Family Game Night Looks Great on TV!

You've seen the commercials from the game companies telling you to start a family game night.  It is very clear to me that these marketing professionals don't have kids on the spectrum.  I loved playing games with my brother and parents when I was a kid.  I thought that once our kids were a little older we would be able to have fun game nights playing SkipBo, UNO, Life, Monopoly and many other games.  Little did I know that spectrum kids and game night do not mix.

Don't get me wrong we will continue to have game nights and play games together.  But these nights are never filled with the happy smiling kids and parents they show in the commercials.  No, ours often end in the cards or game board being thrown across the kitchen.  One or both of the kids will be crying and yes, even sometimes so will I.  Games cause a huge amount of anxiety and frustration and no matter how many times you say "it's okay it's just a game" or "we play for fun, not to win" it never seems to help.

I've tried everything to get Hunter to understand that games are a lot of luck and a little skill.  This doesn't sit well for the kid who expects things to work the same way all the time.  Hunter loves the Rubik's cube, I really didn't understand this till now.  How can a kid who gets so frustrated so easily handle something like the Rubik's cube?  It can drive the most sane person crazy.  Well, when you think about it the cube can be solved easily in a logical way every single time.  It never changes.  No matter how much you mix it up you follow a few simple algorithms and it is back to the way it started.

Games of luck, chance or even strategy don't work that way.  You can't make the cards end up the way you want them too.  You also cannot anticipate what an opponent will do.  You can't control how the dice will roll.  There is no way to make a game logical.

I have tried showing how games are very random with games like War.  Hunter liked this game at first, but then the randomness of the game took over and he couldn't handle that he lost his cards simply by luck of the draw.  I even showed him how to play Blackjack and showing him how the dealer wins most of the time and how the play of the other people makes his hand change.  No luck.  I guess one good thing is he will probably not become a gambling addict in Vegas.

It's hard sometimes to hear from friends all the fun they have playing games with their kids.  I hope and pray that someday that will be us.  That we will have a fun night of games and not end with us searching the kitchen for the cards or game pieces.  I don't think we will get to that place by not playing, but until it happens we will have as much fun as we can and at least we continue to try.