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I'm just curious about something. I read on another thread about someone referring to how their DS memorized hundreds of Pokemon cards. Both my DSs had a strong interest in strategy gaming as youth and found more friends of similar intellect at the local gaming store than any place else they frequented. Strategy gaming such as Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Magic The Gathering, Mech. Warriors, HeroClicks, etc. seem to be a common interest among GT youth. It's been an outstanding outlet both intellectually and socially for our two boys. How many of the rest of you have had a similar experience with gaming?

When I was 12 living on an Air Force Base, I finally found peers by playing D&D with airmen. From then on I didn't bother with friends my age until college.

My son loves my game collection (a couple hundred games of all sorts) and always wants to try something different. I think there is something about the self-containedness and mastering rules and strategy and exercising the brain in a manner of their own selection that has a strong appeal. We have plans to visit a card store I found nearby and see if Yuh Gi Oh or such may catch his interest. He doesn't like Pokemon (because of the cartoon's bad acting and the way they draw the people's heads he says.)

I have a group of friends who get together every month to play board games, and the kids are just getting to an age where they sometimes join us. DD doesn't so much, because she's so focused on playing with the other girls, but I think she's being somewhat influenced by seeing that Mom and Dad play games. She loves Forbidden Island at home (she "plays" with her brother, which is largely moving for both of them and telling him not to touch the components), and she likes to play Dominion and Thunderstone with me. I just got a copy of Agricola to play with her, but I haven't opened it yet.

Zen, you might try bringing home a strategy game or two and playing them at home with family first. "Killer Bunnies" is a great starter strategy + plenty of luck game that is not only fun but the color text is hilarious. It's appropriate for just about any age group.

For anyone that is the parent of a child who can't get enough gaming, you'll be a hero and you'll see your kid as if in a candy store if you plan a weekend vacation to GenCon, billed as "The Best 4 Days in Gaming!" It's the largest gaming convention in the world, held in Indianapolis each August.

Yep-- my DD has finally found a social peer group through RPG. (Role playing Gaming)

D&D, for us old folks.

Now, there has been an explosion of RPG's, so you have to inquire carefully about anything that might not be okay for a tween/young teen. Some of the 'adult' games very definitely have adult content.

My daughter plays D&D, Pathfinder, has played Pokemon, and has developed RPG's with friends.

There are regional conferences aplenty on both coasts, by the way-- just noting that for those of us who are far from Indy.

It used to be Pokemon! Now it's Magic the Gathering and Minecraft. At the summit two years ago, some teen boys kindly taught him how to play Magic. Now he plays at local tournaments at least once a month, skypes with other DYS friends to play online and constantly rearranges his cards. The Saturday at lunch tournaments tend to be more PG-rated with lots of moms and dads and teen/tweens, rather than the 21+ crowd on Friday nights.

We also play Killer Bunnies and Munchkin at home a lot.

I've run strategy game events on both a local and national level now for about 10 years, since my eldest DS was 8. Both sons have moved on from playing in tournaments but still love playing casually. Despite their lack of involvement, I still run events and I'm just stunned at the amount of highly intelligent and creative youth that frequent there. A lot of 2E kids.

One of the great things about many if not most gaming stores is that most of the kids seem to have obvious quirks, however, they all KNOW they have obvious quirks and so most everyone simply accepts each other's quirks, even joke about their own. There also isn't any age discrimination in gaming. I'm 50 and I can get whooped by an 8 year old who knows the game well just as easily as I can an adult. Kids like that, they're treated with respect because of their gaming ability, not because of their age.

Nothing quite like a science fiction/gaming convention to realign a kid's perception of what "normal" is or the value of regular bathing.

Good point, Old Dad, Killer Bunnies and Munchkins, neither somehow in my collection (said with only minor avarice.) But the idea with the store is seeing other kids there and if that has an extra draw for him. I hear Harvard looks at DCI ranking (Magic tourney system. )

My little boy loves Pokemon cards and video games. He was playing little big planet at age 3 and creates levels and stuff. He plays with our Neighbors kids who are 2 and 6 years older than him. They love to play with him cause he's so good. He has beaten a few Zelda games alone at age 4 & 5. I would love to get him into a group to play Pokemon and magic like you have done. He's a very social kid and loves finding people with his gaming interests.

We let our 12-year-old get a 3-month subscription to XBox Live for the summer, and we found numerous benefits. The social interaction with his friends was very nice, and he fell in love with Minecraft. The planning and strategy involved, as well as his role as the "leader" of the group of boys has resulted in more successful planning in all but one of his classes thus far this year.

When I say "Gaming" I'm referring to face to face gaming such as card games, table top games, role playing games such as D&D and Pathfinder, etc.

I'm glad though that others have brought up online gaming. While we often can't find a ton of other kids of similar intellectual interest / ability in our own home town, one often can online. That's a double edged sword I've learned though. Being an old fart I digital age and socializing never consisted of online anything, however, I've come to realize that it's a huge part of the current generation's socialization and online gaming is often the digital socialization of choice, especially if you're like our family and live all the way across town from the school your kids go to.

So what the other edge of the sword? Monitor addiction. After a while they often cease seeking actual face to face socialization, it's a lot less effort just to click to see who's online. Not only that but people often have an alter ego online and can get away with it, not so in face to face socialization nearly as much. It's for these reasons I encourage gamers to seek their local gaming store. Development of face to face social skills and community.

Yep.

And this is why I wish I could get the years between age 14 and age 26 back.

Agree wholeheartedly.

We didn't see that exclusively online gaming led anywhere good developmentally speaking, and it is downright terrifying to have one's 8-9yo child SKYPING with god-knows-who at two in the morning. On the internet. Ai yi yi. Smart or not, a nine year old child isn't savvy enough to be dealing with a potential predator on her own.


Trust me, I have one of those teeshirts.

F2F RPG is one of the healthiest things that has ever happened to my PG DD. Online Pokemon was among the worst, but only because it became an obsession that ate her ability and desire to do ANYTHING else. It killed us, but we had to finally insist on a complete and total Pokemon moratorium to stop it.

My eldest DS went through about 6 months of being addicted to online gaming playing WoW (The crack of online gaming I swear) It caused considerable trouble with grades for a short time. Thankfully he self corrected, though he realized he had to quit cold turkey, just cutting back didn't work. This may sound odd / funny for those of you who haven't been around an online gaming addict but it's not funny when it controls your kid.

Exactly.

My 9yo DD was going without sleep (for weeks or months) in order to game at night on the sly-- and she figured out how to reconfigure the wireless, break password protections, etc. She was gaming on the sly during the day when she should have been doing schoolwork (she's an e-schooler, so she has to have the computer for portions of the day)-- basically any time that someone wasn't actually WATCHING the display.

It was awful.

One of the benefits of a TCG (Tabletop Card Game) is that their collection and deck is something they can control completely. It becomes and outlet for all kinds of things. Perfectionism, need for order, creativeness, individualism, etc. You'd be amazed how many of those kids will have thousands of their cards in binders in some specific order, whether it be alphabetically, by type, rarity, etc.

Ooooooo...nothing like a gaming thread to really bring out my inner nerd! My BIL has supplied us with a very VERY big assortment of strategy-type games. Here's a few of my favorites:

Carcasonne : very easy to adapt for kids. Only takes about an hour; involves building and claiming cities, roads, missions and farms - no war themes.

Ticket to Ride: again very kid (and not-interested-in-gaming family friendly). Involves collecting card "engines" to build most effecient train yo random destinations. Maybe takes 90 minutes tops.

EuroRails/RussiaRails: more complex than Ticket to Ride ; involves choosing wisest touted to collect and deliver resources. Not aggressively competitive (you mostly just do YOUR best and don't block others. Takes a few hours.

Killer Bunnies : fun but can be competitive and cutthroat (which led to a wildly entertaining and infamous screaming showdown between a few ADULT relatives a few years ago.

Seven Wonders: this is my new fav...involves collecting and buying appropriate resources, buildings, etc based on you "wonder" society. Goes quickly - 30 minutes maybe?

Settlers of Catan: got a day to waste? Build your most resourceful settlements while blocking out others.

Sigh...if only we had dome friends to play with (and unlimited FREE babysitting).

Sorry, maybe a little much.

My issue with online gaming is the mixture of adults of various maturities playing alongside kids. The language is foul ...and kids get bullied easily in these games.

Fortunately, computer gaming skills are directly transferable to economic analysis and playing with the stock and bond markets.

As to live ccg... another use I remember back when Magic had just come out. We'd sometimes have high-strung kids come and play and maybe throw a tantrum when they lost. I don't know if anything is as effective as having freely given unmediated respect withdrawn to trigger a behavior change.

I also had a friend put himself partway through college buying and trading MtG, then finished it off through poker winnings.

DS9 is a games addict, just like his mother! He has had what may be a fleeting fancy with Pokemon cards over the summer -- that one seems to have tapered off lately, but it may recur. He's completely and incurably addicted to Super Mario games, and that one never goes away. If there's no new Mario game coming along when he's sick of the old ones, there's a new platform instead, so they keep the crack coming.

He's getting a D&D starter set for his birthday next week -- I figured with the Pokemon thing and the fascination with HP and strengths and all that, he might be ripe for a new love. We'll see how that goes. He might have to get a bit higher in school to find anybody else interested in D&D. Oh, and I also got a fantastic set of huge foam gaming dice from ThinkGeek -- who wouldn't want some of those?

I find that even though Nintendo and Wii games take up a great deal of his time, they also give him a connection to other kids that he wouldn't have if he didn't have the games. He is 2E with Asperger's, and anything that boosts his ability to interact socially is a good thing. It gives him something to talk about, and a subject that they will listen to when he talks too much about it.

I also got him a Minecraft account, but unfortunately it won't run on any computer but my laptop, and he isn't allowed on my laptop when I'm not there, so he hasn't been able to get much playing time in.

A great list. I'd add Agricola and Pandemic, as more recent games that are a lot of fun. (Agricola is themed around a family struggling to feed themselves and build a farm; Pandemic is a group of CDC workers battling disease around the world.) Pandemic (and its little sister Forbidden Island) is particularly nice because it's a cooperative game - everyone working together to beat the game - so it doesn't invite as many losing-related disputes. Dominion is also great - it plays a little bit like MtG, as I understand it, but everyone starts with the same deck and range of cards that can be added to it (a different set every time). Lots of replay value, even with the base set, and there are now seven expansions, with one more small one planned.

Not only does it give your kids something to talk about....it gives something for the parent to relate to the kid about. When you talk about your kid's passions, they listen and it's very cool for them to have you interested, so it opens up a new source for communications. That's great when they hit those tween years and start tuning you out. They suddenly start listening again when you're talking about what they're passionate about. If you can collect and build decks / strategies together, before you know it your child might just think you're alright again (s)

My kids love games. Two (of many) examples:

When DS8 turned 6 my sister bought him a game set that included chess. We taught him and his sister, then 7, how to play and they were obsessed with it for awhile... game after game after game. DS(then 6) was fixated on it... DH doesn't know how to play and none of his friends could, so his only opponents were myself and DD(then 7). She is EXTRAORDINARILY competitive and didn't want to play often because he usually beat her, so that left me... I got so tired of the game but felt so bad the times I said "not now, buddy."

The family adults play canasta and both kids were/are obsessed with that as well. They begged us to teach them. We started with DD9 (then 7), who later taught DS8 when he was 7.

It's pretty cute... they had no problem with the game (scoring, melds, canastas, point counting, etc etc), but they had trouble holding all the cards in their hands so they used cardboard to build screens so they could lay their hands down on the table behind their put-down cards. SO funny. Their little brains were ahead of their fine motor skills.

They'd have friends come over who couldn't play, and my kids would, in the midst of their game obsession, get frustrated and impatient because they didn't want to do anything else. It made play dates difficult when they were in a "game focus" phase.

They're both competitive, and it's interesting because it manifests itself in different ways. DD9 gets really angry and emotional. DS8 stays calm, but sabotages the game to end it quickly if he feels like he can't win, so that a new game can be started. Hilarious...

One of the benefits of gaming, learning to win and lose gracefully. Sometimes it takes a couple of months, however, they eventually learn the sun rises tomorrow. They also observe how BAD it looks when someone else throws a fit over losing, it holds up a mirror. This is much better to learn at an early age and gaming does that for most.

Yup... that's why we have a strict "no computers in bedrooms" rule. We have three computers and they're all in the living room / dining room area. DS8 has quite the YouTube addiction and needs to be watched closely (not gaming I know... that would be for a different, "internet supervision" thread, lol).

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...problem-solving-and-self-efficacy-part-3

I keep reading more positive things about gaming and I am glad that my 14-year-old son can enjoy playing and talking to other kids and young adults who share an interest in mmorpg games. They don't just talk about video games. They talk about the latest news and politics and all kinds of things. A lot of very smart kids are playing these games.

I am happy that my son is playing computer and video games. A brace makes it impossible for him to enjoy participating in physical activities and there is nothing in our small town for kids who can't do sports. He had to take a break from the musical theater he had been in since he was four years old because he couldn't be out of the brace long enough to do the rehearsals. He home schools and is not around any other kids. Even without the pain from the brace, the isolation would be torture without games.

I think playing video and computer games that required reading at age three is one of the reasons he was reading at a 5th grade level when he was 5 and it is probably the reason his friends were always several years older. Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh were some of his favorite games when he was younger.

My son does hear some bad language on some of his games but I have heard the local high school kids using worse language. I have a kid who enjoys verbal sparring and is not bothered by online bullying.

I am not sure how he does this but I often see him with some kind of game on his PS3 screen and an interesting article of some kind on his computer screen. He goes back and forth between playing and reading.

Not all kids who are into online gaming become reclusive addicts, and for my youngest, it has been a good thing.

I certainly second that, the quickest way for me to get my kids to read when they were young was to bring home a new Pokemon Game Guide. They'd both read it cover to cover multiple times.

Oh certainly, I wasn't trying to say that all become game addicts, I was simply saying it's not uncommon at all and to beware of it. My kids still play games online, we've just learned to be much more aware of the signs of addiction and nip it earlier.

I think that one sounds fun! Reminds me of a game we play at our house called, "Help Mommy cut and sort coupons so we can feed ourselves (minus the farm)", LOL. OK offtopic....but my ds learned how to read values, figure percentages off, cut, and read store ads to find matchups whilst helping me coupon.

But I digress....Real life gaming requires a decorum not necessary for the computer...and a child can always benefit from this lesson (as can many adults. :))

Indeed...and some of those skills showed up in interesting ways when my boys were young. My eldest DS became very intuitive about when someone was bluffing, he read body language, twitches, and tells extremely well. I'm afraid he often called those bluffs, including with his teachers at times (laffin)

Yes, we also have this rule.

Didn't stop my DD, though. She would just sneak downstairs at night, spend a few minutes re-enabling the wireless network (which we locked down at night) and away she'd go. We were sound asleep.

And no, not all kids have this propensity. I think most parents can judge whether or not their kids have that obsessive streak, though DD doesn't demonstrate it outwardly as much as some more loquacious children do.

Wow... it's scary when they're like that: more clever than wise. My two are more innocent, I think... (I hope! lol) as in, they haven't figured out that they could go behind my back. Either that or (more likely) they have but haven't had the nerve.

If I were in your shoes I think I'd sleep in the basement one night, and when she came downstairs... SURPRISE! Busted. (heh heh) ;p

It looks like this thread has pretty much run it's course, thanks everyone for your input. I've always just seen the local gaming store as an under recognized source of peer group / socialization for GT kids and wanted to hear other's opinions on it as well.

A lot of those stores have need for volunteers to organize events. It's difficult for a store owner to know the in & outs of all the games they sell. If you've got some time it's a great way to provide some mentoring and positive influence to an interesting group of young people. Sadly, there are too many parents who use these stores as a baby sitting service. I encourage you to become involved. At the very least, please stop in, introduce yourself to the owner, and if you're leaving your child there for a period of time, leave an emergency phone number.

When my DS (age 9) played in his first Magic tournament, we were quite worried about the setup and how it would go being with all the teens and adults. My DH stayed (and played) to keep an eye on things. The only problem was an adult that lost to my DS and threw a tantrum with lots of curse words. My 9 year old said "Hello, 9 year old here- careful!" The guy immediately shut up and was very embarrassed by his behavior. From that lesson- I recommend a quick conversation with your kids about not only being gracious winners and losers, but what to do if someone else isn't, particularly if that person is an adult.

I would have preferred my son say nothing, so as to not create more conflict. But it turned out ok.

For face-to-face RPGs, I played D&D pretty regularly throughout my teens. Towards the end of them, I also experimented with a few of the World of Darkness RPGs by White Wolf... specifically the Mage, Werewolf, and Vampire modules.

Based on the interest my DD7 has shown in certain computer-based RPGs (notably Fable and Star Wars - The Old Republic), I have a strong feeling that if I brought in D&D equipment and volunteered to play DM, her and her 10yo gifted friend would love me forever. In the meantime, lately DD and I are playing Lego Harry Potter cooperatively nearly every day.

I'm not a fan of card-based games, because I've seen people blow shocking amounts of money on them, but to each their own.

My children love board and card games, but we haven't gotten into any RPGs or online gaming. This is somewhat deliberate. DS4 is especially obsessed with games and I could see this becoming an issue. Actually, games are his primary interest.

DD knows kids who are into POkemon, but shows no interest.

In college, I was invited to a D&D game.

Once.

Apparently, I was supposed to take it a little more seriously than I did.

They didn't like when I slowed their progress by attacking the (previously inert) local flora and fauna, getting myself seriously injured in the process. I also made apparently racist comments to the dark elf.

Interesting re-awakening of this thread... made it out to the local card store on Sunday. Very nice facility; we were looking at Yu-Gi-Oh, but they discontinued it in the store due to some issues between older and younger kids and unfair trading. DS6 started excitedly rattling off all the rules he read/watched videos for it last week. The owner mentioned a new game Kaijudo that is starting up; so, we'll try that. He said if he could find a handful more of kids as enthusiastic as my DS he could put together a good group. No telling if DS will stay that motivated will cross my fingers for next Saturday.

I guess if you're supposed to be serious, I was always doing it wrong. As players we were usually united in purpose, but our primary purpose was annoying the DM. Doing the bizarre was our normal operating mode. The DM would respond to the ruin of his scripted narrative by trying to kill us. Most times the games devolved into shouting matches, and a good time was had by all.

As a follow-up to my previous post, I did speak to my DD and her friend about playing, and they're pretty fired up about the idea, and I've begun the process of acquiring the necessary materials. In the interests of helping them flesh out a fuller party, I've proposed creating a warrior character of my own to tag along with them. But because it wouldn't do for me to unduly influence their side of the story, the character will be of sufficiently-impaired intellect that, among other things, he would be likely to attack inert flora and fauna. Or rather, he would be unlikely to attack aggressive flora and fauna if nobody told him to.

This seems like a good moment for a link to Eric and the Dread Gazebo.

It's always fun and interesting to try new games. I'd caution you though on spending much money on one until it gathers a pretty good following in your area. Strategy games come and go like the breeze. There are only a couple of TCGs for instance that have stood the test of time, namely, Magic the Gathering (MtG) Yu-Gi-Oh! (YGO) and Pokemon. Even Pokemon not that long ago was bought out by a different company and all prior cards deemed illegal for tournament play. Even among those games, card prices go up and down like a roller coaster...so never consider them an investment. Don't spend more on them than you can afford to lose.

LOL. That looks familiar, up until the point where Eric placidly reaches for the dice.

Sounds like DD's Pathfinder group. LOL.

Annoying the GM and wreaking havoc on his/her plans is all part of the fun, yes?