Games to play with your kids

The Game Room
1

(that don’t make you want to gouge your own eyes out).

I don’t know about you all, but I typically loathe playing board games with my five year old. They’re an excruciating mix of boredom, frustration, and temper tantrum management.

Candyland: coma-inducing
Chutes and Ladders and Sorry: Jesus Christ, will this game ever end?
Operation: nothing more than the prelude to a screaming meltdown when she can’t even get one piece out
Hungry Hungry Hippos: device for seeding white marbles around the entire house
Go Fish (specialty cards with actual fish on them, in a size guaranteed to never, ever fit in a child’s hands or allow shuffling except by Andre the Giant): do you have any sharks, because I want them to kill me now

and so on.

BUT, I have discovered some games that I not only don’t despise, I actually enjoy!

Yahtzee Jr.: not great, but not a total loss. Games are pleasantly brief.
Crazy Eights/Uno: simplistic but not mind-numbing
Puzzles: Surprisingly engaging, and it’s cooperative so no loser
Checkers: believe it or not, I’m just learning how to play. But that means the kids might beat me, which makes it more fun for them!
Doodle Dice: Actually fun, and good for everyone’s spatial relations and planning skills
and the best so far -
*Catan Junior *- retains the fun of the grownup version, but not too complicated or frustrating. Plus it has pirates and a Ghost Captain - what’s not to like?

What games do you like to play with your children? (Alternatively, what are the worst games to play with kids and why?)

2

I don’t have kids, but I do have a lot of Legos.
Five is a great age to start building things. Buy a tub, see how it goes.

How viable is outdoor fun?
Can you jump rope? That’s hours and hours of entertainment right there.
Are kites an option where you are?

3

I have a 7yr old daughter, and a 4yr old son who… doesn’t really play.

However, we all get a lot of mileage out of:

By Golly, which is a twist to the standard memory card game

Aquarius, which is a card edge matching type game

Zeus on the Loose, which is a counting game with greek gods in.

4

Dino Dice, a reskinned version of Zombie Dice.
Dixit
King of Tokyo
Love Letters
The Resistance
Apples to apples
Survive: escape from Atlantis

All terrific board games that adults and kids can enjoy. Fuck nonsense “games” like candyland that teach terrible habits and lack decision making.

5

Some substitutes that are actually sort of fun:

Candyland: Cartagena
Chutes and Ladders and Sorry: Max
Operation: Gulo Gulo
Hungry Hungry Hippos: sorry, never played it - can’t help with this one
Go Fish: Love Letter

We also get a fair amount of mileage out of Zeus on the Loose.

6

The big one at our house right now is Trouble. Games are pretty quick, and you can’t lose the die. The boring part comes when everyone’s trying for a “6” at the same time.

7

I have a suggestion about the temper tantrum management. When my younger daughter was old enough to play games, at first she would throw a fit if she lost. “Okay,” I said, “Do you want to win?” “Yes!!” So I put both our playing pieces at the starting square. Then I jumped hers to the winner’s spot. “Hooray! You win! Want to play again?” Not sure what that was about, she said yes. Repeat. “But I want to play the game!” “Oh, that’s different. I thought you just wanted to win.”

She got the point very quickly. In games of skill rather than chance, we would give her a slight advantage. For example, in Big Boggle, she could make smaller words, and there was a one-point adjustment on the scoring. After she started to beat the pants off us regularly, we did away with that rule!

Just the other day, I taught my 3 year old granddaughter to play the card game War. I figured it was educational; she had to decide which number was higher. What she liked the best was watching me shuffle the cards.