In the Solitude of ‘The Anti-Social Century’ Board Games Bring Families Together
Tis the season for thinking about resolutions, but my family of four has a long-standing promise that delivers fun all year long. It’s obvious that I’ll never be as interesting as YouTube, so I had to eliminate that competition with a ‘no devices at the table’ rule. Thanks to Cauldron Quest, Mantis, and other board games, my family creates our own fun.
Both my daughters are on team gymnastics. My 13-year-old plays school basketball and runs for a club team. My 11-year-old also does cheer. We have a color-coded “big board” in our kitchen mapping out who is going where each night of the week, so we don’t always get to sit down and eat together. Sometimes it’s not until 7:30 pm, but we do try to sit down for a family dinner at least twice a week, and we always have a pile of games to choose from.
No games are Taboo, except maybe Uno–definitely not that Happy Salmon! Without fail, one of my two girls will take the lead on setting up the game, and inevitably, by the time we’ve made it through our meal and crowned a winner, one of the two of them is asking for another round. I love that our dinner time ritual leaves them longing for more, and I’m not battling to pry my daughters away from their devices.
Most nights of the week, my husband and I divide and conquer to get our girls to gymnastics, basketball, cheer, and track. We both work full time and try to make time for exercise. Time is a very coveted yet limited resource, and it's one that easily slips through our hands if we spend too long thinking about the chaos of our lives.
While some people change out the decorations on their dining room tables to fit the season or the holiday, our centerpiece changes between an Upwards board or the cardboard layout of a murder mystery mansion. Our passion for playing games while dining has inspired my parents to do the same. Every time we discover a new board or card game, it becomes a gift we give to Grammy and Grampy. It took my dad a while to warm up to Rumikub, but eventually he allowed it into their evening rotation.
Playing games together keeps us present, even if only for an hour a couple nights a week. And, sure, there are some times when I have to ask, “Can you put your phone away?” but most often it’s my daughter who is asking, “Clue or Yatzee?”
We tend to get hooked on a particular game for weeks at a time, although our Yatzee addiction was pretty hard core and lasted for several months. Yes, there was a time when I had a bag in my purse with five dice, hour pens, and some Yatzee! score cards that traveled with us to restaurants. However, we do have a cabinet full of different games that we cycle through, and right now we are hooked on Clue.
Board games aren’t the only guests invited to join us at the table, though we’ve learned that card games are a little bit tricky on taco Tuesday. Often there’s laughter, sometimes there are snarky barbs, occasionally there are arguments. But in all of these scenarios, we are interacting with each other, expressing emotions, and engaging as a family.
What I love most, is that it’s an activity that my daughters cherish, which makes it an easy resolution to make year over year. Instead of having arguments over phones and earbuds, they argue over who gets to be Miss Scarlet.