Plea to parents: Introducing children to the abstract concept of games

[Dr_Games]

Hi Carl, I've been doing intergenerational gaming for a while and have some suggestions.

There are some ideas and concerns posted on my WWW site at

http://www.drgames.org

in the seminars section.

One of the ways that I have found helpful is to do gateway games like the storytelling game, "Once Upon a Time" from Atlas Games.

In service,

Rich

 

[PatrickLawinger]

There are a variety of things you can do that aren't competitive. Drawing, coloring, imagination-based games, etc. These are all appropriate for 2 1/2 year olds.

In general, board games of all sorts have winners and losers. Sorry, that is the way they are designed. The whole point of games like this is the challenge of trying to win. If you can't "lose" there is no challenge and I can pretty much guarantee that the game is going to be a dud.

I do not shelter my children from "losing" games. Sometimes losing a game has far more important character building consequences than winning.

Patrick

 

[reveal]

My son is 3.5 and we bought him both Candyland and Chutes n Ladders at the same time. CnL was a little too complex for him because he had a hard time focusing and counting the squares. And the concept of going from left to right back to right to left confused him.

Candyland, on the other hand, is his favorite game. He picked it up right away and loves to play with us. He flies his little guy instead and moving him and we always read the story in the box before putting it away. At first, he hated to lose. But he won the next time we played. Basically, we just let it happen, win or lose, and he's fine with it. When he wins, he's really happy. When he loses, he tells us "Good job mommy/daddy."

 

[CarlZog]

Thanks to those of you who offered the specific suggestions I asked for. Family Pastimes looks like it has just the kind of stuff I'm looking for. Hi Ho Cherry-O and a few others will definitely be on my list as well.

As for the competition comments, the parents are highly competitive and have NO hangups about winning and losing. They just want to be able to tackle one set of concepts at a time. The twins constantly look out for each other, and introducing competition -- especially between them -- is going to be a tough one for them to get a handle on at this point, and would distract from teaching some of the other basics of games -- turns, rules, counting, movement, etc. That's all.

Carl