So many of us grew up playing games.
My brother and I still talk about some of the games we played growing up, or send each other pics of games that pop up on those nostalgic 80s pages. Clearly, this is where my obsession with games started, and my love of cards, dice, and board games began to fester.
Growing up in the 80s was the blessing I didn’t know I needed. It was an incredible time to grow up. Let’s say that parental supervision was at a fraction of where it is now, and leave it at that.
When the days were warm, you were outside playing games until the sun went down. Kick the Can, Hide-and-Go-Seek, Graveyard, and Kickball, to name a few. When the weather was less than desirable, we were inside playing games. We were big into PayDay, Life, Rummy, Dominoes, Scrabble, Uno, and Monopoly. Not sure I ever won at Monopoly, and it could be one of the reasons it’s not a favorite today.
When we got together with our cousins, we played lots of cards using toothpicks, matchbooks, or peanuts as our bets. When we visited friends, we were excited to play the games they had that we didn’t. I remember my friend had Mousetrap, a game with intricate moving parts that I loved to play. It was the challenge of something new and different, and always filled with laughs.
Board games are the ties that can bind multigenerational crowds together.
Our family has spent countless hours on vacation playing Uno with Grandpa and Grandma. Blank Slate and Scattergories are also great games to play when you have multiple generations. We have learned so much more about each other through games.
With my oldest returning from college over the holiday break, we took the opportunity to clean out our “play” closet. We rediscovered some old favorites and played a ton of games as a family. (We also purged a ton of games to be passed forward for others to enjoy.)
It is really joyful for me to have my entire family sitting around a table for hours playing games.
In my professional life, I had the privilege of playing games with kids regularly. I could choose games to target a child’s specific strengths or weaknesses, helping build their skills without them realizing they are working. Memory, Hi Ho Cherry-O, Animal Charades, and Guess Who are among my favorites. Games teach young children the art of waiting their turn, of winning and losing, and of all the rules and parameters in between. Best of all, they are fun!
