This Month:

• Teaching Your Caching Children to Behave By Becky Davis, aka beckerbuns
• Kids' Quotes

I believe that it is the responsibility of every caching parent or responsible caching adult to teach the children in his or her charge how to behave when out geocaching. So, I present here some cardinal rules that all caching kids must be taught! And believe me, I speak from experience!

• Tread lightly. Children, by nature, are not delicate creatures. They are known to crash through the woods and walk off-trail and generally create a ruckus. It is our responsibility to teach them to respect nature and treat our natural resources with respect.
• Try to keep up. Of course, as parents, friends, and relatives, we know that kids might have a hard time keeping up on a hike. However, the child who dilly-dallies and stops to look at every bug really holds things up. I speak as a parent who knows this child. I have one. He name is Andrew.
• Respect your elders. Kids need to know that they should not dive right into a cache, throwing items out willy-nilly and grabbing for whatever they want. Adults need to check things out first, in case there is anything potentially dangerous or inappropriate; not all cachers follow the rules as to what swag is allowed in a cache. It is also generally disrespectful of children to push ahead of parents or other adults.
• Trade fairly. This one takes practice and patient teaching on the part of the parents or other adults. This knowledge does not come naturally to a child, who will gladly throw in their prized golf ball or McToy in exchange for a signature item. A child who does this sort of thing will grow up to be an adult who behaves similarly. Let’s break the pattern!
• Know the "rules" of travel bugs. The first time my older son encountered a travel bug in the "wild", he was so excited. I later found out that he was excited because he thought he could keep it. I quickly explained to him that travel bugs are meant to keep moving and that they often have goals. Later on, I was able to provide each of my sons with their own travel bugs so they could more completely understand the concept.
• Remember that not everyone knows what you’re doing. After our first few exhilarating finds together, my sons would burst out to anyone we passed on the way back to the car, exclaiming, "Hey, guess what we found!" It took a few reminders and conversations about caches being secret except to people who were specifically looking for them before they remembered not to blurt out the information. Now, they tend to check with me when we are approached on the trail, to check whether the other person is a cacher.
• Have fun! We need to remind the kids not to think of geocaching as a chore, but as a fun family adventure. Frankly, as adults we also need to recognize when kids are not enjoying the cache hunt, and pack it in for the day. A cranky kid makes everyone around him miserable.

I hope my tips have been helpful. Goodbye until next time; have fun caching with your kids!