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Isn’t The Family Gamers Podcast always about families? Yes, but we’re doing a special focus on different ages this week, as a sort of retrospective over the last ten years.

00:00 Fact for 400

Factopia! Follow the Trail of 400 Facts
https://shop.merriam-webster.com/products/factopia

Sponsor Message

First Move has been our sponsor since episode 175! We really appreciate their partnering with us.

If you need help finding some “bonus points” and seeing which areas of your personal finance you should be focusing on, visit firstmovefinancial.com/familygamers to schedule a time to talk to First Move – for free!

03:45 What We’ve Been Playing

Canvas Critters (coming to crowdfunding soon – from 3WS and Katia Howatson)
Unmatched: Battle of Legends volume 3 (Blackbeard vs. Loki)
Micro Macro Kids: Crazy City Park (review linked below)
Royal Visit – making it work in a small space, as we imagined all the way back in episode 278.
Toriki: The Castaway Island
Floristry (our review) “the perfect date game”
Hutan: Life in the Rainforest – played solo. But now also available on Board Game Arena!

18:10 The Family Gamers Community

We just passed 1000 members in the community. Thanks for sticking with us!

Giveaway Winners: Seth (Avant Carde) and Candice (Avatar the Last Airbender: Aang’s Destiny)

Backtalk: Room to Grow

We asked what you’d like to see in a future Room to Grow series. Thanks for the responses on Discord!

24:00 SNAP Review – Micro Macro Kids: Crazy City Park

We review the newest entry in the Micro Macro series. This one is 100% appropriate for kids, and adds some tools that will help ANYONE who wants to play this seek-and-find game.

Watch the video or read the transcript of our review.

30:20 FOR SCIENCE

We drink a pickle juice electrolyte drink: JUCE from TruPickles.

Why? Because they’re also a partner with friend-of-the-show Andy Geremia for a pickleball dice game.

34:00 The Family Gamers and Families

In August, The Family Gamers Podcast turns ten years old! Playing games with kids looks a lot different for us now than it did in 2015. Let’s talk about what family gaming looks like at different ages.

Babies & Toddlers

Do you have to just wait to play games? Kind of, but not exactly. Toddlers want to be a part of what you’re doing: so let them sit with you and play with some of the (larger/non-chewable) pieces. We also recommend playing with them with big chunky foam dice or “My Very First” games.

This is when kids begin to learn about taking turns or causality (“if I do this, then this happens”).

More: Ep 236 – Babies & Boardgames (bringing kids in at any age)

Preschoolers

At this age, kids want play the same very short games over and over and over… as frustrating as this can be, it’s really important. Playing repetitively works on building rule-following, turn-taking, and pattern-matching. This is the right time to start teaching about being a graceful winner or loser and also to start building emotional intelligence. Yes, even with CandyLand.

Grade School

The most important thing at this age is to know your kids’ skill level. Too hard and they’ll be discouraged. That doesn’t mean letting them win! But you could set up a handicap so the adult is playing at a disadvantage. And you can talk through your strategy (and theirs) out loud to help them learn.

To avoid the stigma of playing a “baby” game or a “kids” game, be ready to pull out some VERY easy games that anyone can play like Roll for It or Zombie Dice.

At this age, use games to build skills gradually for reading (including skills that don’t look like reading!), math, science, and more.

Middle & High School

Shift your focus from skills to your kids’ interests and preferences. Play the games they want to play!

This is also when you, as the parent, decide if you want games to be a priority for your family. That means setting aside time for family games (also episode 292 of the podcast).

Adults

If you’ve already built a culture of family gaming, it can continue even when kids leave home! At this point, it should be pretty much the same as playing games with your friends.

Don’t forget, you don’t always have to be in person to play games together. We hope to use Board Game Arena and other online gaming tools to keep the gaming going at a distance.

More Resources

Why Play Games with Your Kids (Chrissy W.)
The Power of Learning – through Play (Chrissy W.)
Why I Hate CandyLand (and What to Play Instead) (Anitra)
Talk, Read, Sing, Write, Play (about ELL learning at any age, from Annabelle B.)

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48:20 New Backtalk Question

Tell us what you like about the show, what you don’t like about the show, what segments you’d like us to do more, or less. Should we free Anitra from Andrew’s weird food eating obsession? Should we do more Room to Grow? Board Game Terms? Lists? Guests?

We want to make sure the topics we cover and the goofy things we do are interesting to you.

Tell us on the #backtalk channel on our Discord, or in this Backtalk post in the Facebook community.

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