This Month:

• Helping Your Child Place His First Cache By Becky Davis, aka beckerbuns
• Kids' Quotes

Sooner or later there comes a time when the caching kid wants to place his own cache. I've been there, done that, and here I present some tips. (I am using "he" and "him" in this article because I happen to have two boys, but I know there are lots of girl cachers out there too!)

• Let him choose the cache's final location freely, but encourage responsibility, including not putting the cache too close to other caches and being aware of possible muggle areas nearby.
• Police the contents of the cache. When I've let my kids place caches in the past, I've had to weed out various junky items such as golf balls, used or broken McToys, and candy. There are, of course, rules about what can and can't be in a cache, so make sure you apply these rules to your kids as well as yourself. If you need to, seed their caches with some of your own stuff. If you're anything like me, you have lots to get rid of anyway.
• Encourage your child to put some thought into the hide. Just throwing an ammo box or film canister into a bush doesn't make it a good hide. Encourage him to find an interesting, intriguing, or beautiful place that would be a nice place to visit even if there weren't a cache there.
• Suggest a theme. I don't mean that you should tell your child what the theme should be. What I mean is that you could suggest to your child that a themed cache might make the hunt more desirable to other cachers. In our area, I've seen kid-placed caches with themes such as crafts for kids and toys for kids. I've even found a cache where the description said you had to have a kid with you to log the cache!
• Help your child to consider the terrain and difficulty. If he wants the cache to be hunted specifically by kids, the terrain and difficulty need to be taken into account. We may think of this as adults but kids might not always take it into consideration.
• Lastly, let your child help you with the cache page. You can list the cache as being placed by him (and you if you helped, but don't take all the credit!), but also let him write, or assist you in writing (depending on his age) the cache description and information. I've found that the local cachers around here really appreciate my kids' caches, praising the cache pages and hides and chuckling at the silly cache names the kids think up.

Of course, and this goes without saying...Make sure it's fun. Placing a cache should be fun, and darn it, kids are supposed to have fun! Help your child but let him have fun with the cache placement above all. Enjoy!