Played Any Good Games Lately?

I miss being away from my grandson. 

 He loves to play games, and every time I visit him he always gets me involved in a game. At first, I am like most adults. Do I really want to sit down and play a game with a 7 year old?? Then he gets the game set up, and I find myself listening to his instructions. We start to play, and I ask a lot of questions about the rules. He knows all the answers, but I sometimes suspect he makes a few of them up as we play. 

 The most important thing for me is that when I am playing, I forget everything else. That sore toe; the arthritis in my shoulder; my tired and old bones. Heck! I'm playing a game and competing against a 7 year old boy who has the energy of an A-bomb locked inside him. He is releasing that energy on me in the game, and I am getting some of it transferred to me like radioactivity. 

 Yes it is contagious. I am becoming younger, and more alive. We are having genuine fun. Often I find that adults make up things to have fun with, but in reality the are just extensions of our serious competitive side, and they usually cost us money. Also, we must win to save face, and to show others we are smarter; stronger; more witty; in better physical shape; or just have more of something our opponent does not have. We golf and bet on the outcome. We go to casinos and lose our money. Who in their right mind thinks they can win at a casino. We marvel at the beautiful surroundings and the elaborate buildings. Adults talk about how beautiful the decorations are and how stunning the settings. Do they ever say." I paid for all this with the savings I lost here." ? No, somehow they think the casino provided the wonderful surroundings. However, they don't stop to think of all the families who sacrificed so much so a husband or wife could sit at a slot machine or card table and lose all of the family earnings. 

 It is so wonderful that children's games are not like that. They generally cost little, and the real games, not the ones adults try to make up for them are fun and rewarding. Remember the Tom Hanks movie" Big" here was a kid trying to tell adults what kids like, and here were adults trying to tell a kid what he should like based on adult perceptions. Thank goodness in the movie the kid won out. 

 Not always so in our daily life. More and more I see adults buy their kids what they think will be fun for their child. Then after Christmas I see both disappointed adults and children. Piles of toys and games sit idle, and the kids play with the empty boxes and discarded wrappings. The parents are upset that the $100.00 toy or game is not being played with. Worst yet, this sometimes brings on scolding or hard feelings between the parent and child. If more parents would think like their child and listen to what the child really needs, they would go back to simpler times when games did not come in a box [or Xbox]. Games are about interactions, and as a society we have all but lost that God given talent. Not so with children. They play for fun. They have no inhabitations about the other player. The children who are not yet jaded by the adult world are open and want to communicate with their opponent. They are not out to prove anything. Games are genuine fun for them. 

 Adults often forget what fun is all about. We try to have fun. Kids have fun. There's a big difference! Next time I see my grandson I will welcome a game of "Monkeys in a Tree" with greater joy than any present he could give me.