This is my first time posting here. I've enjoyed reading everyone's messages! So many children are collecting Pokémon cards in my area. The "good quality" cards are very expensive, and children are very particular about "needing" the "best" cards, because they are trading them with friends.The aspect of collecting cards (or anything else) is very typical for certain stages of child development. (I guess I should mention that I am a nurse, and had to learn about child psychology.)
Collections help children develop organizational skills and help them learn to discriminate between what is considered more and less "valuable" items in their collections.
I think we all had collections of some kind as children. Baseball cards? Comic books? Rocks? Stamps? And we all knew which cards or comics were "better" to have, and had in mind "special" ones that were more valuable than others. In this respect, Pokémon cards can be a tool to help children learn these organizational skills.
The characters, in my opinion, are a bit ridiculous. I don't understand the concept of the Pokémon battles because the opponents are not matched. They hardly seem like fair fights. On a positive note, however, even when Pokémon characters battle each other, nobody dies or is murdered. Kind of the same way Wyle E. Coyote could fall from the top of a high canyon, or get blown out of a cannon, or have boulders fall on his head without lasting harm coming to him when he tried to catch the Roadrunner.
The concept of training and becoming "the best" is a bit competitive, and this is another developmental milestone that children go through at this age. We all have talents, which are Jehovah's gifts to each of us, and developing them in a balanced reasonable way can show Jehovah that we appreciate the gifts he has given us.
Reasonable parents are responsible to determine what is appropriate for their own children. I don't like forcing my own opinion on other people, and I wouldn't appreciate it if someone (even a brother or sister) took it upon themselves to tell me how to raise my own children, when the brother or sister could be spending the time in service or studying for meetings. The Scriptures are clear that we are accountable to Jehovah for everything we do, and as long as there's no Scriptural reason for acting one way or another, it is the right thing to 'not suffer as ... a busybody in other people's matters'. (1Peter 4:15).
In a lot of ways, I understand your concern about children becoming obsessed by this kind of activity. However, it's not uncommon for children to be very involved in an activity and then suddenly dislike it without any intervention from parents or anyone else. Pokémon is no exception. I think the more parents are upset by something relatively trivial like this, the longer the phase lasts. Children at this stage of development are also testing their parents' limits and beginning to develop their own values. If we, as parents, are critical over every little thing, then our children are going to feel "exasperated" (Colossians 3:21), and the lines of communication are going to suffer, because the children's trust in their parents (and other adults around them) is going to diminish. Then when the really BIG issues come up later on, they won't feel free to talk to us openly. And this is the time when our children are teenagers that we really want them to become even more close to us and Jehovah for their own protection, instead of heading down the path of rebelliousness.
I understand what you are trying to do in protecting children from a snare. But in all honesty, I think the issue with Pokémon - as irritating as they are to me personally - is best left for the childrens' parents to determine.
Agapé, Maple
