“Oh no!”
“GROAN!”
“Do we HAVE to?!”

Between video games, cell phones, and our favourite TV shows, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to convince the family that, hey, spending time together can actually be kind of fun! Board games don’t let you blow space aliens to Kingdom Come, they don’t let you download the hottest new music videos, and they don’t come with a fully orchestrated soundtrack but you do have something much more valuable: Human bonding. That’s a novel concept in this day and age, to be sure.

The way to see board games is not as a mere entertainment medium. Monopoly, Mindtrap, Clue, they don’t have that instant gratification you’ll find in your Xbox, they don’t attack the synapses without a moment’s hesitation. What they do is they allow for a moment where a group of people sit down together and interact.

The whole point of a board game isn’t even the game itself. The whole point of a board game is that it gets four or five people down at the table, joking around, chatting, getting competitive, arguing over the rules, and, well, generally just having fun in one another’s company.

Video games, movies, TV, they’re all a form of escapism. That’s not to say they can’t be worthwhile. Simple entertainment can enrich a person’s life in its own way, but all that stuff don’t have the basic human element you’ll witness when you see a family sitting around the dinner table with a deck of cards and an extra large pizza.

The importance of bonding with your family can never be stressed enough. There’s no denying it that these days, most families simply don’t spend enough time together. In this economy, you have stay at home parents looking for work, working parents looking for second jobs, teens getting part time gigs after school, the kids at the day care centre most of the week, and the family dog wondering where everyone went. When everyone finally comes home, mom has to balance the budget, dad takes a nap, the teens chat on their cell phones for a few hours, and the kids fight over the Nintendo.

Recent studies have shown that most people surveyed have fewer than two close friends whom they feel they would trust with their lives. Nearly half of those surveyed responded that they had literally no true, close friends. It’s no wonder. Kids are growing up in households where everyone is too busy, too distracted, and they never just sit down and waste a couple of hours having fun together. How do you expect them to really understand what human bonding is all about when it wasn’t a major part of their upbringing?

Board games don’t have the visceral excitement you get from a shootemup video game, they don’t entertain you on a direct, visual level. A board game would truly be boring to play all by yourself. What a board game does is it gives a family a perfect excuse to sit down and bond. It gives you something to talk about as you debate the finer points of the rulebook and what you can do to sweeten the pot when trying to buy The Boardwalk.

So if you want to actually enjoy a board game, have everyone play it and don’t take any excuses. Unplug the phone, turn off the cell phones, switch off the TV, grab a few sodas from the fridge, and keep the conversation going.

Of course, then again, ideally you want to be playing sports outside. Indoor sports, however, are a great way to get some exercise and keep from growing restless when it’s raining, snowing, or too cold outside. Likewise, if it’s night time and your kids have a little extra energy to burn off before they’re ready to fall asleep, indoor sports can help to wear them out in time for bed once it’s dark out.

Anyways, that said, there are a few sports that can be played indoors, safely, thanks to some toys out there today.

Basketball

With smaller hoops and a miniaturized, foam ball, shooting hoops indoors is made possible, and safe. Of course, it’s not a full game of basketball in many ways. You can’t dribble, of course, and it’d be a little hard to get more than two people to a team, but you can shoot, block, and pass just as well.

Miniature Golf

With tiny plastic golf clubs and cups for the plastic golf balls, it’s pretty easy to set up miniature golf courses in your own home, using items around the house as obstacles and to arrange courses. Most toy golf kits come complete with a caddy bag and a variety of clubs. This is especially fun indoors when you get inventive with the courses, setting up ramps and obstacles with books and other items.

Soccer

Don’t kick too hard! Setting up a small goal indoors, you can get a little goalie practice.

Understandably, there are some sports, such as football and baseball, which just can’t really be played indoors without knocking everything over. However, with a few such exceptions, a rainy day shouldn’t be an excuse to slack off and sit around all day.

There are plenty of ways for your kids to get their daily exercise indoors, as long as you have a little bit of space, when the weather outdoors isn’t exactly friendly towards sports and outdoor play.

And again, just keep in mind that you will still want to practice all of the basic safety measures. Move everything valuable out of the way and clear off some floor space (in fact, if you have a garage with some room in it, that would be ideal). No matter how careful you try to be, it can be easy to get caught up in the heat of the moment, and throw a game winning shot, even though you had to knock the coffee table over to do it. It can be hard to try and pay attention to anything but the task at hand once you get “in the zone”.