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Growing up in a family of two girls our days were filled with Barbies, princess games and dress-up – the kind that involved make-up and new hairstyles. Sure, we had blocks and sports equipment and other toys but, it was a decidedly “girly” household. Think pink.

Evenings, at least once a week in the winter were family game time. I recall those days fondly. As the oldest daughter, I think I won more than my share of the time and so enjoyed those evenings of Monopoly, Life and Landslide, an old Parker Brothers game in which up to four players aim to obtain as many electoral votes as they can and win the presidency. Sounds like it could be fun to play again this year… but I digress.

In addition to these traditional family games we also played Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit and the classic girl’s game: Mystery Date . Never did we play games that involved soldiers or battles or well, boy stuff.

And so it is a new experience for me to sit down and play board games with my husband and our only child, our son. Now that he is almost six, rather than a rousing game of Candyland or Chutes and Ladders he prefers Stratego and… I always lose. Since he is a bit young for the game, my husband and he form a team and play against me, and I am notoriously bad at this game.

I admit, I never did learn how to play chess very well and perhaps that is part of the problem. I hesitate to attack and when I do, I usually end up exploding a bomb with one of my most valuable players. When I resolve to play defense, I forget which pieces can take which attackers and end up losing then too.

I’m sure my appalling lack of skill at this game has something to do with my lack of experience but perhaps it’s also my inability to relate to the premise. We’ve been playing this every other night for a week or so and, while I am getting a bit better, so is my son. Soon, I believe I will be relegated to the sidelines to watch him and my husband play.

Oh well, there’s always Battleship and Risk. I wonder if I’ll be any better at those games.

by MC Milker

[tags]kids, children, parents, parenting, boys, girls, games, Stratego, Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, learning, flexibility, growth[/tags]
Photo graciously provided by Christine (bpc), through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved