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.

Enjoy the board games!!!

Keep smiling, reading, writing and voting!!!