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Is it really possible to play 10 minutes of monopoly after a day at the office with your school kids and have fun? Yes I have seen it happen with my own eyes!
The other day was a Sunday. School dad had to go to work for a couple of hours. My school kid asked me if I could play monopoly with her. I was exhausted and my eyes were burning and it was 9.30am. Usually I respond with ‘oh darling I need to cook, clean, pack, chop’ and often I find myself not actually sitting down with her to play a game – we do things together like cook, or sitting next to each other reading junk mail!
Usually school dad and our school kid play board games together after he gets home from the office, and the latest is a traditional version of monopoly. I have noticed that they play for up to 20minutes which is a long time in school kid terms.
So I thought ‘yes’ this time, I will definitely spend atleast 10 minutes playing monopoly. And so we started. Before I knew it, she was playing a version that broke every rule in the book, with rules being made up as we go along – to which I responded ‘no darling that’s not how you play’ yes it is it’s how we play.’ I could not follow her thinking and felt that she was not playing ‘properly.’ And then without warning she burst into tears as I tried to explain the proper rules of the game.
‘What just happened?’ I said to her. She was too upset to answer me. She couldn’t really explain it to me. And so I sat there on the floor opposite her. School dad arrived home at that moment. He saw us both sitting on the floor with the monopoly board between us. She was in tears. I was close to tears, sitting next to her confused, frustrated and so exhausted. As a school mom I have a natural tendancy to correct and encourage – it’s what school moms do. But sometimes as school moms we can let it go for a bit and let it be! And playing with school dad is a great way to make way for this to happen.
“How do you do it?” I said to school dad. “How on earth do you manage to play together so happily?”. Do you have rules? “sure we do” he said “we make them up as we go!”. Ahhhh I said please tell me what you do. and here it is tips for school dads and anyone who wants to play monopoly with school kids from 7, 8 and 9. We have since found another version of monopoly – it turns out there are 1,144 versions – that is fun and has another set of rules but I’ll tell you about that after this bit!
Dice – have two – one each. For more school kids have more dice.
Money – hand each person 5 notes of each colour.
When you land on something that says you have to pay – Don’t
And then the big one…
Make the rules as you go! This completely through me. This has some big pluses which I never thought about…
it helps your school kid to be creative,
to feel that they have control and ownership in something in their lives,
it allows them to take the lead and take charge of a situation.
It helps school dad build a relationship with our school kid that is theirs and different to mine with our school kid.
The best way to get over the discontent that was lingering in the air, we all decided to have another game of monopoly with school kid rules. They taught me how to do it. it turned out to be fun, it took lots of patience for me to get my head around it. it helped me to chill out – it helped all of us and there was laughter again!
And here was something else I learned – school dad plays differently to me as a school mom and that’s ok, it’s more than ok – it’s normal. Whenever something goes not according to plan, as a school mom it is you who your school kid comes to first for comfort or food! So school dad can sometimes feel as though he is not as important but it is so not the case. Playing together only school dad and school kid and them having fun without you is a great way to build a relationship – something that school kid wants and so does school dad.
