We're doing a week's worth of videos all on the theme of family games on the site, so let's hear it: what are the best games for families to play together? What are your favorites from your own childhood? Do you play those same games with your kids? What are some tricks to prevent meltdowns and over-competitiveness?

We used to have monster sessions of Monopoly at all of our big family gatherings. Although I sometimes would play with just my brother at home, it was never as much fun - or as cutthroat - as those 6-9 player tournaments that always seemed to fire up on holidays or any other time all of the extended family was together.

Playing canasta was/is a favorite of mine. There is always a game going when we have a reunion or even when just a few gather for a day.

A long time ago, we as a family went to a place called Rogers memorial hospital, which I think had some of the best ideas ever as far as family if not team training. They to this day have a ropes and challenges course operating in southeast Wisconsin. The whole thing in a nutshell involves activities, such as getting over a wall, an obstacle, through a barrier or even over a body of water while acting as a team. The entire course is designed so that if you don't act as a team throughout the course, you will fail. Believe me, we tried them all seperate and none of them would work. The whole course is based on team and team is based on trust. One of their excercises has two people lock arms behind a person and the third lets themself fall into their arms by tilting backwards. The reaction is instantanious and trust is quickly built when you catch them. (Hell I reallllly hope you catch them or the car ride home would be interesting, Garmin.... or not.) For this type of course, it got us all on the same page trustwise, forces you to problemsolve and you walk away a stronger, tighter family. One excercise involves getting a very small person, such as a child through a hole at the top of a wall, then down a slide they go. It's then up to the child to open a door large enough for the rest of the group. See how much trust can be built here? They trust you to tell them what's through the hole, and down the slide and you trust them to open the door. They know that, and no one to this day has ever failed to open the door. Usually games, backyard stuff and playground equipment are all designed for the same thing. Independance. Plain and simple. Life, Monopoly, Candyland, Connect four are prime examples. The approach we're going for is the same as above at Rogers all designed to build trust and the family team. After those bridges have been built in my eyes, regarding firm solid trust and unity, the competition will be a little easier to diffuse when it's all said and done. I guess I love this style of games since it teaches you one of the most important lessons life has to offer. Some things, however hard you try, just cannot be done alone and to accomplish that, you must act as a team. In a family setting, this type of bonding can't be bought on any level. Rogers also does this for corporations, scouting, families interested and some of the youth who have had problems in the past. All with excellent results. I think that the best lesson we as a family we learned after just one day is this. If we stick together, there isn't anything we can't make it through. THAT in my eyes is what family, even the definition of the word is all about.<br><br>Bri-<br><br>P.S. I think it would be an interesting video, trust me on this, to see Dadlabs travel through this course. Ohhhh boy would it ever.

When I was a little older than my oldest is now, I remember marathon games of Risk, but that was with other kids and not with my folks. The family went in for Monopoly. I remember playing long games of cribbage with my grandfather. I really like playing games with the kids, but I almost always have to fight my own inertia to get a game going.

My wife and I will play games with our boy (4 yrs old) - classics like Sorry, Go Fish, and Uno, as well as some newer games like Gobblet, Zingo, and Bakugan. But his favorite games are the ones that we make up on the fly. One of his favorites is pirate bowling where each player lines up a number of pirate action figures and you take turns shooting your opponent's pirates with a spring loaded cannon, the last one with an upright pirate is the winner. Another favorite I call party crashing where if you crash your hotwheel car into your opponent's you get to keep his car, when one side is out of cars he is out. I can't wait until he is a little older and we can play 500, the traditional family card game from the squarehead side of the family.<br><br>As far as preventing meltdowns I have two approaches:<br><br>1. Stand back and watch the meltdown without emotion. I let him whine and cry and when he realizes that I am not going to respond to him I usually ask him are you ready to play some more now? at that point (or soon thereafter) he will get back into the game.<br>2. If #1 doesn't work, I put the game away. This usually makes the meltdown worse, but he will remember next time that if he breaks down the game will be over.<br><br>I suppose you could use the same tactics for over-competitiveness too, although I haven't had to deal with that problem yet. My daughter will be probably be the one that I have to worry about being over-competitive, but she's only 1 so I have some time yet to work out my strategy...

Our favorite game in my childhood was Trivial Pursuit. We had both the standard edition and the 'junior' version. We kids (my brother and sister and I) loved to play the junior edition because it always included Disney movie trivia that my parents were clueless about. I also remember that it helped us develop a thirst to know geography, science, etc. in order to beat our parents.<br><br>Nowaadays my kids, when I can pull them away from the Playstation, prefer card games and action style games like Cranium. Sorry is a favorite but always takes forever. All 3 of my kids (and my wife!) are trash talkers but lately we haven't had the take my cards and go home episode as they've gotten older.

Say, whatever happened to the good old fasioned back yard scavenger hunt anyway?<br><br>Bri-

New scavenger hunt ideas - maybe not new, but it was new to us... we(adult friends) used to do a traditional savenger hunt at Halloween. Run all over town to restaurants and businesses gathering various silly chit...<br><br>One year we negated the silly items, and did a digital photo hunt. We had a list of items (or statements that we had to interpret and photograph. Each getting certain points, with bonus points for the most unique/crazy. (ie. I can't believe we all fit. Our photo was 6 of us in the backseat... one group was everyone in a slide tunnel at a playground.) Everyone comes back and checks out the photos and gets scored... AND we all get a cd with all the photos. A nice keepsake for everyone.<br><br>Last year, our host took the time to place those lil' foam letters on things outside in her yard (trees, mailbox, garden hose, fence post, even twigs) and took pictures (photos of items before the letter). Even added a few dummy letters out there. She printed sheets with the photos of the correct locations, but they were very close up. (So you knew there was a fence post with a letter, but you didn't know which one.) Then you go out, find all the corresponding letters, and THEN had to unscramble the letters for the winning phrase (kinda like wheel of fortune). It was a lot of set up work, but it was a blast! And no one had to drive anywhere! So we were all in the same place having a good time together.

In our family Dominoes takes top billing.<br><br>Chicken Foot is the style we play, our 5 year old is just beginning to grasp the rules and will play for a time with us. 2 year old not so much, she still just gnaws on the chair legs.

Operation was definitely one of my favorites. I used to play it with my mom, older brother, and stepdad. I have some great memories of my stepdad getting absolutely ticked off because he just kept hitting the sides.<br><br>Battleship was another of my favorites.<br><br>Just like one of the posts above, my wife and I plan on using letters for games as well. There is a great program called Souns that introduces children to letters at 6 months of age. You give the child a letter, tell them about it and the sound it makes, and you basically just continue doing so. We're going to make a game out of it, and Concretin gave me one good idea (thanks for that).<br><br>When our little guy arrives and is old enough, we plan on having a board game night, probably on Friday. We'll eat pizza and play games with him. We plan on raising our son outside of the media, meaning we don't want him to have a bunch of computer games and video games. We want him to play board games (that help learn and help with people interaction), and outside activities. My wife and I feel like too many kids these days are focused on media entertainment, and that's not what we want for our son.

Great plan. Too much media is bad. (He writes even though his three-year-old is two feet away watching Yo Gabba Gabba. Which is kind of trippy and cool, btw.) *sigh*

My wife and I were camp staff together, so when Abby is old enough she is in for some fun times! I have always been a fan of games that promote teamwork over individual success, but sometimes there is nothing better than pushing a win in my brother's face!<br><br>Maybe I need to challenge him to some board game fun this weekend....

When I was young, we used to actually play poker with my grandmother using pennies. That was fun. Also we played The Game of Life and Monopoly with my whole family. We were able to be competitive, but if we got too competitive, then it was stopped in the middle of the game as a punishment. Now with my daughter, it is Candy Land and putting together puzzles together. We catch her sometimes trying to cheat by picking multiple cards, but we laugh and joke with her, but at the same time tell her what not to do.

My kids are 2 and 3 so the types of games that we play with them that they can understand are pretty limited. Uno is fun because we just deal with colors and numbers. But our new addition is our Wii and WiiFit. Our kids not only enjoy watching us play but like to fish and use the Fit board to ski and head soccer balls. Sure they they don't quite know how to play the games properly but it's a way to introduce video games and technology (which they will have more and more of as they get older) in an interactive, less couch potato way. As for older games, my wife and I love playing games in general. Mostly trivia games, but the occasional round of Pictionary, Phase 10, and Scrabble.