Why I Enable (Encourage?) my 5-year-old's Pokemon Go! Obsession

The cover of the "Pokemon Book" the girl is "writing"

"Mama is a softie."
"Hope we can have fun with real people, not Pokemons."
"I would not hand my phone over to a 5 year old. Heck, it's not even paid for yet."

Yes, according to grandma, Mama is a softie for letting the girl, just starting kindergarten, play Pokemon Go! on her phone. And, if you get the subtext, not only am I crazy to let the girl walk around with my phone, but I'm encouraging a "video game mentality," where kids interact with computers and shun people.

So, why do I, the mom who has let her kid play very few video games (I recently learned that she is embarrassingly behind her peers when it comes to using a PlayStation controller) let her walk around the neighborhood playing Pokemon Go?

The more we play, the more reasons I find.

First, it makes her want to walk.  We're a walking family and we live in a walkable part of the city. But, while the girl is a good walker, she often used to preface her Friday night restaurant choice with, "Which places can we drive to?" Now, she nixes all the driving places, often preferring a walk much longer than her dad is willing to take when she's moving at a Pokemon-playing pace. A few weekends ago we took a 3-mile round-trip walk to the thrift store to pick up some books. It was 2:00 on a sunny California afternoon, and the thrift shop has parking; even I considered driving! But she wanted to walk, so we did. Thanks Pokemon Go!

Pokemon Go! also adds a crazy techno-innocence (and cheapness!) to our outings. Our big adventures this month? To the La Brea Tar Pits to catch Charmanders and to the Santa Monica Pier to catch water-type Pokemon. We were outside, everything was free, we met all kinds of random people (many also playing Pokemon). Fun, cheap, easy, entertained. What more can a mom ask for?

And, far from stripping the girl of her imagination, Pokemon Go! feeds it. There are Pokemon everywhere in my house. She catches them on the street (even when she's not actually playing Pokemon), kneeling down suddenly to coax a Pokemon into her hand, pushing me out of the way so she can sic one of her Evees on a Rhython blocking our path, or handing her Pokemon "case" to me when I drop her at school, so I can take them to their "Pokemon day care." She tells me that you can collect baby or adult Pokemon, but she prefers the babies because "the adults pass away much more faster." And, she always reminds me, if I carry the Pokemon case too close to my body, the Pikachus might poke me. They're naughty. They do that.

As an educator, I can't help but notice the small, but important, academic skills she learns while playing: while many of my very smart test prep students don't know the words "combative" or "lure," my child now speaks obsessively about "combat power," "lures," and "evolving" and "revitalizing" her Pokemon, not to mention raising the "prestige" of red gyms.

Pokemon Go! also tackles a perennial problem for our younger students: place value. It's hard to get little kids to conceptualize the difference between 100 and 1,000 -- to them, it's just "a lot." Many of our students get bogged down saying long numbers correctly and comparing multi-digit numbers (why wouldn't a number that starts with 9 automatically be bigger than a number that starts with 1?).  Thanks to Pokemon Go!, my girl can tell you that her Vaporean, with a CP of 1614 can "easily defeat" an Arcanine with CP of 950. Oh, and as for sight words, she can now identify fire, water, psychic, ground, bug, and grass type Pokemon. She can't read all of the info in her Pokedex yet, but she sure is more motivated to learn to read than she used to be.

And don't get me started on alphabetical order.  Now that no one uses dictionaries, alphabetizing is a lost art (my very smart tutors spend far longer than they should filing student folders!), but my child scrolls through her Pokemon, looking for a "Geodude with a G" like a pro.

And yet, my favorite part of Pokemon Go! is that it teaches economy in a way that is direct, tangible, and free. I have found it impossible to convince my child (or our students) that spending $4 on junk food (or coin-operated rides at the mall) diminishes their ability to buy something they might really want later on. They simply cannot resist the instant gratification. For my girl, purchasing opportunities are too rare, and everything she buys with her own money is a luxury anyway, so she rarely feels the angst of wishing she had that $4 back. Thus, money spent, no lessons learned.

But, a kid who uses up all of her raspberries on weak Pokemon regrets it when faced with a 900+ CP Snorlax that she desperately wants. And, a kid with bad aim will quickly learn that foregoing Pokestops (where more pokeballs can be acquired for free) in order to catch more Pokemon, means an empty stock of Pokeballs just few blocks later. A player who squanders her stardust or candies on unworthy Pokemon regrets it almost immediately. My girl has gone from someone who blithely uses up her resources for a measly Ratatta, to a girl who carefully considers which Pokemon is "worth" an Ultraball. It's a lesson I have been trying to teach with money for a year and which Pokemon Go! has deeply imprinted in just a month.

It's not a perfect game, for sure. I worry that my kid -- or one of my EdBoost kids or staff members (yes, we all play) -- will get run over crossing a street while also catching a Paras or a Pidgey. But, as a new trend in video games, I like it. And, I think it goes a long way towards teaching through hands-on experience -- something we are constantly trying to create for students. Why not take advantage when it's built into something they WANT to do? When parents ask me my opinion, as I know they will, Pokemon Go! (in moderation, of course) will get my thumbs up.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go walk some kilometers and hatch some Pokemon eggs (oh, and did I mention that my kid now measures distance in kilometers?).