"Premium" with kids

[Timberline Echoes]

We took one of our grand kids, Lil Echo out caching today. When we went to log them in we realized that 3 of them can not be logged because he is not a “premium member”. We did not even realize these were premium since we are premium members. Has anyone else run into this with their young ones?
TE

[Sagasu]

I have as a cache owner had some kids who are not premium members not be able to log finds when they are with their parents. I take the premium status off to accomodate that for the logging, then put it back on afterward for the caches I have that I want to have that status for watching who is looking at some caches, or for some WSQs where newbies have created situations with cemetery staff. I know of other cache owners who have recently converted to premium status for other reasons, like poor rehides and lots of muggled or missing caches.

[gotta run]

We’ve had this happen a few times, and have never run into owners as nice as sagasu who will un-premium them in the short term. So there have been caches our daughter could not log. 😥

On the Left Side of the Road...

[grandpa_r]

I guess I never thought about this. Since my grandkids are only 7 & 8 and don’t have an e-mail address – maybe I should rethink this and ask their parents if they would have a problem with my creating an e-mail account for them.

[Astro_D]

We’ve run into this many times with our son Duck. I offered him a way to the ‘backdoor’ logging, but he alawys said No. He felt it was cheating. So we got him his own premium membership as a birthday present this past year. Makes life much easier for all of us – he can log all finds, I can run seperate PQs so I know what caches he may need in an area that we’ve already found, and he now has a “cool” profile page with all his stats like mom and dad.

[zuma]

@Sagasu wrote:

I have as a cache owner had some kids who are not premium members not be able to log finds when they are with their parents. I take the premium status off to accomodate that for the logging, then put it back on afterward for the caches I have that I want to have that status for watching who is looking at some caches, or for some WSQs where newbies have created situations with cemetery staff. I know of other cache owners who have recently converted to premium status for other reasons, like poor rehides and lots of muggled or missing caches.

I have very few (just one, now, I think) that is premium, and I do the same thing as Sagasu describes above, and I think most COs would do the same, that is take the premium off for a day to allow the non-premium member to log it.

z

[Mister Greenthumb]

I’ve taken the premium status off for a day for anyone who has asked so they can get the coordinates and log the cache. I usually only attatch the premium status to protect a unique container or a series of caches. Right now I have 14 out of 118 active caches with premium status. 7 are unique containers and the other 7 are a series. Usually after about 100 finds I will remove the premium status.

[RSplash40]

Just a suggestion from a techie who has had to be the long arm of the law so to speak on email systems. Ask the parents if they have a charter account or other isp that provides a bunch of email accounts as part of their monthly payment.

If so ask the parents to set up the account name, password, etc and have them be the filter on those accounts so they know everything thats going on. Suggest to them that they pick a non-cute name that can’t easily be tied to a youngster. As well, don’t use their name in part or whole, specially if they are common names (like andy smith, or dave johnson) as those are easily figured out and constantly spammed.

Its not that their kids aren’t trustworthy but there is good reason not to expose them to things that can randomly show up in email.

–Mike

[CodeJunkie]

I’ve run into similar situations. I’ve always had good luck having the owner remove the “Premium” status so we could log the finds. I’ve found most owners to understand the situation and be cooperative.

I also agree with RSplash40 on the kids email accounts. I have 2 girls that are 8/10 and I still don’t let them have their own accounts. That will be changing soon, but it’s critical to monitor these closely.

I actually wish GC offered a discount on student / family accounts. We have 3 accounts within our family (mine, my oldest daughter, and our family). The three accounts are really just for keeping track of who does what. If this were tied to a master account (like most email systems) then it would be easy to track it. Just my thoughts.

[PCFrog]

Sounds like an X-mass gift….

[ecorangers]

Not for kids but for gr@nny 😆
Mister GreenThumb was kind enough to remove the premium status so I could log it for her…
I told her I would buy it for her for Christmas but she’s still not sold on the idea of someone “making” money off of Geocaching. Tami

[Astro_D]

@RSplash40 wrote:

Just a suggestion from a techie who has had to be the long arm of the law so to speak on email systems. Ask the parents if they have a charter account or other isp that provides a bunch of email accounts as part of their monthly payment.

If so ask the parents to set up the account name, password, etc and have them be the filter on those accounts so they know everything thats going on. Suggest to them that they pick a non-cute name that can’t easily be tied to a youngster. As well, don’t use their name in part or whole, specially if they are common names (like andy smith, or dave johnson) as those are easily figured out and constantly spammed.

Its not that their kids aren’t trustworthy but there is good reason not to expose them to things that can randomly show up in email.

–Mike

Our son’s email is the same as hubby’s email addy. We get to see all his emails first and then pass on only those we want him to see.

Certainly good advice to put out there!

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