And at the other end of the spectrum, chose the oldest member of your family and get them to teach you their favorite childhood game. Not only will you have a strong opponent, (those older generation types don’t like to lose), you will likely tap into wonderful and previously unheard stories about prior generations that will all too soon be lost forever.

Games can also be very useful for undercover detective work. Your daughter brings home a new boyfriend. Set up an intense game of Trivial Pursuit and watch his behavior. Does he gloat when he wins, does he pout when he loses, does he try to cheat, does he argue at every call? Or does he talk in glowing terms of family game night as a child, is he more enthusiastic about learning new games than winning the ones he already knows, does he treat your daughter and other players respectfully and lovingly in the ‘heat of the battle?’

And speaking of detectives, does anyone ever tire of Clue: in the library with a candlestick? Or Monopoly: do not collect $200 and go straight to jail, with visiting privileges, of course? The Game of Life where my young son, not happy at all at acquiring a wife and children, would place them in the back of his game piece car. We worried where we had gone wrong but he now seems quite respectful to his long-term girlfriend and she always sits up front.

If you love to play Scrabble, but you always lose and only, you are certain of this, because your spouse gets the Q (and the Us to go with it), the X and the Z every single time, try playing a different variation that removes all the lucky breaks your spouse gets every time. It requires two sets of tiles, easily acquired from a yard sale. Have your spouse pick seven tiles, and you get to pick the exact same tiles. Then each of you thinks up the best word for the space available and the one with the highest score for the word gets to use their word. If your spouse still wins, I guess you can’t attribute it wholly to luck. But I think you will be amazed at how much more even the playing field becomes.

And is it just in our family that all the strategy games, Risk, Battleship, etc. are played by the males, while the females are much more into group interaction games such as Taboo and Cranium?

My husband and I had one of our first connections when we realized we both knew how to play Cribbage, loved playing it, and even owned our own Cribbage boards. Cribbage players are a pretty small percentage of the world’s population. Over the years, we have played tens of thousand of games. A couple of years ago, we decided to add betting to the equation. We each got a cup with 100 pennies. The ebb and flow has been amazing. At times it feels like he wins all the time, and then the pendulum swings back. Only one time has one of us had to take a loan from the other. I’m not naming names, but I charged a pretty hefty interest rate!

Our family loves game playing so much that we have seasonal locations. In the winter, we eat dinner at the dining room table, clear the table, quickly get the dishes done, and rush back to gather around whatever game is our latest craze. In the summer, we have fashioned a light that hangs over a table in the garden where many, many hours are spent enjoying the fabulous Sacramento evenings while we try to beat the pants off each other!

If the intensity of competition is not for you or your family, then set up a jigsaw puzzle and watch quiet interactions, cooperation, and a sense of enormous accomplishment forge new bonds between family members.

Turn off the TV, acquire some games, and let the fun begin. Your payback on this family investment will be enormous and lasting.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive