This spring we entered the world of Pokemon.  It caught me completely off guard, as I didn’t even know that it was still a thing. It clearly is.  There are books, games, movies, and the cards.  The trading cards have taken over Woo’s world, along with most of the boys in his class. I do not understand them at all.

I thought that I could ignore them, and this fad would pass, but sadly, it hasn’t.  Woo is so invested in Pokemon that he has spent some of his allowance on the cards; significant because it is only the second time that he has actually spent his own money.  He talks about them all the time, gets books from the library, and trades.  I think that he would trade all the time if he could. He can’t do it at school (because they are banned in his class, which should have been a clue to us), so he and his friends are constantly making playdates so that they can trade.

The thing is, he is new to this game, and he makes some really lopsided trades.  Trades that he loses.  Willy and I are trying to strike a balance between letting him make his own mistakes and helping him see that there is a ranking to these cards, and if he trades all his “good” cards, he will have nothing left to trade.  Along the way we, along with some of his friend’s parents, have intervened to ensure that trades approximate something fair for both sides.

Woo had a friend over this afternoon, and they spent the better part of two hours talking and trading Pokemon. It had been mostly amicable, so I was shocked when Woo came to me, visibly upset and claiming that his friend had taken all of Woo’s cards and mixed them in to his own collection. I went to investigate, and got an ambiguous response when I asked the friend if he had done this. He didn’t deny that he had done it, but acknowledged that it the cards may have been mixed together.  I directed the boys to sort out the cards, but it quickly became clear that Woo’s cards were not there.  A quick search revealed that they had been left by Woo, in Woo’s room.

I felt awful.  I believed Woo, and in doing so, essentially accused this friend of taking his cards.  He’d done nothing wrong, yet he was now afraid that he had, and that I would tell his parents and he would be punished. We talked it out, and Woo and I both apologized. He bounced, and the boys enjoyed the rest of their time together.  I did tell his parents, but there was no danger that he would get in trouble.  They were understanding, but still. I feel terrible.