Games for Parents (Who Hate to Play Games)

My kiddo LOVES to play games. Me? I generally find it would be more fun to poke my eye out with a pencil than play a game. :/ I’m not sure how I made it through the Candyland years… but I did.

As my daughter got older people started giving her games. Games that I just can’t stand to play. Like… Horseopoly, and Equate (talk about the WORST game ever!! Math and Games… combined?! ack) If you’ve never heard of Equate think… Scrabble (which I love!). With Math (which I hate!). I did play Horseopoly a few times, but jeez… how many times can you play?! Well, if Hanna had her way we’d play the hour long version every day lol.

(Ok. I have to make a confession… when I logged in to Amazon, to look up Horseopoly it says I bought it!! OMG what was I thinking.)

I knew there had to be some middle ground, games she liked to play, but games I enjoyed as well. I took to Facebook, and asked my Facebook friends what games they suggested for a mom who hates to play games. They were very helpful. 🙂

With their suggestions in hand we ran to the store to see what we could find.

The first game we came across was one no one had even mentioned!!

Jenga. 

Hanna was pretty excited about this game. She said she’d always wanted to play it. I decided this was a game I could deal with. We’ve played Jenga numerous times since we brought it home, and have had a good time every time. I like that the game is fairly short, so we can play multiple games before I start feeling “played out”. She feels excited because I played more than one game with her. 🙂 Win/win I’d call it.

The other thing I like about Jenga is, in the box, they suggested you could even play by yourself. I mentioned this to her, to play alone, and try to beat how high you got it last time… she was thrilled! She’s played Jenga multiple times now by herself… her latest high score is 30 levels high. 🙂

Battleship.

That’s the next game we came across and one mentioned by my friends as a good option. I actually like this game. I don’t remember playing it as a kid, but I remember wishing I could. It takes a little longer, but it’s pretty simple, and straight forward. I can see her getting more and more strategic about her choices every time we play, which is kind of fun to watch.

I end up being gamed out after about 1 game of battleship… but luckily we also found…

Connect 4.

This game is probably the perfect game for parents who hate games. 🙂 It’s fast paced. There’s no complicated rules to learn, and it’s a super quick game. “AWWWW! One more game, please!” usually turns into 5 or 6 more games because either you’re trying to win or she’s trying to win. It’s a fun game to play, and again I see her beginning to think more and more strategically every time we play. She even beats me sometimes. 😉

We picked up one more game based on the suggestions of my facebook friends…

Mexican Train Dominoes.

We have not yet tried this game. Honestly, it’s because there’s a box, with a million pieces, and rules, and learning how to play. I can see now, that it’s amount of time between opening the box and being able to easily play the game that is my biggest stumbling block. I don’t like playing games as it is… I don’t want to have to use my college degree to figure it out, all while my spirited 9 (almost 10) year old is asking a thousand questions, and grabbing all the pieces, and just trying to play. So yeah. I hear mexican train dominoes is a LOT of fun though… so I do plan to read the instructions and figure out how to play. Maybe I’ll do that while she’s not home… so I can just quick explain and we can play. 🙂

So… are you a game player or no? What games are your favorites to play with your kiddo?

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