Geocaching: A Parent’s Worst Nightmare?

Posted by Anthony Mowl in GAMING on 08-25-11    5 Comments


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Won’t anybody please think of the children? Geocaching sounds like a harmless enough activity that encourages family time. Until you realize that parents are giving their kids a kiddie-GPS and encouraging them to get lost in the woods looking for buried treasure. Is it just me or does this sound really dangerous? As if we don’t have enough nut jobs out there waiting for an opportunity. Not only are companies selling geocaching tools for children, but elementary schools are sanctioning this with geocaching clubs. Geocaching clubs can be found on every academic level, from elementary school through college.

I can only see two possible ways this is going to turn out. Either geocaching is going to be relegated to “Chess Club” status, and these kids are going to be set up to be picked on and teased by the jocks. Or it’s going to grow into a competitive sport and we’ll have kids taking Adderall and other performance enhancing drugs to become extreme geocachers and dig up caches for scholarships. Either way, it doesn’t end well.

In this post-9/11 world, we don’t need more reasons to get kids in trouble with such an open-ended game with no boundaries. This guy found out the hard way when he got arrested for hiding a geocache under a bridge, and the police found it and thought was a bomb. Or how about the couple that’s wanted for questioning after digging up a geocache planted on school property? Let’s keep our kids on a field that’s fenced in, or if you insist on having your kids trek through the woods, be good parents and accompany them. There’s enough crap in this world as it is.

 

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5 Comments on “Geocaching: A Parent’s Worst Nightmare?”

  • Guy

    The number of flaws this shortly written article has is amazing, let me give you a list,
    1.Geocaches can never be buried so they are not searching for buried treasure, you make it sound like they go out there with spades
    2.Out of the more than 1 Million Geocaches out there the majority are in areas where there are either plenty of other people around, such as Urban Caches in Towns and Cities or are so close to the “beaten track” that you would be off the street for less than a couple of minutes, EVEN if you were the worlds most controlling parent you could let them do urban caches
    3. youre final statememt about keeping kids on a fenced in field, WELL WHAT IF THEY DONT WANT TO, not every kid wants to play football or soccer, some would prefer to go into the REAL outdoors rather than a fenced in field, and if you always accompany them everywhere how the hell do you think that they will learn what to do in case of an emergency, by wrapping kids up in cotton wool you are endangering there LIVES when they are older as they simply wont know what to do when mums not around.

    From a 15 year old geocacher who has lost weight and feels like he has accomplished a lot more than just playing games on the computer or Xbox

    09-04-11 » 10:22 am »

  • Lacey Bishop

    I would like to state that I am very certain that Mr. Mowl has not been geocaching and is not involved in the geocaching community or he would have written this article completely different.

    My husband, myself and 9 year old daughter have been geocaching for 6 years now, with over 7 states and 2500 geocaches found. I am on the board for Mississippi and Tennessee Geocaching and will have to state I have yet to meet a child that has been geocaching alone.

    The sport of Geocaching is to get out, explore the world around you and seek hidden treasure boxes along the way.

    I personally own a Geo-mate Jr for my 9 yr old, and she has never found a geocache alone. I do not know of any other geocaching parent of children under the driving age who have gotten out of eye sight to locate a geocache on their own.

    I would love to invite you Mr. Mowl to take an opportunity to meet a local geocacher and have him or her to take you out into the woods and actually locate a geocache, so that you may write on geocaching when you actually have knowledge of the sport, and have not been mislead or that you have written an article based on your opinion.

    If you would like to know more about geocaching please email and I will be happy to provide you with a geocaching interview by phone.

    11-28-11 » 6:16 pm »

  • pater47

    Congratulations on breaking the world’s record for most incorrect information per word of any article ever written.

    11-28-11 » 7:59 pm »

  • mbooda

    Well…

    1. Geocaches aren’t [i]supposed[/i] to be buried. Unfortunately a lot of them are. Whenever I find one that’s buried, I leave it unearthed and send a stern message to the CO and the Reviewer.
    2. It’s all relative. I live in a rural area and extremely few of the caches in my county can be described as “Urban Caches in Towns and Cities or are so close to the ‘beaten track’ that you would be off the street for less than a couple of minutes”. That being said, in some cities I’ve been in, a couple of minutes is all it takes for the worst to happen.
    3. “WELL WHAT IF THEY DONT WANT TO”…I’m not a parent myself, but when I was a kid my folks had this thing called a Cuzzeyesedso, also known as a Whatfor. Do they still have that these days? ;)

    12-05-11 » 5:45 pm »

  • Byron

    “Let’s keep our kids on a field that’s fenced in”

    Parents like you are the reason our generation is going to shit. Let kids play in the dirt, run around in the woods, do whatever. Just give them a knife incase they get in any danger, simple as that.

    12-09-11 » 12:31 pm »

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