Who understands PokeMon??

[notmytarga]

I am wondering if I am a bad father in regards to my disinterest in one of my son's interests. He is 9 years old, finishing 3rd grade. Over the last five years he has collected various collector cards. We have YuGiOh, Bakagan, Spinjago?, BeyBlades and of course PokeMon. And some others I'm forgetting. Some of these games/toys represent lots of cash for plastic toys and cards. He barely cracks the barest levels of understanding before moving onto another interest. He inherited more PokeMon cards than most of the others and they seem to be his greatest interest in the playing card realm. Mostly he watches the cartoons and plays the DS Black and White game. But occasionally he works to make a deck and sometimes finds a friend to "Battle". He will verbalize some pretty complicated stories working a bunch of the weird PokeMon names.




I'll opt for Stratego or Chess - we do that occasionally. He builds Lego kits and doesn't get upset when they become part of his general building collection.

I don't need a pep talk or instructions. I just want to know if other Dad's participate or if they leave it to your kids peers to play the PokeMon card game.

[A930Rocket]

I'm a bad dad. I let my son play with his pokemon cards without me.

[redstrosekNic]

I didn't even know that that stuff is still around... It came out when I was a kid.

[stomachmonkey]

Unless you are 13 or under you won't get it so don't feel guilty.

It's basically the baseball cards of today's youth combined with dungeons and dragons.

[tevake]

My 10 year old Adrian is way into Pokemon, and other online games. We managed to keep him away till last year , now he loves it. We do talk about the characters some times but I'm just not interested enough to get into playing. He hooks up with friends to play. he loves his DS also.

Cheers Richard

[stuartj]

Taking mine to a Pokemon movie years ago was simply one of the most excrutiating things Ive ever done. They should get that cartoon movie and play it detainees down at gitmo. Two or three times through, they'd be begging to confess to anything.

[Heel n Toe]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Unless you are 13 or under you won't get it so don't feel guilty.

It's basically the baseball cards of today's youth combined with dungeons and dragons.

SM, thank you for that analysis/assessment... makes perfect sense.

My 9 year old grandson was waxing eloquently about various cards he was rifling through on the way home from his Saturday morning soccer game recently. I asked a few curiosity-level questions and glanced over at a few cards he held up, but that was the extent of my interest.

[stomachmonkey]

It's not all bad. When my daughter was 9-10 she was obsessed. Had all the games for her DS, watched strategy vidoes on YouTube, she was deep into it.

One day she was having an issue with her laptop so I go take a look and see an icon for a gameboy ROM emulator on the desktop. I'm a creative director/producer in gaming so I knew what it was but played dumb.

"baby, what's that?"

Uhm, I've been learning to make custom Pokemon ROMs. I found these hacker boards and learned how to mod stuff. See I designed my own characters and replaced them in the game, next I'm going to redesign the interface. Am I in trouble?

"no baby, you're not"

[Moses]

Gotta love Snorlax.

[porsche4life]

Don't worry.... I barely got it when I was that age.... I've got some of that stuff still. Not sure what the hell to do with it all....

[WolfeMacleod]

I'm not sure if Pokemon and some of the other kid's card games work similar to Magic: The Gathering, but one thing that the trading games can do is help a person playing them develop great tactical thinking and decision making skills (similar to chess, I guess, but not as boring and many more possibilities), just as some video games can help develop extraordinary hand-eye coordination.

You should take an interest, and have him even teach you how the game works. Then play him frequently and take pay attention to his thinker-development and how his tactics change.

FYI: I have never played Magic: The Gathering. I've seen people sink waaaayyy to much money into it. My employee has around 100,000+ cards.
But, he's an awesome tactician and thinker and can whup @ss.

[imcarthur]

I haven't a clue, but . . . when I got separated/divorced, my son has 6 & he displayed a severe lack of confidence as a by-product of that time. I bought him a Nintendo, which was something he mastered. I remember finding & buying the hard-to-find Super Mario Bros in Victorville on his 8th birthday. He became a game killer & that led to computer games etc. It was something he could - and only he could - accomplish & master on his own. He now works in IT/programming for a large multi-national & he makes more money than I. I would say it worked.

So, encourage your children in whatever sparks THEIR interest - not just yours.

Ian

[azasadny]

It's a Japanese plan to take over our children and rot their brains.... Our son (now 20) was into it when he was little and now our 10 year old nephew is muttering jibberish all of the time. The worst is when they feel they have to explain it all to you... I usually run away screaming.

[URY914]

This is one time I'm glad I had a daughter.

[nota]

my oldest was in to D&D and tops baseball cards

the younger one got into magic and starwars card games

I never got asked to play as their friends were always playing

but a year ago I found a book/binder of the early pokemon cards
holo and even jap cards from 2-3-4 series that have some value
but I thought they were post fad now and not very valuable

[motion]

Personally, I think they're better than blowing up army men, shooting your friends with BB guns and frying ants with magnifying lenses.



Oh wait, never mind.... they're not!

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by URY914

This is one time I'm glad I had a daughter.

They get into it just as bad.

[osidak]

I play with my son when he wants me to - usually it is with his buddies - have tracked down some of the more rare cards for him as well. Personally I enjoy doing things with him that are "his" interest and not just something I want him to do with me kinda things

[Tom '74 911]

Originally Posted by notmytarga

I just want to know if other Dad's participate or if they leave it to your kids peers to play the PokeMon card game.

One of my 2 sons (age 10) has an equally large Pokemon collection (at least); some purchased, some inherited from older cousins and friends. His interest in them seems to ebb & flow. His younger brother could take or leave them I think.

No matter how many Pokemon books I read at bedtime or how many times I ask him to explain them to me, I will never understand them.

I participate only in that I know what they are and few of the character's names by default. . . we do enough other stuff together and as a family that I've never felt the need (or desire) to understand any further.

[scottmandue]

Marketing.... sell a bunch of crap... make a pile of money...

Any questions?