Tomorrow marks the day that my precious, intelligent, beautiful, tiny, angel, baby girl turns two years old. People may be wondering how in the heck do we still have time to play games everyday so far this year. I can honestly tell you that at times it has been rough getting in a game or two with having our energetic child around. Often, we are getting play in while she takes an afternoon nap (if she does take one and we don’t take one too) or after we put her down for bed at night. The important part is that my wife and I make the time to spend together and do things for ourselves.
When we have friends and family over for game days, we do allow our child to socialize as much as possible with everyone. Often, she would just sit with us and “help” whoever she is with to take a turn in the game. As mentioned in previous entries, she has her own cards and dice that she plays with on her own while we play our games. If our daughter is wide awake when we play, we automatically anticipate the game to take twice as long as the maximum estimated length of time noted on the box. Yes, it would be nice to play at “regular speed” so we can get multiple games in but for us, one game is better than leaving a game unfinished (we never leave a game unfinished).
That is how we deal with our daughter when we play; so how do we get her to play games? Well, we have slowly introduced her to some basic games and have a handful of HABA games too. When we play with some of her toys, like a wooden fishing pole with a magnet on the end to “catch” sea creatures, we end up making a game out of it that she wants to play over and over. Because she recognizes and can point to different colors, the game you see in the following picture is one that we play that gets her participating more in the hobby.
At one point in the past few months I did come across another blog that caught my eye that was written in 2019 which discusses what the author and her husband do to help their younger children play and learn games (according to their about us they have five kids). I normally would not share a direct link to another site but I feel this one is definitely worth sharing… Tips for Gaming with Toddlers - The Tabletop Family. I do plan to look more in what Adam and Kelsey have written on their site since my initial scan has shown that we have some of the same games.
To conclude this short article (so I can go and enjoy my daughter’s birthday party today), for me the key in dealing with board gaming and toddlers and/or young children is that you should never, ever, just put them “out to pasture” while you play. Let them be a part of the action and help in whatever little way they can. Sometimes they will stay longer to be with the group but more often than not, they will be on their merry way and do their own thing after spending a little time with you. And as for teaching them new games, just have patience, let them try their best and encourage them throughout the learning process. And trust me, you will be amazed with how quickly young children pick up on new concepts.
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