Board Games
Who still play Board Games in this day and age? Can you remember the hours of fun you had as a child, sitting around the table playing board games with the family?
This morning I woke up early to work on my laptop, only to discover I had no connection. Frustrated, I realized that my “addicted to internet games” teenagers changed the password again so they can control the other users in the household to gain optimal speed in gaming through the night.
I had to pull them out of bed at 5am to change the password back to the old one and change the priority settings of the devices. As I watched them walking down the passage to the computer room, (all sleepy due to gaming till the early morning hours) I longed for those little boys who loved playing board games for hours with the entire family. Who are these monsters the internet created?
For the past 3 years computer gaming has become my pet peeve due to hours of fighting, day in and day out to control the internet usage and time wasted, which could have been better utilized. What happened to sitting for hours as a family playing the strategic game “Risk”? It got replaced by internet games, sure this must be most parent’s frustration and despair.
Let me take you on a trip to my families good old days of playing board games.
I started my kids at the age of about 18 months, playing different games to stimulate them and to keep them busy. Put in the peg, match the pictures and pick up sticks were played often to improve their fine motor and memory skills, Snakes and Ladders to help with counting and dice use.
When they got older we moved on to Scrabble to improve their vocabulary and spelling, Rummicub and battleship.
I used to love playing Chess with my dad as a teenager and were very happy when the kids school offered Chess classes from the age of 7. It helps them with concentration, memory, and teach them the concept of using strategies.
As teenagers, now able to think strategically, we added Monopoly and Risk. It was always great fun to watch the men play Risk for nearly the entire day, arguing and scheming, they even adjusted the rules so they could control the amount of time spent on the game.
There is nothing nicer, fun and more sociable than to pull out board games like Pictionary, and 30 Second when there is a huge group of people. Cluedo used to be our families old time favourite as you can dress up and roleplay it.
In a list challenge these were the Top 20 Ranked games:
Chess, Monopoly, Scrabble, Risk, Settlers of Catan, Clue, Ticket to Ride, Uno, Battleship (2012), Apples to Apples, Dominion, Puerto Rica, Yahtzee, Trivial Pursuit, Stratego, Checkers, Sorry, Agricola, Carcassonne, Pictionary, Pandemic.
As from today I have decided that we need to spend more time as a family playing board games again and start cutting our strings with technology. I hope there are some of you that feels the same and would join me in this New Year Resolution.
Clue is my favorite game!
Thanks for you input Chelseeyuhh. Hours of fun can be experienced playing this game. Have you ever played it where you get the role and have to dress up and role play?
No, but I want to!! I almost did that for my birthday one year, but I don't remember why I didn't go through with it.
Have you ever played Apples to Apples? It's not nearly as strategic as Clue, but it's fun with a big group. That's one of the games we play when family is in town.
I had a really good #chessmatch here.
I'll be holding a monopoly match very soon.
Thank you for sharing this link, the boys and I will look into it. Might challenge you for a match!
Great article! Even as someone who makes boardgames for a living, I still appreciate this reminder to take the time and play more games with the family!
Mmm that must be very interesting, challenging and creative. Jip, we all at some time or another loose focus on that which is most important, quality family time. Please share with us some of your games you enjoy and even introduce us to new ones. Thank you so much for your reply.
I loved playing chess too!
I see you speak in past tense, I hope you still take out that old board and challenge a friend or family member every now and again. It is good for the brain.
I used to play every day for a long time, now not so much! Last time when I played was 2 years ago!
So time to pull that board closer!
Enjoy your weekend!
Yes, I think is time! I wish you a great weekend!
I still love playing snakes and ladder but once in a while!
Lol, I love it. You will never get too old for Snakes and Ladders. I still love playing it too.
I love board games... I like to play original rules Monopoly... no free parking! I'm such a stickler for making Monopoly more competitive lol
We love adjusting the rules of board games to the time we have and just for pure fun. We are quite a competitive bunch and emotions can run very high especially playing Risk and Monopoly.
I'll have to admit here that I'm mostly an online gamer. I remember my mother thinking my brother and me were always alone, playing games in our rooms, never making friends. For me it was quite the opposite though. I could never make friends at school, as I was shy at first contact. In my online games though, I got to work past that and made many friends to talk to and even meet in real life! Heck, I even met my boyfriend during one of these games and we've been living together happily ever since! Depending on the game you might just learn some useful skills along the way aswell.
Ofcourse, there is still the benefit of family time while playing board games, which is also quite important! We played quite a bit of monopoly when I was younger, which was always a lot of fun. I think there should be some room for both forms of games :-)
Thank you for your input. My second oldest son said the same to me as he is also very much a loner. I just do not like the aggressive behavior I often notice after they have spent hours online gaming. The saying "Balance in all things" are accurate, have gaming time online but see to it that you spend some time with the family bonding.
Enjoy the gaming and I hope it will be a lovely weekend for you.
Yes, I think balance is the most important thing. Family time should not be overlooked either. And ofcourse aggressive behaviour is never a good thing.
Thank you, I wish you a lovely weekend aswell!
My mother told me today I'm a loner because I game a lot online, sitting at the table just now everyone seems to agree with the statement. So I guess I am the loner XD
Same here. There's nothing wrong with that. I only have a couple of close friends, but I think quality in this is much more important than quantity :-)
Besides, online games can hold friends too! For me, the nice thing about it is that I can easily power down. Too much social contact makes me so tired, so it's nice to be able to pull back whenever I can.
I have to agree with you there, I only have a few very close friends and I'm very close with my family members too. I find really nice and amazing friends online who share a lot in common with me and don't judge me for anything I do or say... unless I feed in league of legends :D but who wouldn't be a bit upset about that.
Oh my, I do try to avoid the venom being spewn in general chats online. It just shows the worst in people (though sometimes it's funny too).
I agree with you though, I find a lot of nice people online aswell and doing what you like means finding people who like the same things ^^