Family Gaming with the K-6 Crowd

With Father’s Day coming up, I’ve been thinking a lot about my own Dad and how I got into videogames as a kid. My parents, perhaps swayed by George Plimpton’s television commercials, went out and bought an Intellivision for the family. It was to be a Christmas gift for all of us, not just for me and my brother. It was hooked up to the only TV in the house, right in the living room where we spent our evenings. Night after night, the four of us played games like Poker, Dungeons and Dragons, Golf, Lock ’n’ Chase and more. Since it was hooked up to the TV, this early console seemed so much more of a family activity than the computer games I played in later years.

Now that I have my own family, and my own game console, I try to make videogaming into an activity that the family can do together. Of course, since I have a six-year-old, family gaming isn’t all about popping in a copy of Halo® 2. …

At the end of the article I go through a few recommendations for younger kids, including my favorite games to play with Connor.