Playing Games With (Very) Young Kids

As stated numerous times, the goal of this online store is to lead people to “education through games”. We make classic teaching material, yes, and we make puzzles and more. But all of that is to show you how powerful those things are and gently guide you to the most powerful educational resource of all: games.

For the most part, people already know this. Your first few years at school are mostly spent doing “activities”, which are usually watered-down games. People are constantly “surprised” at how intelligently their kid plays when they finally get to join in on a party game or board game, and how quickly they learn all the skills it explores.

There is, however, a sort of … cutoff. A threshold age where people say “oh now my kid might be able to play board games”. Before that moment, they’ll dismiss it as being impossible or too hard.

That age, in my experience is around 7 years old. A bit earlier if you have a gifted or active kid, or if parents play board games themselves. A bit later, perhaps, if none of that is true. But after all this time, I feel that the age of 7 is the average cutoff.

Before that threshold, you can’t expect kids to be able to accurately read or do basic math. After that threshold, people feel like you can start to expect that.

Our store offers many games playable by younger kids, so we obviously believe it’s not true that board games are for older people. But that “threshold” is true and sensible.

So, how does our online store handle this? Do we have any tips or advice? How to get very young kids playing (board) games?

The 3 Types Of Games

We like to differentiate between three categories of games: physical games, video games and board games.

Physical Games can be understood the earliest. Our bodies and brains were made for moving around, grabbing things, throwing things, etcetera. That’s why you can play physical games almost from the moment your child is born, and most people know this. I’ve never heard anyone say “oh no my 5 year old is too young to throw/kick a ball”.

Now that Video Games are abundant, we see that those are the next easiest game type to understand. This has two reasons.

• In video games, all the hard stuff is done by the computer. Automatically. You only need to press the screen, or press one or two buttons, or move a joystick. Video games work very hard to automate away all the boring or hard stuff, and leave you only a few intuitive inputs to play with.
• Video games are more flashy, with sound effects, colors, moving parts, etcetera. This simply draws and holds the interest of young kids more easiler and for much longer, so they will grant themselves the focus and time to figure things out that are hard.

And then we get Board Games. They are not flashy, especially not if you printed them yourself, on regular paper. They require learning a few rules, and then sticking to those rules yourself—nobody to force you or do it for you. Many of them require pretty good hand-eye coordination, or general knowledge/experience that a kid won’t have.

Why do I explain this? Because now I’ve given you a “ladder” again—a funnel, like this online store—for building up to board games!

• The first games your kid will learn should be physical games. In fact, that’s where they’ll learn the word “game”, and things like “winning” or “scoring” or “teams”. These can be sports, these can be children’s games like tag, or they can be something in-between. For example, you have really nice wooden games that you can set up in a random field (or garden) and provide a mixture of physical and strategic play.
• Then, you can try a video game. The kid should now understand the idea of playing, trying to win, etcetera. The concept of pressing a few buttons—instead of moving their body—is only a minor leap. Most video games nowadays are colorful, and shiny, and simple enough to play for a kid. The only real danger here is sticking with the same game for too long and having your kid look at a screen too much.
• So, as soon as possible, move on to your first board games! We create loads of extremely simple games for kids, even board games with physical and tactile elements. There are other companies like us, such as Haba’s amazing series of educational board games. These games are absolutely playable from the age of 2 or 3.

Why are you recommending video games when this website purposely doesn’t sell them? I actually earned my first money, as a professional artist, creating video games :) I can make them, I loved playing cooperative games (like Overcooked) with my family when I was younger, so I am not against video games at all. In fact, I might be part of the problem, as I sometimes get messages from parents who played one of my silly cooperative games to death with their kids.

Scientific research, however, has proven a few things.

• Sitting still and looking at screens are really not good for anyone’s health, but certainly not for kids.
• At that age, the most important thing is to get loads of social contact and bonding with your parents, as well as trying new experiences every day. Sports can be too rigid or lonely here; video games are often designed nowadays for maximum addiction and “grind”.
• Board games are the most universally enjoyed and effective type of game. Precisely because of that social aspect and because inherent handicaps (such as adults being much stronger and faster than kids) are wiped out.

One day we might offer a few video games, if we really believe in them and think we did it right. Until then, we provide physical and board games.

Handling Young Players

Okay, so, I provided a nice path for getting young kids to easily understand the concept of board games and try them.

That is, of course, not a perfect path. The fact that a kid understands the concept of “taking turns” or “if I have the most cows by the end, I win” … doesn’t mean that they enjoy it, or want to play, or won’t get distracted after 5 minutes.

The general wisdom I’ve acquired over the years is the following.

At age 2–5, all kids will be happy to play, but on their own terms.

Kids love playing. Kids love new experiences, and games, and challenges. I’ve never met one that doesn’t.

But most kids only start to develop things like self-awareness and long-term thinking at age ~5. Younger kids are, for the most part, literally incapable of understanding that their behavior isn’t desired (if they think it’s always their turn, or if they cheat, for example). They’re practically incapable of not chasing a butterfly when they see one. In other words, if they get distracted, they get distracted. If they want to throw the wooden pawns into the air, instead of neatly move them over the board, then that’s what they want to do.

This has several consequences.

Firstly, we try to design games around this (if they’re for that age range too), and you can pick games to match your player(s) too. Our rules are very flexible. We offer minimal setup and contrivances, but maximum variants and customization. Game is taking too long? Just leave out half the deck. Game too hard to understand? Just leave out this one extra rule. Players are restless? Involve physicality more by doing this extra thing.

Secondly, we believe it’s best to just accept that such kids will make up their own game and their own rules. This is fine! As long as everyone at the table agrees to that. That’s what makes it so hard to play games with all your kids if one or two are so young. The older kids will want strategy and structure and following the rules; the youngest kid is one second away from eating their cards.

But that’s where it starts. Accept this, and you can gradually increase the number of rules and the strictness. Over time, the exposure to board games and the natural development of certain parts of their brain will coincide and lead to playing board games “the right way”.

That is, again, the power of (board) games in education. Most of them test multiple skills. If your kid ignores all rules but one … they’ll still be exploring one skill. If your kid makes up their own rules, and just plays with the pieces, they’ll still be playing and having fun. Whereas, with “exercises” or “textbooks”, all of that isn’t true. You can’t really “half-do” an exercise, and even if you could, it would not teach you anything, because the whole exercise was meant to test one skill in the first place.

Thirdly, if kids are not concerned about “rules” and “structure” … then you’re allowed to not be concerned about it too. If you notice the child getting distracted, or your own time is running out, you can simply say “This was the last turn! We won the game!” Young kids will accept that, even if it makes no sense and the game should have continued. Because, again, they are not thinking long-term and they are not thinking about following the actual rules.

This opens the door to giving yourself handicaps, or “ignoring” a few rules, or twisting a few rules so they interest your players more and keep them engaged. It doesn’t have to make sense, it doesn’t have to be in the rulebook. If you notice your kid playing their own game and not caring much about rules, then you can do this and they will be engaged instead of enraged ;)

An Example

I just finished the game Split Safari. It’s one of our biggest and prettiest games, because I really believed in the idea.

But even that game, as simple as it is, was designed with flexibility.

The rules are as follows.

• Each turn, you get a few Animal Cards from the deck.
• Split them in 2 groups and present them to your left neighbor.
• They pick 1 group they want; you get back the other one. (The typical “I Cut, You Choose”-mechanic found in many old folk games.)
• Then, use the Animals you have to move over the map. (Each animal simply tells you what terrain it likes. Whales bring you through water, Sheep bring you over grassland, etc.)

That’s the whole game. First to reach the finish wins. The map makes the game look nice on the table and provides an intuitive win condition (that requires no “counting points” or whatever). The simple split mechanic practices related skills very well, while being easy to understand and execute.

Simple, yes, but my experience with young kids and teaching games meant I still had work to do.

• Any advanced animals, nature or rules were moved to optional expansions. (Enabling those turns the game into a full-fledged game that even adults will enjoy and struggle to win.)
• You can play without the map. Then it’s just about set collecting.
• You can decide to play without the splitting. Then it’s just about drawing cards and moving your pawn.
• You can let your kids just move their pawn around this random map and make up stories about their journey.
• The Animal Cards are big and nice and come in multiples, so you can let your kid play any other simple games with them too (like Go Fish).
• You control game length by how many map tiles you add at the start, as well as how many cards players draw each round.
• Even so, if you notice players drifting off, you can just … move the finish closer. Or say something like “from now on, each card counts double: move two spaces at once!” to go faster. The game was purposely designed to keep working, even if you make up some nonsense rules to speed it up or help a struggling player.

I’ve tested this game with adults (friends and family), and it was an extremely tactical and tense race. I’ve tested this game with the youngest children of those friends and family, and it was just 10 minutes of horsing around with animals and someone stumbling over a very nearby finish line. But they all enjoyed it and practiced several of the skills I put in the game.

Conclusion

In summary, this is a general path or guidebook for playing board games with kids below that magical threshold age of ~7 years old.

• Introduce them to games through physical games and video games first. They’re easier (more accessible and intuitive), while teaching 99% of what you need to play a board game.
• Pick dead-simple games that engage them. (We try our best to provide this!) Textless and numberless games, games with engaging themes, games that are short and sweet.
• Even if they have some skill reading/counting already, don’t pick games that rely on the skill but are not about the skill. Our games specifically teach things like numbers or alphabet, so the “struggle” to play them at first is actually the learning process. But if you have a game that’s, I don’t know, about building a city and you just have to read a lot of text on cards to play it … this will annoy the kids and anyone playing with them who has to wait for ages on their turn.
• Even so, accept that kids will play their own game and have their own fun at first. You can let the game end at any moment, or invent random rules halfway through to keep things lively, and they’ll have fun following along. Gradually, after a few games, you can increase the difficulty and become a little more strict about rules.

Remember, the biggest victory is a child just playing. If they only play 5% of the actual game, that’s better and more educational than 0%. Between the ages of 2 and 5, especially, you’ll just gradually have to move that 5% to 100%. If you play board games with any regularity at all, kids should know about following the rules and long-term strategy by age 5. Board gamer parents often report that their kid can at least “hang with them” in their most complex board games by age 7.

We try to provide resources that make it easy to do all this. Because it won’t always be easy, and it won’t always work. But I can give you some consolation: I can say, with all the confidence in the world, that playing board games with kids is easier than with adults. Because adults will flat out refuse to try or to play, which is the actual deadly sin here, as opposed to “not 100% following the rules all the time”.

If you have any feedback on our efforts, let us know!

Hopefully this was interesting to read,

Tiamo