06 April 2008

Enlightening Game Session with Teens

Spring Break has come to my corner of the world! Even though kids are always out of school on Saturdays, this past Saturday the neighborhood kids were in the mood for a little extra fun. Unfortunately, it rained all day so the party ended up at my house :-p. While the young ones watched movies and played video games, the teens wanted to try something different. This was my cue to break out the board games.

First up was Battle of the Sexes. It is a standard trivia game; the guys answer "female" questions and the gals answer "male" questions to advance to the opposite side of the board. ABM and I received this game as a Christmas present a while back but it has never made it to the table. After a couple questions, it was clear that this was turning into an "old vs. young" contest rather than a "male vs. female" one. I knew the answers to the male and female questions, while my 15-year-old daughter and her two 15-year-old male friends couldn't answer any of them. All the cards we pulled had questions about TV shows and movies that they weren't old enough to see yet. I can see Battle of the Sexes being a mildly amusing way to kill an afternoon, but only if the group members are all over 21.

After a disappointing attempt to play Taboo, we went for our old standby -- Pounce. This is where I learned my second lesson of the afternoon. Kids these days don't kill time playing solitaire, either with cards or on the computer. I had to teach three kids the basics of Klondike before we could play Pounce. Luckily, they picked it up quickly and we had a hot table of six going for a while. A kid would drop out to check in with his parents and another kid was waiting to fill the empty seat. More than one kid caught Pounce Fever and kept shouting, "One more game!" We have a whole week without school coming up. I have a feeling that if we get more rain, the Pounce table will heat up again.

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