50 Reasons to Start a Family Game Night
Posted by Shana Albert on February 4th 2009 in Kids Activities
Our lives are super busy today. Parents tend to work long hours and in most households both parents have to work outside the home. Parents have to come home from a stressful day of work and help their kids with homework, make dinners, take their children to after school activities, bathe the children and put them to bed. After the children go to bed this is the first chance that many parents have had a chance to unwind.
Kids lives are not much easier. They have a busy day at school, come home to homework and after school activities. What little extra time they have before bed they like to get a little bit of fun which tends to be with video games and computers.
Technology doesn’t necessarily work in our favor for quality time with the kids as the things that make our lives easier also take our time away from each other. Cell phones, computers,texting, emails and the rest of the outside world tends to sabotage our precious family time.
I’m here to show you how a weekly Family Game Night can bring your family back together. Dedicating an entire night to your children is an easy and inexpensive way to enjoy time with your children. So without further ado…
50 Reasons to Start a Family Game Night
Academic Benefits of a Family Game Night
Here are some wonderful things playing games with your children can teach them:
- Math Skills
- Vocabulary
- Colors
- Strategy
- Problem Solving
- Money Skills
- Hand / Eye Coordination
- Counting
- Shapes
- Deductive Reasoning Skills
- Sorting Skills
- Reading Skills
- Logic
- Taking Notices
- Spelling
Social & Mental Benefits of a Family Game Night
And, there are also Mental and Social Skills that Family Games can help with:
- Healthy Competition and Sportsmanship
- Communication
- Cooperation
- Teamwork
- Patience
- Learning to accept the consequences of their choices
- Following Rules
- Honesty
- Taking Turns
- Perseverance
- Healthy Family Relationships
- Heart-to-Heart Talks – Over time the children will realize that this time is devoted to them. This realization will bring on natural openness and heart-to-heart talks.
- Learn how to “turn off” the outside world.
- Self Confidence
- Concentration
- Stress Relief
- Sense of Belonging
- Sharpen minds…. good for adult health too.
- Create Memories
- Higher Self Esteem
The Other Benefits of a Family Game Night
- Family Fun
- Family Bonding
- Family Smiles
- Family Laughter
- Improvisation – Acting and Speaking Skills
- Adventures
- Silliness
- Quality time…. before you know it the kids will be out of the house.
- Games takes the pressure off of having to “force” conversation
- Brings the family closer together
- Creates a Family Tradition – Weekly / monthly family game nights cause anticipation and excitement gaining up to the family game night….. this is something the kids can count on.
- A way to improve your relationship with your children.
- Face-to-Face Family Time – No staring into a TV or Computer Screen.
- Life Learning Lessons
- Brings back “Old School” form of entertainment.
Grabbing a deck of cards and playing Crazy Eights or a simple game of Charades with the entire family for one evening a week will not only bring on tons of joy and laughter, but it is bound to start conversations and memories that will last a lifetime.
Keep an eye out for a future post on Family Game Night. I will get into more details on the specifics of Family Game Night. Such as….
- What games should be played
- How to include all family members…. from the youngest to the oldest.
- How long should it be
- Example of a Family Game Night
Photo by Windy Angels
*I am not child psychologist/child development expert, but the above opinions come from my experiences from being a mother.
February 8th, 2009 at 7:53 am
Game night.. how novel of an idea. However, one night of frivolity isn’t going to cut the mustard as it were. Kids need and want to know that you care about them, and their lives, including their daily happenings. Although a drawn out discourse on how Emily got mad at David for looking at Susan, or how seemingly insignificant a lost favorite pencil tirade can be, we need to be interested. Ask questions! Not just lame ones such as ” what did you do at school today”? By paying attention to them, they will go to us when they have problems, or need attention. If we elect, however to brow-beat them all the time, we will loose them. NEVER act like something that is seemingly “nothing” to us should be nothing to them. They have feelings just as important as ours. Remember, they couldnt care a hoot about how our boss is a over bearing egomaniac.
February 9th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
@Jim Bless – I totally agree that one Family Game Night isn’t all it takes to bring up happy children. You are right that we should make a point everyday to tell our children we love them, make sure to praise them when they do things well and be the structured figure that reminds them what the right thing to do was when they choose the wrong one. You are absolutely right that we should make time for plenty of quality time and communication everyday with our children. The point of this post was not to take away from these everyday important moments that are important as a parent and child, but to offer ideas for a weekly game night to devote an entire night to our children with no other interruptions…. just pure fun, laughter and bonding. A weekly or monthly get together of pure fun I believe would just enhance the regular quality time you are spending with your children on a daily basis.
Thank you so much for your comment, Jim.
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:47 am
[...] my last post I explained why you should be having a Family Game Night at your house. But, now what? What is the next [...]
August 17th, 2009 at 10:48 am
[...] sure there are many other benefits to spending quality time with your family, but you get the idea. The returns on this investment are [...]
April 19th, 2010 at 10:23 am
Jim needs to get off his high horse. These tips for family game night are not intended as a substitute for parenting. Anyone with common sense can figure that out.