Troll Lord Games

Lets compile a list of how pnp rpgs are good for kids. This can help TLG in a potential Family Day at the LGS/comic store/chain store promotion.

CnC: classy+easy to learn+easy to play= great game for the family

Creative

Mathematic

Vocabulary building

Gets kids away from Tvs/Monitors

Social

Fun
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What it did for me besides some of your listed features:

I would expand social into=learning to work well with others. In most scenarios in most rpgs the players work together.

An alternative to drugs. I was never tempted into drugs as a teenager. I had enough of a fantasy world with reading and playing D&D. Plus, our parents knew where we were, we weren't running around town doing stupid things, we were together playing a game.

But before you paint a bright picture, parents will probably want to know the downside as well. I personally don't believe that anyone goes crazy over rpgs or heavy metal nor do they start spontaneously joining devil cults, but if people already have problems, rpgs can worsen existing problems.

Disassociation with life: a sense of being disconnected from reality. Not in the Mazes & Monsters way, but in the not quite up with what is going on in the real world way.

Obsession: when the game becomes the only outlet and focus.

Roleplaying games are a great way for people to have endless hours of fun (I know I have), but they should have other interests and hobbies as well. Roleplaying games should be a fun escape, people sitting around and telling a shared story for a few hours, but playing the game shouldn't become the only aspect of a child's (or adult's) life.

I owe a lot to roleplaying games, but I have seen some people who were already a little damaged one way or another and they weren't helping themselves by getting involved in roleplaying games. There is no real way to tell, I got a friend's autistic young daughter into A Faery's Tale with great results, it isn't a cure, but the need to relate to her surroundings has made her more active with others. And I know an adult man who was already a little off who thinks he has familiars in suspended animation and he can hurl real curses and spells around.

I am certainly not trying to be a downer, just a realist. I have a C&C game to run in about five hours. Roleplaying games are great, but they aren't for everyone.
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Deserve has nothing to do with it, if you think you're entitled. You're not.

--Stephen Chenault

Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.

J. R. R. Tolkien

Yeah,

I see what you mean about the dark side, but what I envision this to be about CnC for kids 8-13 or so. Young enough to still have a sense of adventure and wonder without the potential bad side to pop up.

As a plus, I bet anyway a parent can drag their kids away from the computer these days is a selling point (as I type this on a online forum....).
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Someone send me some dice!