Family Game Night

Playing Risk with our second son is like playing it with my Dad. Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about (at least 1/3 of my readership possibly?). He quite obviously does not have an issue with attention span. Those of us struggling with a deficit in attention sometimes struggle with these strategy games, such as Chess, Monopoly, or Risk. We just can’t see past the next couple of turns (or past the current one really). He was ruthless. Bedtime came right about the time he acquired a large number of armies. Most of us left the table to get things prepared for tomorrow, but his little brothers were quite happy to roll for brother #1, my Honey and myself. He really cleaned up. A real world power. At the end of the game the only pieces on the board were his and his father’s and one of mine. All of his brother’s cheerful little yellow blocks had been removed from the board. “I destroyed him” he said with a gleam in his eye. Part of me was proud of my little superpower. Another part of me was struggling with memories of my Daddy’s world domination.
We love playing games in our house. Game night provides great opportunities for learning. Team work, good sportsmanship, planning. Math, reading, and anything you can find in a trivia game. Plus it’s so much fun! We talk, we smile, we laugh. We interact like a normal, functional family! Any differences we had during the day take a back seat to making memories that will last a lifetime. “Hey, remember that time we all tried to stop you from destroying us at Risk? It didn’t work, but it was fun!”