Actually it was more like I did lots of research into trying to understand the chess culture and particularly those aspects of it that applied to children - in this case, my young one of 8 years of age.

Actually, he got his start with chesskids.com and it was a pretty good one.  Playing around in ChessMaster was a lot of fun for him.  He even just liked to watch some of the personalities play each other ... particularly that Alekhine chap.  In a short time, he figured out that the lower rated characters seemed to be very simplistic and he just iterated various approaches to them until he found some that worked on each character.  Of course, occasionally he likes to put on the dog or dessert chess pieces for fun.

 Many hours of research later, I finally understood that tactics were going to be very important to any beginning chess player so I got Winning Chess Tactics  by Seirawan and in my spare time, I would go through two to four pages from the book with him.  It is a little too much to ask him to read that book by himself.  That being said, I needed to find something else.

I found some one step mate puzzle files in PGN, loaded up ChessBase Light 2007 and have since been letting him have at it.  The first 100 was pretty easy.  So was the second but then the third hundred is getting harder.  At least he is willing to work through those with a great attitude.

I also got the Chess for Beginners CD and although he knows half the stuff, I figured out that a little review couldn't hurt him.

 Lastly, I printed out some of Morphy's games - some of which were annotated and he loves those.  He can truly see the elegance in some of Morphy's moves and wants more.

We'll see where this goes.

Oh, he has an annoying habit.  He keeps trying to talk to me in algebraic notation when he learns something new or exciting and can't seem to understand why Daddy just cannot picture a chess board in his head and apply the moves.