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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.