My kids love games. Two (of many) examples:
When DS8 turned 6 my sister bought him a game set that included chess. We taught him and his sister, then 7, how to play and they were obsessed with it for awhile... game after game after game. DS(then 6) was fixated on it... DH doesn't know how to play and none of his friends could, so his only opponents were myself and DD(then 7). She is EXTRAORDINARILY competitive and didn't want to play often because he usually beat her, so that left me... I got so tired of the game but felt so bad the times I said "not now, buddy."
The family adults play canasta and both kids were/are obsessed with that as well. They begged us to teach them. We started with DD9 (then 7), who later taught DS8 when he was 7.
It's pretty cute... they had no problem with the game (scoring, melds, canastas, point counting, etc etc), but they had trouble holding all the cards in their hands so they used cardboard to build screens so they could lay their hands down on the table behind their put-down cards. SO funny. Their little brains were ahead of their fine motor skills.
They'd have friends come over who couldn't play, and my kids would, in the midst of their game obsession, get frustrated and impatient because they didn't want to do anything else. It made play dates difficult when they were in a "game focus" phase.
They're both competitive, and it's interesting because it manifests itself in different ways. DD9 gets really angry and emotional. DS8 stays calm, but sabotages the game to end it quickly if he feels like he can't win, so that a new game can be started. Hilarious...
Last edited by CCN; 08/30/12 11:04 AM.
