Is Teaching My Son Poker the Right Thing?

[Festus22]

Thanks for the reply Buster but I'm not sure I get your meaning. What's the totality of activities you plan on doing with your kids that excludes poker?

We do a myriad of activities outside the home with our kids. But there's also critical at-home time as well where we play games and just interact. Poker is just one of the games we play (+ Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, dominos, memory cards, and a host of others).

The concern I had with poker is not the mechanics of playing. I think it teaches mathematics, reasoning, deductive skills, and thinking beyond yourself. It is rather the introduction of a game that some find socially offensive (the minority to be sure but they're out there), is associated with gambling and all the baggage that may bring and something that my son may find out he can take advantage of others doing. That may come off as hypocritical and it probably is. But the bottom line is that's what all winning players are doing. I want to raise my kids with high moral values and it's these points that fueled my post. Can poker be played for it's positive value without risking too much exposure to the "dark side"?