Gaming Buddies

Teenaged sons number two and three enjoy online gaming. They are part of a clan and play Enemy Territory with the same bunch of people on a regular basis. Today they went to hang out for a couple of hours with two gaming friends who are visiting in the area - one from Chicago, the other from Taiwan.

The internet has added an interesting new dimension to parenting - that of going along with kids who are meeting internet friends for the first time. Because we travel a lot, we often end up near the kid's online friends. Besides today's meeting, we've met an online friend of my son's in Akron, Ohio and one just a little less than an hour down the road in Kalamazoo. We've met up with one in Austin, Texas. And on our last trip to the UK, the boys got to meet up with three gaming friends.

Now, you can call me overprotective if you want, but we don't just drop the kids off to meet their friends. We tag along. Not surprisingly, the parents of the internet friends are also along. Which is good. But, it usually leaves us sitting somewhere with a set of people that we don't know trying to make polite chit chat -- thankfully we can always start with how strange it is to be taking the kids to meet their internet friends.