Spending time with older children-games

Whilst I'm not a great fan of computer games because they seem to take up sooo much time, it did seem reasonable that if I was hoping to spend time with Middle Son then computer games would have to be part of the equation.

Racing car games make me feel sick and crash so many times that if it was real, I would be uninsurable after one round. The time had come to try something different-Minecraft. I had heard plenty about this from my son so now my turn to sample it. It transpires that Middle Son is a bit of a pro and I really didn't know what I was doing. I managed to walk forwards, backwards and to each side but perhaps better, I have more idea about the servers and the aim of the game.

Playing Minecraft with Middle Son gave me much more idea about his current interests than the more traditional games. Probably something that I should repeat-occasionally.

On to more traditional games, I avoided Monopoly and Risk as they take hours and realistically I don't have that sort of time out of holiday seasons. Middle Son would be delighted to spend an evening on one of these games-probably a Christmas treat.

We actually played Scrabble. Yes, we enjoyed it but Middle Son felt that this was a bit like work as a couple of years ago, I did allow him an end of home education week treat of a game of Scrabble. The strange benefit is that Miss Belle was desperate to have a go so I've had to pull out the Junior Scrabble and have now played with her, a couple of times.

Verdict:

• Good to get more insight into computer games and no, I'm not addicted
• I need to try another board game with Middle Son which he doesn't link with education.
• Junior Scrabble is a good way of getting a bit of extra reading/spelling practice without little people noticing.