How it starts...

An avid board game fanatic I learned young that you can tell every game what the outcome will be by a specific point.  One of our favorite board games when I was growing up was this unique game called The Farming Game. Most people have probably never heard of it. The slogan is fact and it was "created on the seat of a tractor" and as a farm girl I thought it was awesome. To this day it is a staple in the board game cupboards of most of our extended family. There is a point in this game, at about year three that you can tell who will very likely win (dice are included and cards that could change).

After we all got married and started moving out on our own we started looking to find copies of the game so that the much loved board that was at my mom's house didn't have to travel so much. In our search we discovered that they had added another game to the options they sold and we just had to have it.

We played this game about five times before we realized that there was one card in the game that would dictate the game, as soon as that card was drawn you might as well end the game because it was highly unlikely that anyone else would have a chance to win. We still like to play once in a while but not as often as we might other games.

We have a great many games in our game cupboard, we have even had to split the cupboard into child friendly and those which require more reading and patience than most young kids can handle. Settlers of Catan, Monolpoly Millionaire, Axis and Allies, Full House, Dungeon Lords, and a bunch of others are those we have accumulated, but we have also discovered that because we play board games regularly our kids want to as well and there is only so many times they will  play memory or tic tac toe, they want to play our games. We have learned that Monopoly and Cribbage are fabulous teachers of math skills while chess and checkers encourages the kids to use their smiles to develop strategy. And the whole time they think they are just having fun!

Warhammer, as I frequently tell people, is like taking Chess and Risk, jamming them together and shaking them up. I figure if my kids can play Chess and Risk like games they can play Warhammer too.

When I worked at the hobby centre we were often full to capacity with kids aged 5 and up. We had kids of various abilities, strengths, learning abilities, and levels of social skills but yet they were all able to come together to get excited about the hobby and the game. Of course there were lots who didn't have the patience or care to sit down and spend time painting their models with the love and care that those who seek to win painting awards do, but they did what they needed to do. It didn't matter, they could still have fun and enjoy the aspects of the hobby that they wanted to.

Friday night was always jam packed full of kids participating. Not sitting glued to a TV or a video game, not sitting as individuals somewhere but actually physically interacting with people, playing games and laughing and learning.

I remember one boy who struggled in school and something brought him and his dad into the store that first day, they both decided to get involved. After a month the dad and I were talking and he confided "I let him take the Armybook to school and his teacher took me aside yesterday to tell me that she had seen his ability to read, comprehend and focus double and his math skills had grown. I never imagined this would affect that part of his life, I was just looking for something we could do together."

That child was not the only one I heard that kind of story about. We frequently hosted games days for kids who were home schooled to give them a social engagement that was also instructive. 

In our home I told about how easy we found it to game with our kids. We used high chairs when they were young enough but even now they play sometimes. Some have their own armies, but mostly they just play with us. Rolling dice, using the measuring tapes. Sometimes when we are just playing for fun we even let them decide how to deploy units.

For you parents who already have your kids interested in painting with you or playing games with you I say encourage it! Read with them from the army books and rule books, get them a couple of figs to paint, let them roll your dice or help with the tape measure. Play other games with them to start teaching them how to think and enjoy. It can easily become a regular fun night, a family activity that they enjoy and that you can enjoy with them. 

This is how they start. This is how it all starts.