Discussion: Kids in the Goat...

So AJ's at the point where he could attempt the Billygoat, or Billygoat-lite - if he had someone else to do it with him. Are any other parents of ~M/F11-14's interested in sending out a group of kids as a team?

Hayden might be up for it, but I didn't register him figuring he'd probably do one of the local courses. He's away camping @ Gettysburg until Wednesday.

I tried to talk my kids into it ... but they declined. I'm going to start working on them both for next year!

I really like the idea of sending them out as a team though. I hope you can find a couple of kids to go with your own.

Wyatt - Hayden is game for teamng up with AJ and any other youths you come up with. Let me know whether AJ is going full or lite and I'll arrange with Mr Goat to Hayden registered.

This will be novel. To the best of my knowledge, all of the kids who have finished the Billygoat under age 13 (and maybe beyond that) have teamed with accomplished adults (although some were doing significant amounts of navigation).

I wonder what percentage of adults have " teamed with accomplished adults" in order to finish the goat in good standing.

Follow PG was my motto for a long time ;-)

When I saw the mini-goat announced I thought I would try to talk my kids into giving that a go. But then we found out there will be out-of-town cousins visiting, which still trumps traveling to an O meet at this point. So maybe next year.

Would it make sense to offer a few awards in the mini-goat for kids -14 to build up the youth participation?

I'm honestly not sure that building up youth participation is a particular goal of the Billygoat organizers. No objection to juniors participating, of course, but not necessarily a recruiting effort, either.

(And yes, quite a few adults have sought out qualified guides over the years.)

Point taken about priorities ... but I have to say I support the idea of kids awards for the mini-goat, should the mini-goat become a permanent fixture on Billygoat day. It wouldn't take much in terms of awards to motivate kids - a bag of gummy bears or something similar would probably do it! And as much as I would love my kids to be motivated by the intrinsic value of completing a challenge ... the first question I was asked about the mini-goat was about t-shirts and prizes. I was also asked about ranking points, so at least it isn't just the awards!

It seems too nice of a coincidence that the usual name for a mini-goat is a kid.

Time for a reality check here.

1. In addition to the Billygoat there is the Billgoat Lite this year. It is a somewhat shorter version (you skip one loop) for folks who would like to run, and like to have a similar experience as the BG, but aren't sure they can do the full BG within the time limit.

It is not a mini-goat aimed at kids.

2. I have no problem with kids doing either the BG or the BG Lite if accompanied by a responsible adult. This has certainly been done before.

3. On the other hand, the idea of teaming up a couple of MF11-14s and sending them off on either the BG or the BG Lite strikes me as absurd. I'd ask any parents contemplating such to think again. If you want your kid to have the experience, team them up with a responsible adult.

4. The last thing any of us wants is to be starting a search for a group of kids in areas of the map with few trails and lots of cliffs.

AJ finished M70 (brownish) at Woc in France, a long time ago - which is why I contemplated this option. However, once I noticed the beginner and intermediate courses were offered, I figured those would be better anyway, and had been planning on that. Apologies for not getting back to this thread sooner.

Not to worry, Peter. You can rest assured that as parents the last thing any of us wants is for our kids to become the object of a search. We take a keen interest in monitoring their navigational development and are not going to put them into a situation that's over their heads.

While I didn't say it above, what I was thinking if my kids had shown interest in running the Lite course this year was that I would accompany them, and use it as an opportunity to start introducing them to advanced level navigation.

And from a practical standpoint, if they don't take me up on this offer within the next year or two then I will never be able to keep up with them long enough to teach them anything...

Ditto on the 'would have planned to accompany them' - at least until they are very confident running orange on their own and have the stamina to go further.