Should Parents teach their Kids Poker?

There are many things that parents would like to pass on to their kids some day.  A few notable things that come to mind right away are a good work ethic, important life skills, and a sense of what is right and wrong.  But I doubt that you’d find many parents ranking poker up there with the things they want to teach their kids as they’re growing up.

This subject recently came to my attention when I saw a forum thread asking whether or not parents would teach their kids the game of poker.  Since this was a poker forum, there was a high rate of people who said they would teach their children poker since the game offers many values beyond just winning money.

One value poker teaches kids is discipline since every successful poker player must exercise discipline at the table or they’ll bust out quickly.  Along with discipline players must also be patient too since you must pick your spots in every cash game and tournament where you can make a big move.

Overcoming adversity is another great virtue of poker since every player is going to come across hard times where plays just don’t seem to be going their way.  Tilt is definitely an underlying theme here too because players must control emotions during rough stretches as well or they risk losing a significant amount of their bankroll.  There are plenty of other great things kids can learn from poker as well.

The only problem is that parents who don’t understand poker will quickly dismiss it as gambling and try to steer their kids away from it.  And I don’t blame parents for doing this since plenty of people don’t know how to control themselves at the poker table.  But I still think poker teaches children some worthwhile life skills in the end.