Childrens accounts

[+Kiwi Nomad]

I have two small boys aged 4 and 2.

The 4 year old has found some caches by himself (as in I didn't point them out to him).

We are about to take part in a geocoin race.

We have two jeeps each boy got to name 'their' own coin and then I had them help place a cache for each of 'their' caches.

So when do you think they should have their own accounts?

-When they can sign the log book

-When they can cache without a parent

-When they can log their finds online

-As soon as they are born

-Some other suggestion

[+Renegade Knight]

When they are interested.

[+LostPuppy]

When I get tired of being asked "Daddy, can I have my own account"

 

Well, that worked for the older (now 6), but her younger brother doesn't have one yet. He'll get one when he can sign the log book.

[+Arndtwe]

when they can sign the logbook

[+Ambrosia]

I created accounts for my kids almost right away. When they placed a cache, it went under their account. You can't back date an account (the date it was created), so I wanted them to have that history for the future. If they decide they don't care when they are older, that's their choice. But that way I gave them a choice. It makes them feel a sense of ownership in caching, they have an account, their own caching names, and their own caches and bugs.

 

When we started caching, my kids were 5 and 8. They're now 10 and 13. It's been fun having a generation grow up in caching. For instance now, when they go through the toys that they outgrow they immediately bring stuff to me and say, "here, these can go in caches". It's weird to think of people that as adults will not remember a time without geocaching.

[+Kiwi Nomad]

If his join date for discusion sake was today would I/he beable to log a find for before today on his account?

[+J-Way]

I have a son who's 2.5 years old, and he's gone caching with me a few times. I haven't even considered making his own account. I guess he's have to meet two criteria first:

- he's interested in geocaching and wants his own account

- he's able to sign the log

 

I'd be willing to help him log online as long as he signed the logbook and remained interested.

[AZcachemeister]

Kind of subjective, but I would say: When/if the child is interested, and when they can write their 'name' legibly in the log. (Naturally, parental assistance may occasionally be required for some micro/nano cache logsheets.)

[+J-Way]

If his join date for discusion sake was today would I/he beable to log a find for before today on his account?

Yes. I created an account, then a few months later decided my first chosen "trail name" was lame, so I created a new account with a slightly less lame name (I hope). I copied all finds from the first account and back dated to the actual date of find. I have finds in January and the account wasn't created until March.

 

I also deleted the finds for the first name... it now has zero finds.

[+Ambrosia]

If his join date for discusion sake was today would I/he beable to log a find for before today on his account?

Yes, they can log a find from before their account was created.

 

People tease me because I started caching in April, but my date says June because I waited a couple months to start my own account. I have finds listing back to April and they say it's fake.

 

edit: too late!

Edited August 22, 2007 by Ambrosia

[+Confucius' Cat]

My 2 yr old granddaughter has her own account so we can trace her adventures in the woods when she is old enough to read them.

 

I am more concerned with her caching history than my own. i have chosen not to care much and not to make my activities totally public. I don't know how much she will care in the future, but if I do not keep a record for her, she will not have a choice whether the record is important to her or not- it simply won't exist.

 

If it turns out she doesn't care, there is no loss from having entered her logs.

 

OTOH, allowing a child to have unsupervised access to any internet resources is not the wisest thing in the world.

 

I will not allow her actual personal access to the account until she is mature enough to understand the hazards and responsibilities that come with online activity and she shows intention to handle the responsibility responsibly. Until then, it is just another CC sock-puppet.

[+GreenMountainTreasureHunters]

I have been thinking about this. My kids are 6, 11 and 14 and so far we all share one account. But we have just started. I kind of hate seeing logs where there are 2,3,4 or more entries because everyone in the family has their own account and needs to log the find on it. However, there are times when we don't all hunt together, and so it might make sense to have separate accounts so we can all accurately log which caches we have found. My 14yo is the GPSr owner and the one most interested in caching, though I introduced him to it.

 

I saw a suggestion on another thread to make family or group accounts, and then when you logged a find (or DNF or whatever) you would have checkboxes for each member name and you could check off whoever was there for that one. That would give everyone their own accurate history, but allow shared logs and not clog the online cache log so much.

[+Ambrosia]

My 2 yr old granddaughter has her own account so we can trace her adventures in the woods when she is old enough to read them.

 

I am more concerned with her caching history than my own. i have chosen not to care much and not to make my activities totally public. I don't know how much she will care in the future, but if I do not keep a record for her, she will not have a choice whether the record is important to her or not- it simply won't exist.

 

If it turns out she doesn't care, there is no loss from having entered her logs.

 

OTOH, allowing a child to have unsupervised access to any internet resources is not the wisest thing in the world.

 

I will not allow her actual personal access to the account until she is mature enough to understand the hazards and responsibilities that come with online activity and she shows intention to handle the responsibility responsibly. Until then, it is just another CC sock-puppet.

Yes, exactly.

[+Kiwi Nomad]

Thanks for all the responses.

I don't think he is aware/understands that I log them all online and that he could have an account.

Could talk to him about it and ask if he wanted one and possilbly he would say yes.

That is the 4 year old not the 2 year old.

My biggest concern would be his on screen name as he would probably want to pick a name himself.

A name a 4 year old would pick is unlikely to be one a 14 year old would like.

[+Confucius' Cat]

I don't see anything wrong with you picking the screen name. Just use a name you call him now. That will be part of the "memories."

 

For example, my little granddaughter is "Narg the Trolloc" because my daughter is a "Wheel of Time" fan and she calls her "Narg" because she's mischievous like a troll sometimes. Simply "Narg" was taken.

 

For a long time, when we would call her "Narg", she would shout (very angrily), "I NOT NARG!" It was so funny. It is amazing how much she understands- and how much she doesn't.

 

When your kid is old enough to do it himself, he can always pick a new name and start over. The history on the old name will still be his adventures with "mommy and daddy."

 

It is no different than a "baby book." If the child doesn't want to continue, or continues under a different name after he is old enough, you still have a nice diary of your own.

 

Granted you could simply log the kid's activities with your own account, but the special child's account will serve to easily delineate those adventures that included the kid as opposed to those where you perhaps went by yourself.

 

Any way you go you win as long as you get to spend time with the kid on adventures.

[+Big_John]

I just reciently allowed an account for my 10 year old. She likes having a name to sign in the log and being able to search for caches in our area. She dosen't give a flip about her online logs all she cares about is having a proper handle for when we are out. No accounts for my 3 and 7 yo's who don't care about signing the logs or logging online, all they want to do is trade. I try to mention who was with me when I log online, so there is some record. It is entirely up to you. My best answer is, when they are ready.

[+Moose Mob]

I know people that create accounts for childeren on the day they are born, even for their unborn children. They find a cache on the way home from the hospital as their first find.

 

Do what feels right for your situation. Just remember this is all about having fun.

[+LSUMonica]

I created accounts for my niece and nephew as soon as they started coming "treasure hunting' with me. My niece was 11 months old and my nephew almost 2. They are now 2 1/2 and 4 1/2 and we still go out "treasure hunting" when we are together!

 

It's the memories that I keep track of for them...

 

Like the time I took my nephew geocaching at Christmas for his first find and promised to take him back when he came back to visit in April -- never thinking he would remember! Ha! His mind is like a steel trap -- the week before the trip he kept telling everyone that I was going to take him treasure hunting and that this time we had to DRESS like treasure hunters too! Guess who had to sew a pirate costume for him really quick!!

 

Funny thing is, 2 and a half years later, whenever he visits my mom and they go to the park where the first cache was found he remembers where it was and has to check on it each time!!

 

When I picked there name I based it on there real names so that they would not "grow" out of them -- see drewr and anasee for pictures.

Edited August 22, 2007 by LSUMonica

[ParentsofSAM]

My children have 1 account that they share.

 

They own several geocoins they they picked out and wanted to release and even have some in a geocoin race. They have just designed their own siggy item and they will start soon dropping those in caches. They log their own finds and sign their own names to logs.

 

The caches they have hidden they picked the name and on some of them they designed and did the container camo on their own. We pick the spots and get the permission to hide the caches.

 

Anytime is right for children to get accounts. If we had known about this when they were born I would have opened each one an account on their birth day. That would have been neat. But for right now the 3 of them are a team and share the one account.

[+edscott]

Being recently retired I'll now have time to take my grandson along on some of my future caching trips. My plan is to start an account for him which he can take over, with supervision, when he is old enough to handle it. In the meantime his "signature" may be a scrawled "B". I suspect his geocaching name will have something to do with turtles. It's a game for them too. Make it fun to be outside and maybe they won't be poster children for MacDonalds.

[+Confucius' Cat]

Make it fun to be outside and maybe they won't be poster children for MacDonalds.

Amen to that!

 

I grew up in a house (inner city) and only learned about the "great outdoors" as a teenager.

 

Now a house is just a very expensive place to sleep as far as I'm concerned.

 

I'm thankful to have a house, but I run the road for my work and my recreation is OUTSIDE. I pass this on to every kid I have contact with.

 

God gave us a beautiful earth to enjoy. I vote we enjoy it while we're able and instill that passion for the outdoors in our children. Caching works for me.

 

If having their own account helps the kids stay involved, then with proper supervision, it has NO downside.

[+Ambrosia]

My biggest concern would be his on screen name as he would probably want to pick a name himself.

A name a 4 year old would pick is unlikely to be one a 14 year old would like.

That was a worry for us as well. You can help them to feel that they're choosing the name while guiding them to one that sounds fine.

 

Our daughter's name was Bugaboo, because that's what her Nanna called her. Our son's was Kboy, because that's the first letter of his real name.

 

The funny thing is that we thought there would never be a problem with Bugaboo, but we were worried about Kboy. We wondered if he wouldn't want "boy" in his name when he got older.

 

But eventually Bugaboo thought she didn't quite want that name, and she changed it to Water Lily, which corresponds to her real name which was really cool.

 

When it came time for them to lock down user names so that you couldn't change them anymore, we really pushed Kboy to make sure he really thought that he'd be fine with it the rest of his life. But we have a friend who's an adult, and his geocaching name is FLYBOY. I think that example helped us all to feel that an adult man doesn't feel worried about having "boy" in his name. Kboy assured us he was fine.

 

So far there isn't any problems. I think it's kind of like when you name your kids at birth. You do your best, and that's what they use for the rest of their lives. They didn't choose it, but over time they identify with it because it's what they've been called their entire lives. Most people don't question their name by the time that they're adults, and I feel that it would be the same thing with children who have grown up with a caching name as well. It's who they are after a while.

[+Confucius' Cat]

I think it's kind of like when you name your kids at birth. You do your best, and that's what they use for the rest of their lives. They didn't choose it, but over time they identify with it because it's what they've been called their entire lives. Most people don't question their name by the time that they're adults, and I feel that it would be the same thing with children who have grown up with a caching name as well. It's who they are after a while.

Yep. And how many of us go by a different name (but usually related tot the given name).

 

I'm 1 for 2 in kid's using their given names. The Boy generally uses his given name, but my daughter commonly uses either her first and middle names and various morphs thereof depending on who she's talking to and less formally, "Saki" and "Murasaki". She has even considered changing her name to "Murasaki" (and probably will if she is able to fulfill her ambition to be an actress- "Murasaki" soon to be seen on silver screen credits worldwide...)

 

So, considering the kid (and hisher family and friends) might choose not to use their given name in "real life", I see no harm in choosing (badly) a screen name. After all, it is just a game...

 

 

 

 

isn't it????

Edited August 23, 2007 by Confucius' Cat

[+nekom]

when they can sign the logbook

 

That seems like the practical answer, or when they can login and type their log themselves.

That kinda got me thinking, I have a 6 month old daughter. Now that we're fully into the computer era, I wonder if she will learn to type before she learns to write?

[+parker313]

When they are interested.

That's what I'm going with. When they are old enough to be interested in having their own account. Right now, it doesn't even occur to the 4yo (like the OP I also have a 4yo and a 2yo) to ask for his own acct or to sign the logbook or anything. My ID is kind of a team name for the family b/c I am the most involved (addicted). My husband is unlikely to go out caching by himself, as are my kids. If any of the 3 of them were involved enough to go out on their own, then I'd get them their own ID so their finds don't duplicate mine or reflect caches *I* never found.

[+Wander Lost]

Now that we're fully into the computer era, I wonder if she will learn to type before she learns to write?

 

Yes.

 

I have a five year old and he loves to sit on mommy's lap and type on the 'b-cuter'. He knows where most of the keys are and how to spell several words. He can print his name but that's about it.

 

Our boys are 10 and 5 now and have had their own accounts for years. We set the 10 year old up with an account first because he always wanted to know how many caches he had found. Since he didn't always cache with us we set up his own account to track caches he had done. We set up one for our youngest a few months later just to be consistant.

 

For the first few years I'd try to keep up with the logs for the boys but as Lost One got older I wanted him to participte in the log writing process. He rarely wants to sit down and log finds so I quit doing it for him. He's old enough to make the choice now and if he wants to actually log a cache or event I'll help him. Lil' Lost One usually only logs events and I ask him what he wants to say and we'll type it together. Sometimes I'll do it for him, sometimes he'll type it himself with my help with the words.

[+Confucius' Cat]

Well, Narg the Trolloc is a little hacker. Here she is trying to break my company seriously secure complex password.

 

When I let her play, I start up notepad, give it a large font, and tell her a letter. She finds it on the keyboard, types it, and watches it come up on the screen. No spelling yet, but she can find all the letters on the keyboard.

 

it's a new generation.

 

A quote from Kahlil Gibhran "The Prophet" (one of my favourites) :

 

* Your children are not your children

they come through you but they belong not to you

you can house their bodies but you cannot house their souls

for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow

a house you cannot visit, not even in your dreams

*from memory

 

Our next generation is going to be so far advanced from us, we cannot even imagine. I am deeply saddened that my lifespan is so short that I will not see what they will.

 

Many people dream of time machines that would allow us to relive the past. Not me, I long only for the future.

 

Personally, I take solace in vicarious youth. I play with the kids, I teach them, I am in may ways one of them as even though each day I can more clearly see the end of the journey, I like them, see each new day as a new opportunity holding some new wonder that (seemingly) wasn't there yesterday. (at least I try)

 

From Creed "Never Die"

* So let the children play

Inside your heart always

And death you will defy

'Cause your youth will never die

Never Die

*from website

 

I don't believe there is any age too early to teach a kid or to let them "spread their wings" as long as they are properly supervised for damage control.

[+bottlecap]

I'll second all that said, "when they're interested".

 

Claiming a find for a 6 month old who was carried the whole way, and has no clue what is even going on, seems lame to me.

 

However, I may have been swayed a little by the previous poster who stated that it can be used as sort of a "baby book". That sounds nice.

 

In the end, as always, "it's your game, play it how you want".