I love playing board games with my kids, gets them away from anything digital: nintendo’s, ipads or tv stuff.
And hey having a 8 year old thinking about his Stratego setup, is a good thing!
And hey having a 8 year old thinking about his Stratego setup, is a good thing!
This is why I'm addicting to playing (and designing) board games. You get to learn how to think in a different way for awhile. So much fun.
I showed my friend group and we got bored of the base game very quickly, so we started modifying it and making custom versions. We had a double-wide version (just a hand drawn grid hanging off the side and custom pieces made out of cardboard and stickytape), rivers, boulders, tanks (2x1 pieces), 1v1v1, custom scenarios, etc.
We eventually moved on to HeroQuest and then discovered Warhammer (but couldn't afford it so we used to play our own DIY version with LEGO and dice).
Those rapid prototyping and iteration skills I learned at an early age massively helped me in life and they're used daily in my role as an Infra/Ops Engineer.
I also have a published board game (and hopefully more to come)!
Link that stuff up! (Assuming you don't mind being associated with it here.)
They are now 8, 6 and 4, and none of them wants to lose. It always ends up with someone crying, sometimes with all of them crying (including the winner).
For other parents who have the same issue: I was able to "fix" this situation by declaring the winner as the person who is able to take defeat without crying. After that I mostly can declare all of them winners. Sometimes I'm able to end the game nicely like that.
Just saying that playing a board game with small kids is not always as easy as your imagine it to be.
EDIT: One more thing: there are some nice co-op games for kids, and with those I never have a problem. A real recommendation!
In this case, they won't get anything out of crying, so I guess it is purely out of frustration.
A lot of times, the winner also enjoys rubbing it in, and making the others cry. Kids have all the survival emotions, and none of the social skills to hold back on them. But that's probably our job as a parent, to teach them the social skills.
Better they learn it now, that when that colleague got that manager job they thought they were entitled to.
Which are some of those co-op games?
Forbidden Island (or Forbidden Desert, they're similar)
The Dresden Files deck building game
At least, this believe is my only reason for playing certain games with my kids like Snakes-and-Ladders. I fail to recognize them as actual games because there are practically no decisions to be made. With most games, I can let my kids win by making stupid decisions. With Snakes there is no such option. The dice can force me to win and my kids have to deal with losing.
Anyway monopoly makes people of all ages and different sorts want to cry.
There's a desert version as well where you build a ship, which is fun no matter the age.
They were astonished when they played with their cousins (whom they like a lot) and the cousins started to cry when they lost. Mine told them that they (the cousins) can "take the victory" if they want cause this is just a game.
The answer is that as a teenager, we didn't have mobile phones etc (or well, barely) and we resorted to physical games such as card games. And as a kid, it was part of being friends with schoolmates, or (as you put it) playing with my parents. So we were already enforced, pretty much, being in physical space, overcome out boredom, and bended that to pleasure in such a way that we enjoyed being with each other.
The point being, that these games are still solid for youth and parents playing with youth. Heck, its partly even my problem that I don't initialise card games on a birthday.
Being autistic and opposite sex of my kid poses challenges though. Its still a long way down the road but while teaching them to become competitive in games and learning to win and lose seems invaluable, with a girl I'm inclined to not bother with violence or war-theme (or WWII) games. There's tons of these available, but it does pose limitations.
We regularly invite some friends for a "game evening" not "just because". Have dinner together, bring the small kids to bed, then have a round of Dominion, Alhambra, whatever.
That does not work for long games like Axis & Allies, because you would need a whole day, though. Fortunately, there are plenty of shorter games as well.