When I read the teaser–Why Video Games Making our Kids Smarter, and More Obedient–on this story in the Utne Reader, my heart jumped. Wouldn’t it be just perfect if, after all this fret, it actually turned out that gaming was HELPING my child be successful? I even had someone who must have been a kindred spirit with the same hope, tap me on the shoulder across the aisle on the plane, as I read the story. She, too, wondered, ”Is it true?” The article posits (through the experts it quotes) that gamers engage in the scientific theory, using trial and error to reach a positive conclusion (winning), and that the experience of working through frustration and failure to eventual victory is turning young people out into the workforce who persevere towards their goals. It makes sense, and I’d like to believe it. But I suppose, like just about everything else in parenting, it all boils down to moderation. And we could all use a game that teaches that.