Prevention Starts With a Pokémon Card
From Pikachu to Prediction Markets, Nicotine Pouches, Parties, and More
Part 1 of a three-part series for parents and educators on how prevention conversations can grow with children from primary school through high school.
Prevention in Primary
One of the most common questions parents ask us is, “At what age should I start talking to my child about alcohol and other drugs?”
Our answer often surprises people: whatever age your child is now. Prevention isn’t one 60-minute conversation about drugs. It’s 60 one-minute conversations that start in primary school, long before alcohol or other drugs are on their radar.
Children are already being marketed to everywhere they look: food packaging, collectible cards, video games, energy drinks, influencer promotions, and in-app purchases. Some products, including card packs, mystery boxes, and loot boxes, rely on uncertainty and anticipation. Unlike a familiar product like a favorite breakfast cereal, children don’t know what they’ll get. The possibility of a reward can make them want to try again. These products can exploit how developing brains respond to novelty, anticipation, and reward.
Talking about what children hope to get, how they feel while they’re waiting, and what makes them want another try can help them notice that pull and pause to consider their choices. They can learn to notice who is trying to get their attention, how they’re doing it, and what makes a product feel so appealing. That’s media literacy, self-awareness, and decision-making, all practiced over a pack of cards. These skills can help children navigate higher-stakes decisions about alcohol and other drugs later.
You don’t need to be an expert. Asking what your child notices and what they think about it is a great place to start.
Why This Matters Now
In 2026, media literacy also means understanding how companies partner with the influencers children watch, how both sides make money, and how those partnerships shape what children see and want.
A single creator can entertain your child, share their interests, and promote a product in the same video. That can make an ad feel like a recommendation from someone they know and admire. Adults can help children notice when excitement starts to feel less like fun and more like pressure, or a hard-to-stop urge to keep buying, playing, or checking.
Questions to Get the Conversation Started
Look at a product, ad, or post together. Keep the conversation curious, not critical.
“What caught your attention first?”
Notice the colors, characters, surprise, or words like “rare” and “limited edition.”
“What do you think the company or influencer wants you to do or feel?”
Are they encouraging you to buy something, click, or believe that one more purchase will get you what you want? How does making you feel that way benefit them?
“What does the post show you, and what might it leave out?”
Look for missing details, such as the total cost or the chances of getting a particular item.
“How could we tell whether an influencer was paid or given something to promote this?”
Look for labels like “ad,” “sponsored,” or “paid partnership,” and listen for mentions of free products.
The Pull of “Maybe Next Time”
Ask many primary students what they want for their birthday, and you’ll find the real curriculum: Pokémon cards. FIFA World Cup cards. No, wait, the new FIFA 365 2026/27 cards. Roblox “Robux.” Labubus. Genshin Impact currency. The list keeps evolving. By age 10, many children are also encountering or aware of influencer content, sports cards, energy drinks, and loot boxes.
Most of these have one thing in common: uncertainty. Every mystery box or card pack comes with a question: What’s inside? That uncertainty is part of the fun, and it gives adults a natural way to talk about anticipation, chance, and decision-making.
Opening a pack of trading cards is a classic example of a variable reward, one whose timing or value is unpredictable. Research on reward schedules suggests that behavior can become more persistent when rewards are unpredictable. This review discusses how reward variability can influence behavior. Dopamine is involved in reward prediction and learning. When an outcome differs from what the brain expected, dopamine signaling can help update those expectations. Schultz’s review explains this role in reward prediction. That’s part of the “maybe next time” feeling.
Variable rewards show up throughout childhood and adult life. Children encounter them in card packs, mystery boxes, gacha games, loot boxes, and social media or video feeds where the next result is always uncertain. Adults may recognize the same urge to check or try again in slot machines, sports betting, refreshing messages, scrolling for a rewarding post, swiping on dating apps, or trading stocks. These activities carry very different risks, but each one builds anticipation around what might happen next.
To be clear, a nine-year-old who collects Pokémon cards is not on the fast track to a sports betting addiction. One study of 16- to 18-year-old gamers found an association between loot box spending and problem gambling. Because the study was correlational, it could not show whether one caused the other. The reason to talk about this early is developmental. A young person’s brain is still building the skills to regulate emotions, pause before acting on an impulse, and weigh risks against rewards. A pack of trading cards can offer low-stakes practice.
Questions to Ask About Cards, Boxes, and Games
Use these questions to help your child notice what they enjoy, what they hope for, and how they feel.
“What are you hoping to get?”
“What do you and your friends enjoy about collecting or playing?”
“How do you feel before and after opening a pack, a box, or a reward in a game?”
“What makes you want to try one more time?”
“How much real money do you think your Robux, coins, or gems cost?”
Make a Plan Before They Spend
Before your child opens a pack, buys a blind box, or spends in-game currency, help them decide how much they’ll spend. If the item they wanted isn’t there, name the feeling and hold the plan: “You really hoped that card would be inside. It’s okay to feel disappointed. We’re still sticking with the plan.”
This gives children practice handling disappointment without immediately buying another chance. That skill will matter even more as the stakes get higher.
What Schools Can Do
Has a Pokémon card gone missing from a backpack at your school? Has a trade at recess ended in tears, a parent email, and a meeting in the counselor’s office? If so, you already know these cards aren’t just toys. They carry real value, real emotion, and real conflict. That makes them a useful starting point for prevention conversations. Schools are uniquely positioned to shape norms and build these skills before students face higher-stakes decisions about substances or gambling. Prevention Ed supports schools in moving beyond reactive responses toward a proactive, integrated approach.
Here’s what we recommend:
Start media literacy in primary school. Use advisory, health, or digital citizenship lessons to analyze ads, unboxing videos, and sponsored posts together. Practicing how to spot sales techniques early can give students language to use as they encounter more complex marketing.
Teach how variable rewards work. Explain how mystery boxes, loot boxes, and gacha games are designed. A math lesson on the odds of pulling a rare card can teach probability and prevention at the same time.
Review what’s on campus. Revisit policies on card trading, blind box sales at school events, and influencer-branded caffeinated drinks in vending machines or at concession stands. Make sure your gambling policy is current, too. Prevention Ed’s Gambling and Sports Betting Policy Template gives schools an up-to-date starting point.
Bring parents into the conversation. Many families don’t know how in-game currency, loot boxes, or influencer partnerships work. Share clear, practical information through newsletters, parent coffees, or workshops.
Bring in a trusted outside voice. Prevention Ed’s team works with students, educators, and parents to address media literacy, gambling-like features in games, and the skills that protect young people as risks change with age.
What Parents Can Do
Here’s what we recommend:
Talk early and often, starting with what they already love. A conversation about a trading card pack or a Roblox purchase is prevention. Keep it short, curious, and ongoing.
Know what they’re playing and buying. Find out which games use loot boxes or random rewards, and check how in-game currency connects to real money. Turn on purchase approvals so every buy is a conversation, not a surprise on your bank statement.
Know the collector jargon. Words like “pull,” “chase card,” “hit,” and “break” can tell you a lot about what your child is watching and hoping for. A “break,” for example, is a livestream where viewers pay for a share of a box that someone else opens on camera, which looks a lot more like gambling than collecting. The CollectorsMD Hobby Dictionary is a helpful place to learn the language, and it also offers guidance for families who are worried that collecting has started to feel out of balance.
Have them use their own spending money. For age-appropriate purchases, ask children to use their allowance or savings. Spending their own money makes the trade-off real. Before they buy, talk about what they’re guaranteed to get and what’s left to chance.
Observe your child with these products. Notice how they act before, during, and after opening a pack, unboxing a toy, or spending in a game. Some excitement and disappointment are normal. Strong or recurring reactions, trouble stopping, sneaking purchases, or constant requests for “just one more” are reasons to pay closer attention. Use them as an opening to slow down and talk. If the pattern continues, reach out to your school counselor or pediatrician.
Stay curious, not critical. To children, a rare card or a new skin matters. Take their excitement seriously, ask open-ended questions, and listen without judgment. That trust keeps them talking as the topics get harder.
Model the behavior you want to see. Children notice how often adults check, scroll, and refresh. Be mindful of your own “one more time” habits.
Start Small, Start Now
We’re not saying children should never open a pack of trading cards, collect Labubus, or play video games. These can be fun, social, and part of growing up. We’re saying they should come with conversations that help children explore what draws them in and how they feel while they’re doing it. The goal is to raise children who can enjoy these things while noticing when the fun starts to fade and begins to feel higher-stakes. That skill starts with a Pokémon card, and it grows from there.
In Part 2, we’ll look at how these conversations change in middle school, when some of the same influencers who stream their Pokémon collecting also own energy drink and nicotine pouch companies.
Interested in exploring how Prevention Ed can support your school community? We’d love to hear from you. Contact Katie at katie@preventioned.org or fill out the Contact Us form at the bottom of the page.