Family Games for Family Togetherness Posted By : Andrew Low
July 6th, 2009Do you desire more unity in your family, where adults, teenagers and younger children spend time together and enjoy each others company? Is the reality different to the dream?
When you consider the busy-ness of most families, with work and school commitments followed by sports activities on weekends and after school activities, there doesn’t seem to be much time left for building healthy and strong family relationships.
While our hearts may desire quality time with our children, this often occurs when we simply spend quantity time with them. Vacations and other special activities are good, but a weekly time of family togetherness can accomplish great things. Family games nights can fulfil this aim.
As an example, our family sets Wednesday nights as a family games night. We have a special meal and then play games for an hour or two. While there are many commercial games you can purchase, such as Monopoly®, you could also play a different game every week for a year using nothing more than a handful of dice and a deck of cards. We like to play some favourite games and also try some new ones.
Earlier this year, we played a simple game for the whole family which only used one die (you have one die but two or more dice). The aim of Pig is to be the first player to reach fifty points, and it can be played by any number of players. A player throws the die and adds the number of spots shown, throwing again and again until they either throw a One or decide to end their turn. A player who decides to end their turn keeps their score and can add to it next turn. Anyone who throws a One cancels their score for that round.
It was very amusing to see the different strategies of two of my sons. One played carefully and stopped if he got to ten points in a round while the other tried to score the full fifty points in every round. He would often score over thirty points before throwing a One and crashing back to zero for that round. We had so much fun watching them that we decided to continue to 100 points. At the end of the game, neither son actually won!
There are many activities which are good, but family games have the advantage of allowing the whole family, of all ages, to play together. Watching a young child beat an adult or teenager can provide a lot of fun and amusement. Life skills (such as counting, writing and recognising numbers) and social skills (such as conversation and team work) are a useful by-product of family games. Above all these is the family unity achieved as players enjoy each other’s company. That’s what family togetherness is all about.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.