James the Game Wiz

So James may not be good at the social aspect of playing games. He struggles with turn-taking, the game not going his way, people not understanding/following the rules, losing, anxiety-producing competition, etc.

But he is so adept at the games themselves. Not only is he physically agile and athletically skilled for sports like baseball, basketball, and bike riding. But he is also quick-minded. He is amazing at picking up the rules of games, and his mind can plan ahead. He learned how to play chess in one night and is already equally as good as his dad. We are excited for him to join the chess club at school next year. Last week, Rex taught him how to play Set, and James is already fast at finding the "matches." I bet he'd be good at Sudoku and Billiards. Must be something to do with physical manipulation of mathematics. (However, memorizing math facts and doing naked problems bores the crud out of him, so he's falling behind. Too bad there's not a real application for math at his age.)

UPDATE: I figured out how to help him with the boring math memorization. I can quicken/sharpen his skills by playing a card game I made up. I lay down about 12 cards (I used the ones in Phase 10) and tell him the answer to an addition/subtraction problem and he chooses two cards that equal that answer. When he picks two cards, I replaces them with 2 new ones and just keep recycling. He loved it! And he had no idea that it was similar to those timed worksheets with 100 problems on it. Why didn't I think of this before?