What to Do If... Your Family Does Not Like Board Games

It is not an uncommon occurrence to have a hobby that most or all of your family does not share. In my family of four, each of us has distinct (what I would call) "main hobbies." For instance, my wife derives a lot of pleasure from hiking and camping; though my sons and I enjoy these activities in varying degrees, they are primarily her hobbies. My oldest son is highly enthusiastic about Japanese car modification and performance, which informs what he reads and mentions daily. My youngest son is greatly interested in wilderness survival and warfare, which serves him well as a Boy Scout. My hobbies... well, my hobbies are running, watching movies, and board games, which are enjoyed or tolerated by the rest of my family. The key term, I should state, is "tolerate."

Every family tolerates its members' hobbies to some extent. In my family, we tolerate, or sometimes enjoy, each other's hobbies and interests. My youngest son is the most flexible: he seems to enjoy camping, cars, AND board games. My oldest son tolerates everyone else's hobbies (which is endemic to being a teenager, I suppose). My wife is intrigued by wilderness survival (my youngest's interest) and puts up with board games from time to time. I glean some enjoyment from camping and hiking and can talk enough about cars to be mildly useful in a conversation. In any case, toleration (NOT endurance or long-suffering) is the operative term.

What happens, though, when your family does NOT like your hobby, specifically, for the purpose of this article, board games? For various reasons, one or more family members may not find any appeal in board games. Whatever the reason, there are ways to turn the situation to your favor. As with any hobby, there are methods and approaches that may change your family's minds about board games. As a thought exercise, let us explore some of those approaches...

Assess Your Family's Interests
One of the most difficult things to do is to involve anyone into one's own hobby because this often requires tweaking one's hobby to accommodate others. Find out in what each of your family members is interested. Let these hobbies drive which games you choose and purchase. This may force you to branch out beyond your own gaming tendencies, such as when one of your children or siblings is interested in fashion; you would probably never head in that direction with board games, so you may have to stretch yourself to accommodate it. Thankfully, nowadays, there are an innumerable amount of games for any theme that exists.

Enlist Competition and Theme
With board games, there are two characteristics that are universally understood enough to fold in many people: competition and theme. In this way, you can connect their interests to board games. For example, if one family member is a sports enthusiast, consider board games that are competitive or cooperative, depending on that person's disposition. You cannot generalize by assume that all sports-minded folks are competitive, so assess his or her disposition. Another example is if a family is interested in cars, like my oldest son; find a game that involves that theme. However, be careful to research the game; some games may appear to have a car "theme," but it may just be a pasted-on theme that acts as a veneer for a bunch of game systems and mechanics. In any case, theme and competition are two avenues by which you can bring in semi-apathetic people.

Be Fair with Everyone's Hobbies
Before launching full-bore into board gaming with those semi-apathetic members of your family, discuss with them your desire to balance everyone's hobbies to ensure that nobody's interests are ignored. To engender intrigue in board games, you must consider your family. This also involves stretching yourself to engage in pastimes that are not your own. In my family, every Friday is Family Night, and each week one person decides what to do on that night. In this way, everyone has a chance to expose others to their hobbies. In order to ensure that board games have some kind of place in your family, I recommend enjoying other people's hobbies, which makes everyone feel included, thus engendering a probable desire to engage in your hobby of board gaming.

Relax
For board gamers, any game is a serious pursuit. Whether it is a gateway game like Ticket to Ride or Settlers of Catan, or a thinky, involved game like Agricola or Twilight Struggle, avid board gamers are fascinated to the extent that even the finer rules and mechanics of such games attract their undivided attention. Non-gamers and casual gamers, though, are not so intense; based on what I have observed, it is the light, social aspects of games that draw them into any game. Thus, I recommend keeping any family game session light with an extreme emphasis on fun. Do not focus on the mechanics of the game, and do not be quite so strict and fastidious with the rules; simply play the game to interact with your family. Patience is also key; your family may ask numerous questions throughout the game that you would be tempted to answer by handing them the game manual to read; do NOT do this! Just relax and take time to explain the rules. If you are calm and non-intense, everyone else will associate calmness and non-intensity to games... at least until they (may) form their own strong interest in board games.

Look at Board Games as Conversation Starters
If anything, games are "social lubricants" which fill conversation gaps and slip past people's protective shells by alleviating the pressure to talk about oneself; use that element of board games by approaching rules explanations like opportunities to talk. Also, use board game time as a chance to discuss other people's hobbies. Sure, a fantasy-themed dungeon crawl may have nothing to do with camping, unless you work hard to make the connection and then discuss it. This is where you have to stretch yourself even further to not view board games as chances to compete or escape the real world, but as chances to ground yourself in the realities of your family members.

Seek Honest Assessment of the Board Games You Choose
This is the toughest requirement: ask your family which of your games they liked. Sometimes, you may be surprised that one or more of your siblings or children enjoyed Power Grid, even though it seemed long and thinky when you last played it. Sometimes, though, you may NOT be surprised that they did not enjoy that three-hour session of Lewis & Clark and how the winner had run away with the victory 30 minutes before you actually finished the game. Assessing your family's interest in your games can be a sensitive matter because, even though you really enjoy certain games in your collection, they may not like your beloved games at all! What do you do in this instance? There are two solutions: consign certain games to sessions with your gamer group only, or sell the games to acquire ones that better fit your family. The former is easier, yet you would have to live with the fact that you would play those games much less often; the latter is tough, but may serve as an opportunity to acquire newer, more streamlined games. In other words, by assessing your family's tendencies, you can craft your game collection to include them.

I am sure there are many more ideas regarding how to enfold your family into board gaming, but just as toleration is key to your family enjoying each other's hobbies, it is incumbent upon you to stretch yourself to accommodate your family. In this way, the answer to what to do if your family does not like board game is simple yet extremely arduous: you have to be self-sacrificial, which is, sadly, an odd concept where one's hobbies are concerned. It does not have to be odd, though. By giving up some of your tendencies, you include others and become a better person for it because board games become less about rules, mechanics, and theme, and more about conversation, inclusion, relaxation, and fun.

This reminds me of a great Bible verse: There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (John 15:13). With our hobbies, we should do no less -- lay down our own interests for our friends and family. That may involve playing games you would not play on your own or playing less than you would want. Yet, I believe that if you accomplish this, you elevate board games to something better than a personal hobby; it becomes something that binds the family together. I think every hobby should achieve this.