Remember how much fun it was to collect things when you were a kid? Trading with your friends and working towards getting more of whatever it was you collected. Then I thought back to my own childhood, when I collected stationary, stickers, pretty pictures and post cards. Here is a game centered around adding and subtracting, strategizing and remembering… all the things he’s awesome at! Jacob is our little math nerd, so no wonder he fell in love with Pokemon. Things finally started to make sense to me. Much to my surprise, I found that the game requires strategy, discipline, memory and math – A LOT of math! Clearly I didn’t have the right “energy cards” to “evolve”… the whole thing was an hour of my child schooling me and impressing me more than he did when he played the role of “a Tree” in his school play! “TCG” stands for “The Card Game”.Īll of a sudden, my sweet child spoke in tongue, or so it sounded like, when he rambled about his card having more “health” than mine. Little did I know that Pokemon TCG is a well-structured 60-card game with an established set of rules – and a never-ending list of sub-rules. I had no idea what I was in for, but I figured it was yet another made-up card game with rules that were as fluid as the ocean – and always in his favor. Jacob was thrilled to “battle” me on a Sunday afternoon. Yeah, three years later, I am still waiting for that Monday to come.Īfter my initial gut reaction proved to be wrong, I sat down to educate myself on this Pokemon phenomenon to make sure it wasn’t going to steer my child towards a life as a circus clown, no offense to circus clowns. His wish list all of a sudden included $5 packs of cards with odd-looking dragons and fuzzy creatures with names I couldn’t pronounce.Īs any normal parent would do, I quickly decided that this was just a phase and that he would forget about the cards by the time Monday rolled around. We were faced with that decision a few years ago, when our oldest son was introduced to Pokemon cards by a class mate. How did this happen and most importantly, is it something you should condone or discourage? Your child came home from school recently speaking a completely foreign language, right? The kid who still can’t pronounce “broccoli” is all of a sudden talking about “evolutions”, “Mega EX” and “Charizard” as if they are household words. You are reading this article because you are an awesome parent!

Imagine how impressed your kid will be when you know how to play Pokemon cards?! Your child’s Pokemon obsession is explained in this guide for parents. There are affiliate links in this article which means, at no additional cost to you, we could receive compensation for our recommendations.

Make a real pokemon card