bunch of individuals and also much easier to keep track of. We do, however, see the potential for abuse of this and believe that maybe there should be some rules in place to prevent this while allowing family members to have one ID. One example how ths could get out of hand would be if someone is logging a find as a team -and- an individual, that's going to get a little crazy and cause a disruption in the Geoforce.

 

On caching with kids and keeping them involved. We have this suggestion for a caching game:

 

Huckle-Buckle-Beanstalk – A method of group caching, which takes its name from a classic children's game. When a member of the group spots the cache, they walk elsewhere (to not give away the cache's location), then call out, “huckle-buckle-beanstalk!” This continues until everyone in the group has either spotted the cache, or given up, after which the cache is retrieved and logged. It really get's hilarous when half the search party has found it and is yelling it unison! It also gives more than one person the thrill of the find.

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We cache as a family, although not nearly as often as I'd like. My kids (11 & nearly 14) don't always like to go, and I don't force them most of the time. There are those times we make them go, and as much as they hate to admit it, they usually have a good time when something other than numbers is involved.

 

We do have a family id, but it never gets used. We each have our individual ids, and they do get used, but except for myself and my husband, the boys seldom use theirs.

 

We weren't caching when the boys were little, so there is seldom any difficulty with terrain issues. We have what we consider 3 good GPSs and two that nobody wants to use. Usually, Dad will give up his so each boy has one to use, and I have mine. I almost hate to say it, but without the GPS, I don't find caching nearly as much fun, so I don't give mine up. (Finally getting my own is what get me going in this activity!)

 

The boys are generally pretty smart about things in a cache, so we let them open them. The issue now is swag -- they will want something, but I don't always have enough stuff to trade for them. The newest rule is that they now have to bring their own trading items. They've got enough stuff -- they can trade their own stuff -- it might help get some of the stuff out of our house!

 

As far as finding the cache first, sometimes that becomes a problem if one boy has found more than the other. So we'll pull the successful one aside and tell him to stop, or pretend to look, and let the other find it. But I like the huckle buckle bit, so maybe we'll try it!

Edited by FluteFace
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