Breeding a Love of Board Games

I’m an avid gamer. So, with my own children, I launched a concerted and sustained effort to impart my love of board and card games. I wanted to make them into good gamers. That effort has yielded spectacular results. Here is my proven system for getting the most out of playing games with children.

Start Early

You can start very early. As soon as my kids could speak we were playing games. At age 2 we got plastic holders that little hands could use to hold a hand of cards. We played many games of Loot and other simple games.

Early on, you’re really just introducing the concepts. Wait for your turn. Take your turn. Participate in a structured activity. Understanding the concepts of rules and restrictions. You don’t need to worry about strategy or who’s winning. That’ll come soon enough. Start by getting them used to playing games, participating, and having fun.

Don’t Emphasize Winning and Losing

Playing games means winning games and losing games. Playing lots of games means winning a lot and losing a lot. These things should be treated as inevitable parts of playing games for everyone. The important thing is not the winning or the losing but that you have fun playing. Like so many things, you’re better off modeling this truth than explaining it.

Have fun playing. Get in character. Provide color commentary. Praise the clever play. Recognize when you’ve been outmaneuvered. Engage in some good-spirited gloating when they’ve fallen into your trap. Cherish the tension of the tight game when the outcome hangs in the balance.

When it’s over, you can acknowledge who won and who lost. But it should almost be an afterthought. The play's the thing.

Games should be fun. Part of making a game fun is being gracious in victory or defeat. For children who have trouble with either, make it clear that good sportsmanship is a requirement. If they want to play games with you, they need to do their part to make the game fun for everyone during and after the game.

Play to Win. But Level the Field.

When I taught my kids to play chess I started by taking away my own rooks and my queen. Then I played to win. Early on, I taught them useful lessons about protecting your pieces and the power of a promoted pawn. It wasn't long before I really needed to be in top form or a blundered move would cost me the game. Soon after that I was reintroducing my pieces to avoid certain defeat. When my son reached kindergarten he became a competitive member of the 5th grade chess club.

Kids should earn their victories. But playing games where they are at a huge disadvantage isn't fun for anyone. Start by choosing games that involve a lot of luck, or that rely on skills like pattern recognition, or memory - where adults don’t have a clear advantage. When you go for the strategy game, stack the odds in their favor to make sure your victories are well-earned as well.

Don’t Explain the Rules

With most adults it’s considered unfair to start a new game until everyone is familiar with all aspects of the rules. Often this will lead to lots of context-free explanation of arcane and unfamiliar systems. This often concludes with an agreement to “just start playing and figure it out as we go”.

With kids your best bet is to skip to the just-start-playing part. Give an overview of the point and very basics of the game. Then deal out the cards. Go first. Play with an open hand. Explain what you’re doing, and why, as you do it. When it’s the next player’s turn, explain their options. But let them make their own choices. Until everyone gets the hang of it, don’t worry about optimal plays and good strategy. Make a “bad” play if it helps introduce a new rule. Your focus is on getting players to understand the game. Dive in, and have fun. Cutthroat can come later.

Come Prepared

If you’ll be introducing a new game, make sure you come to the table prepared. Read the rules. Make sure you understand them. Think about how you’ll be teaching the players to play.

If a question comes up during the game, you can spend a few seconds looking it up in the rules. But if you don’t find it quickly, make a ruling. You can come up with your ruling by consensus, by your best guess off the designer’s intention, or by giving the younger player the benefit of the doubt. But make a decision. After the game you can look up the real rule (returning to the rulebook or looking it up online). Make sure to explain if you ruled incorrectly and how you’ll handle it next time.

If you’re less comfortable with your own game-design skills then stick with the rulebook. But experienced gamers can consider modifying games for younger players. Many games can streamlined, simplified, or rebalanced to make it a better game to play with little kids. If you’re going to do that, make your modifications beforehand, and explain any changes to players before you begin.

Choose New Games

Monopoly is not a good game. Chutes and Ladders is not good. Battleship is OK. Clue has some really clever bits and some pointless, tedious bits. Stratego is still great.

Over the last 15 years or so there has been a renaissance in board and card game design. There are now ridiculous numbers of games you can choose from. There are game appropriate for every taste and age group. Game designers have learned a lot of lessons about the different means and mechanics to create a fun experience. There are more games available today. There are better games available today.

Check with your friendly local game store for suggestions. Here are a few of mine:

Loot by Gamewright. - Loot is my-all-time favorite game to introduce to little kids. It’s got simple rules, fun artwork, a jolly pirate theme, supports most any number of players, and has enough depth to make it fun for all ages. The publisher GameWright is also my favorite publisher of games for kids and their catalog is good pace to look if you’re looking for a new game.

Survive: Escape from Atlantis! by Stronghold Games :  The object of Survive is have member your little tribe escape on the last boats from an ever-shrinking island. You want strand your opponents in the hopes that the ground will disappear beneath their feet and you can send sharks to devour their little people. Good family fun for all ages.

Forbidden Island - Gamewright again! Another game about about escaping from a sinking island. Unlike the cutthroat Survive, Forbidden Island is a cooperative game. Everyone is working together to escape with the loot and their lives. Co-op games can also be a great way to play games with kids. The trick is to work together while still letting younger players makes their own choices rather than playing the game for them.

Villains and Vigilantes Card Game - Superhuman Games - Ok. Villains and Vigilantes isn’t really designed for young children. It was designed by me. My kids were the lead playtesters and really enjoy it. But it is a “gamer’s game”. When you’re ready for some superheroic action, with a little complexity, check it out.

Be Careful What You Wish For

These days it seems like every room in our house is overrun with gaming paraphernalia. Dinner-time conversation inevitably revolves around the merits of some obscure card. Our Sunday afternoons are spent at Magic: the Gathering tournaments. “Dad. Do you want to play a game of something?” is a constant refrain. I don’t get together with my friends as much since I get more than enough gaming at home.

Once the seed is planted it may grow beyond your control. Enjoy.

Children of the 21st Century

One casualty of our municipal budget cuts this year is going to be the elementary school computer program. These children of the 21st century will grow up in a world that is ever more divided between the technological haves and the have-nots. The personal computer, and its high-tech spawn, will be central to much of what they do throughout their lives on whatever paths they happen to take. In their wisdom, during the annual belt tightening, this is what our public servants decided to cut. The computers.

I'm ok with that.

My kids are plenty familiar with computers. And they didn't learn it at school. Each school day already starts with me yelling at them to get off the computer because we're going to be late for school. Presumably the curriculum is more edifying than learning how to level-up your Vanquisher in anticipation of her inevitable confrontation with Ordrak. They may skip extended lessons on the proper flora for warding off back-yard zombie infestation. Still, I'm not sure what they are learning in computer class.

Isaac and Leo have grown up with mouse in hand. They're unsure what the "chan" button on the TV remote is for. The telephone eludes their understanding. We can blame the parents for that. They are comfortable with watching shows on iTunes and the subtleties of NetFlix streaming.

The virtues of the computer were discovered early. The pace of exploration has been rapid. My kids were quick to discover the endless video bounty of Star Wars, Lego, and Lego minfigs enacting scenes from Star Wars that awaited them on the internet.

There are hazards of childhood internet exploration. "Eat plasma you stuck up bitch!" - made a surprise appearance during a kindergarten-era game. We had a talk. Our concern isn't that they can't navigate the computer. It's that they can.

Mattea Louise Swainbank

We had a daughter. Mattea was born prematurely, on September 11, 1999. She weighed 1 lbs. 13 oz. She died seven weeks later on Nov. 4.

Here is what I wrote for her memorial service:

One of the things that saddens us about Mattea’s death coming so soon is that so many of the people who have loved and supported us never even had the opportunity to meet our little girl.


And even for many of those who did get to see her, their meeting was for only a few fleeting moments during the hectic first days of her life.


As a result, relatively few members of our friends and family really got to spend time with Mattea and get to know her as we did.


For those people who didn’t have the opportunity to know her, her story might be viewed, in large part, as a series of crises and distressing events…


We learned Christine was pregnant in a hospital emergency room.


We discovered we would be having twins only to learn we would be losing one.


We mourned the passing of this child we would never know, even as we prepared to welcome the other one into our lives and into our hearts.


And our preparation was cut short by Christine’s sudden illness. In the course of an afternoon little Mattea came to be with us.


And… after only 54 days she was taken away.


Throughout this we’ve experienced a lot of sadness, a lot of pain, and a lot of grief.




But, for those of us who were able to spend the time, and to experience life with Mattea, all the sorrow and all the hardship is overshadowed by the joy she brought to our lives.


I think, in part, because so few people got to know our little girl as we did, we feel its important to share what she was like. So that everyone might get to know her a little, even as we say goodbye.

Life with Mattea was series of small, daily, triumphs.


I felt so proud to see her coming off of a ventilator or take a little more of her mother’s milk than the day before.


It was a pleasure to watch her grow stronger and larger, to mature in her body and mind.


It was miracle to hold her to my chest, flesh to flesh, so small and fragile, and hear her emit her tiny cry, until she was nestled and comfortable. Then she would grow silent and rest so peacefully in my hands.


We loved to celebrate in the daily gain of a few grams. Another day of health, a day that would bring her one day closer to coming home.


It was a joy to watch her sleeping. Mattea’s world was one of busy nurses rushing by, and warning buzzers going off all around. But it was nice to watch her sleeping so peacefully through it all, so calm, so innocent, gathering her strength for her central task of getting stronger every day.


But the truly special times were when we caught her while she was awake.


It was wonderful to see her open those big clear eyes and look out at the world. I’ll never forget staring into those eyes and seeing them stare back. So innocent, so at ease, so bright.


It was during those times that she truly had us in her spell. I remember times when we just stopped by the hospital to see her, on our way to a movie, or on my way to work in the morning. And I'd see those eyes. And that would be it. We didn’t make it to that movie and work would just have to wait until Mattea got tired, and closed those eyes to sleep.


She was so eager to try and understand this great big world, that she was so suddenly thrust into, and that was so quickly taken away.


It’s hard when you lose someone that you were planning to have with you as part of your entire life.


We loved the little baby that she was. And we also loved the idea of the little girl that she would be.


We envisioned summer afternoons lying in the grass in the park by the water, with all the flowers.


We started referring to the local elementary school as Mattea’s school.


We tested the new equipment on the local playground to see if Mattea would like playing there.


We loved our baby. We loved the little girl she would grow into. We loved the woman she would one day become.


And now we say goodbye. Goodbye Mattea.


Thank you for the joy you brought to our lives.


We will never forget you.

Mattea's service took place at the congregational church in Lebanon. It was our family church growing up, but I had never attended services regularly or enthusiastically. They opened their doors to us, and the church was packed. Hundreds of friends, family, congregants, and colleagues packed the pews and filled the balcony. They came to support us and to say goodbye to a little girl few of them had ever even seen and whom none of us would ever know. The love and support we received that day is a kindness I will never forget.

Now, 10 years later, there are friends who know us well but don't know about Mattea. It's not a secret. But it's not a detail you ever drop on a conversation. Mattea was my first real experience with loss and grief. But, inevitably, not the last. A year after Mattea we would say goodbye to J.P. Plumez at his beautiful, bittersweet wedding at the Guggenheim, a week before he finally succumbed to Hodgkin's disease. This spring we suddenly lost Gavin Symes, another close friend. Again we felt the loss of someone we thought would be in our lives forever.

I was 27 years old when we had Mattea. Most of our friends were not married yet, much less having children. We had had and lost a child. Over the years, many friends have started their own families and too many have experienced difficult pregnancies and miscarriages, the sorrow of crushed expectations, and the grief of losing a child you'll never know. These experiences are bitter reminders that as much as we feel we are in control of our lives, the beginnings and the ends are beyond our reach.

After Mattea, Christine and I didn't turn on or away from each other. We turned to each other for strength and support. From Mattea we learned the instant and powerful pull that your children have on you. We learned that we wanted to be parents. We had been through the worst and felt we were ready for, wanted to have, everything else. The doctors told us not to worry, but that we might want to wait. We waited. Or thought we waited. We measured our wait in days. Eight and a half months after Mattea's death, Isaac was born (also premature).

Now "Mattea's school" is Isaac and Leo's school. Our boys have grown up with pictures of their (big? little?) sister. Together, we pay regular visits to her gravestone. Mattea's stone is in a cemetery near us, across a narrow strip of water from the school where her brothers go now, where she would have gone. If you go during the day you can hear the children running, screaming, and playing. When I visit the cemetery I try to remember who she was. I imagine who she might be now. Mostly, I ask her to look after us and to watch over her brothers. Given what she was and what I believe, I find it odd that I imagine her to have that power. But I do. And I take comfort in it.

It's been 10 years. Good years. Happy years. These days the trips to the cemetery are less regular. In the busy business of day-to-day, thoughts of Mattea are less frequent. At times an a innocent question, and stray image, or an overblown bit of rhetoric will touch a trigger, and bring back of wave of melancholy memories. I'm grateful for those memories. I try to stop and spend some time with them when they come.