Does Anyone Play Board Games Anymore?

By: Mike Patrick Jr, Md


The number of entertainment options available to kids these days is mind-boggling. Playstation, X-Box, Nintendo DS, personal DVD players, the internet, iPods, cell phones--all of these compete for a child's attention, taking away time otherwise spent in physical activity and family functions. We all know the result of decreased physical activity. Childhood obesity is on the rise, bringing with it an increased number of kids with hypertension, elevated cholesterol, and type II diabetes. But what you may not have considered is the impact these electronic devices have on family time.

It's not just the kids' fault. Technology distracts many parents from family time as well. Moms and Dads can watch movies every night, thanks to home-delivered DVD services, like Netflix. They comfortably surf the internet hour upon hour with lightening fast broadband connections and they bring laptops home from the office to work on next week's presentation. And while these innovations are not inherently bad, sometimes we forget to temper our craving for technology with sensible moderation.

So the kids play their X-Box while their parents watch a movie or surf the net in a different room. How often does this scene play out in your house? You're not alone. We do it too. And why not? Everyone is happy. Nobody is arguing--well, maybe the kid's are arguing over the video game, but that's a discussion for a different day. The point is that it doesn't seem so wrong, really. And yet the family unit is weakened by a lack of good old fashioned bonding.

So what can we do about this? Well, spending more time as a family will certainly help. And I don't mean time spent watching the same DVD together. I'm talking about family activities. I'm talking about interaction and communication. Physical activities are good--touch football in the backyard, bowling on the local lanes, a round of miniature golf at the fun center.

Or you could revive one of my favorite childhood activities: family game night. Does anyone do this anymore? Give yourselves a good three or four hours, pop a big bowl of popcorn, and everyone choose a board game--no electronic ones please.

The old standards, games like Monopoly and Clue and Life, are still around. You can find updated versions that provide variety (Haunted Mansion Clue and Pirate Life for example), while others are packaged with vintage pieces in collectible tins. Dominoes are fun. Card games work. You could even try a lively game of charades or Pictionary.

Maybe you have a quirky game from your childhood collecting dust in the closet. The quirkiest one I remember was a board game called Fat-so. Each player had a big hollow plastic fat guy that snapped together at the belt line. His mouth was an open hole, just the right size to insert little wooden tokens that represented food. Players raced around the board, eating out at pizza places, ice cream stands, and doughnut shops. At the end of the game, whoever had eaten the most, won. See, I told you it was quirky. And while I certainly don't advocate this game as a lifestyle choice, I challenge you to find a quirky game that is as memorable. And that's what we're talking about--making memories.

I think the key to a successful family game night is to plan at least one a week. If you don't plan it, it won't happen. You forget. I forget. We all forget. But it's important, and I bet your kids, even if their first reaction is to complain about a family game night, will remember the event fondly in their adulthood. Why? Because interaction stands out. Sitting in a chair, staring at a screen for two hours, does not.

So the next time you're at the store, look through the game aisle and find something new. Schedule your night. Fix a special snack. Get everybody jazzed up for the event. Don't worry if there are grumblings in the beginning. You can bet as the weeks pass, with family game night entrenched as a regular occurrence, the grumblings will cease. Everyone will forget about their tech toys, at least for this one night. Your family will grow as a unit, and fond memories will be burned into each person's heart. So what are you waiting for? Go on. Give family game night a try!

Bring the Rain

I was reading over some scriptures this morning and came across Exodus 16:10 which reads,

And it came to pass, as Aaron spake unto the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and, behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.

That quote made me think of this song by Mercy Me, "Bring the Rain"



Remember, that there are times in our lives when we feel surrounded by dark clouds. But this scripture and this song reminds us that God can be in those hard times and we can bring Him glory in how we endure the rains.

Making Media Choices That Matter

Sometime around 1997 and 1998 I made a decision that would alter my life ever so slightly for the next ten plus years. I turned off my television. I didn’t get rid of it I simply canceled my cable service and stopped watching. I continued to rent movies at a rapid pace and with the money I wasn’t spending on cable service I even began to purchase some movies. But the television was gone.

This might not seem like such a big deal as there are a lot of people who don’t watch television for a myriad of reasons. What made it a big deal for me was that I had more than grown up with television my life was centered on television. I was in my twenties before I could no longer recite to the Thursday night lineup the included “The Cosby Show” or the lineup from years before that which included “The A-Team”. In 1983 my summer mornings did not consist of games of baseball in an old sandlot or explorations down by the creek. They consisted of Pat Sajak and The Wheel of Fortune, reruns of The Love Boat and Benson, and the Peter Tomarken hosted Press Your Luck. So to walk away from the television after twenty years of “marriage” was extreme.

In Disney’s 2000 movie “The Kid” the character of Rusty utters the quote, “Holy smokes... 99 channels and there's nothing on!” That is how I began to feel. An evening of television viewing became two hours of channel surfing. Never really watching all of anything but simply trying to watch part of everything. I could feel the brain cells rotting away by the truckload.

In 2000 (or 2001) my then fiancé and I made another media life changing decision; we made the decision to stop watching R-rated movies. We had chosen to put the counsel of the church leaders to the test. Would it make a difference if we did or did not watch R-rated movies? It did.
We became much more aware of the content of the movies and television programs that we watched.

Three or four years later we noticed another effect of our decision. In 2002 the Lord blessed our home and our marriage with two precious little souls to nurture. Because of our media entertainment choices prior to our children’s birth we had no cable on our television at home and so as our children got older and we started to introduce them to video entertainment their selections were what was available on PBS – Sesame Street, Cailou, etc. - and the few video tapes (and later DVDs) that we owned or checked out from the library. An amusing side effect of this was that once when our children were two or three and we visited my wife’s grandmother they chose to sit down and watch cartoons that they did not have access to in our home. The first commercial that came on was very irritating for my children because they wanted to know who had changed the channel. They had never seen a commercial before and had a difficult time comprehending the concept.

In an article in the November 2003 Liahona (“Let Our Voices Be Heard,” Liahona, Nov 2003, 16–19) M. Russell Ballard issued some warnings about the media choices we make everyday. He counseled that we should “choose wisely what we listen to and what we watch.” He further admonished, “The choices we make in media can be symbolic of the choices we make in life. Choosing the trendy, the titillating, the tawdry in the TV programs or movies we watch can cause us to end up, if we’re not careful, choosing the same things in the lives we live.”

In the news recently there has been much talk of individuals and families who have been focusing on not buying any products that were made in China. These consumers sometimes go to great lengths to obtain items that they desire to have. At times they even choose to go without certain things in order to stay true to the personal standards they have set. As faithful latter-day saints we too should be remaining true to our personal standards we should be choosing entertainment mediums that are uplifting, that are clean, and that help us stay focus on the gospel of Jesus Christ and that don’t leave the door open for Satan to weave his destructive web of immorality, innuendo, and deceit within the walls of our homes.

Children's Board Games - Are They Boring?

By Rachel Harding

Children today seem obsessed with technology and while I love gadgets and technology myself, with all the advantages that it can bring. I feel we have lost something when our children only play on computer games.

My 3 children each have a ds lite and I frequently see them all sitting on their own, playing on their individual games consoles. You see I am as much to blame as everyone else. When I was growing up, and yes that does make me sound old, I remember very little of my childhood which was not related to games, sitting around at Christmas for example with my family playing cards, trivial pursuits, monopoly etc. I believe playing games is the way for children to learn, they develop life skills by participating and interacting with others.

Turn-taking children's games are not only fun to play, they're educational on so many levels, including social and economical.

Kids learn about waiting to take a turn, winning and losing, along with co-operation and economics (with monopoly in mind and handling money), the whole time while they have fun. Games come in and out of fashion, and new games appear, whilst the classics get revamped year after year with new themes and are always popular.

Children's games are made to stretch the child's mind and even the parents sometimes, without frustrating the child and turning him or her off the game, thus making learning enjoyable. Most kids games are also quite fun to play with mum or dad, with family games being designed to be entertaining for both children and adults alike.

If you are looking for something to bring a family together, then you can't go far wrong with any sort of board game. Whilst playing it a family can often get lost inside the game for hours on end.

If you are stuck for what to buy a child as a present then you could do worse than buy a board game. I believe it is one of the best presents you can give, because they bring friends and family together and can provide more hours of fun than any book, DVD, or cd you can find. A board game is a team-building exercise (or team pulling apart exercise if you have been sat around our table on many a heated night) you cannot ignore. It is a way of exercising your mind and social skills are built.

If you sit and examine the rules and the layout of most games, they all have a common feature, you will see they reflect on everyday life. Whether we are playing snap with a game of cards which is teaching us turn taking for example, exercising the mind to keep it alert and helping with learning difficulties, matching numbers and pictures, or trivial pursuits with team building, knowledge learning and strategy development.

Quality educational games are so engaging for most people to play with; children rarely even know they are learning valuable skills, which makes this a fantastic way for them to learn, as information and skills learnt like this, in my opinion, stick in the mind much better than when rules and education is forced.

Today, children's games are well thought out, they are fun and compete well with the lure of the solitary video game, if only we give them the chance.

Rachel Harding is a qualified nurse and mum of 3. She has a great deal of expertise with children and offers valuable support and free resources including stories, forums, recipes, article's, gifts and books at => http://www.yourkidsshop.com

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