Family Unity Through Traditional Family Games

Do you desire more unity in your family, where adults, teenagers and younger children spend time together and enjoy each others company? Is the reality different to the dream?

Many families spend much of their weekend time going to a variety of sporting events, while television and the internet provide most of their weekly entertainment. With all these activities, there doesn't seem enough time to build family unity.

While our hearts may desire quality time with our children, this often occurs when we simply spend quantity time with them. Vacations and other special activities are good, but a weekly time of family togetherness can accomplish great things. Family games nights can fulfil this aim.

On a personal note, our family attempts to set apart every Wednesday night with a special meal followed by an hour or two of family games. We play many traditional games; some old favourites and some new ones. There are many commercial games such as Monopoly®, but there are so many simple games you can play with nothing more than a few dice or a deck of cards.

During one of our games nights we played Pig, a simple dice game that is suitable for all the family, using just one die. (The plural for die is dice.) Each player throws the die and adds their score for each throw until they choose to stop or until they throw a One. If they stop before they throw a One, they keep their score and add it to their score from any previous rounds, with the aim of being the first player to reach fifty points. However, a throw of One cancels their score for that round and ends their turn.

As we played, two of my sons developed very different strategies. One son chose to stop if he got to ten points in any round while another son would try to score 50 points every round. He often scored well over thirty points before crashing back to zero as he threw a One. We had so much fun watching them play that we chose to continue scoring to 100 points. (By the way, neither son won the game in the end!)

There are many activities which are good, but family games have the advantage of allowing the whole family, of all ages, to play together. Watching a young child beat an adult or teenager can provide a lot of fun and amusement. Life skills (such as counting, writing and recognising numbers) and social skills (such as conversation and team work) are a useful by-product of family games. Above all these is the family unity achieved as players enjoy each other's company. That's what family togetherness is all about.