Does anyone still do game night, or is it considered 'uncool' and 'hokey' for teens? What are you doing to 'stay connected' with your teens with all the challenges of modern technology robbing us of family time?

__________________
"Dance like no one is watching."

We try to do family game night once a week, usually on Friday nights. Sometimes it is board games, sometimes it is Wii or Xbox, sometimes it is a real game of bowling. My kids are 13 & 10 though...so it might not be cool for older teens.

__________________
Think about helping out with cancer...
Join the Relay for Life

My girls are 13 and will be 16 in 2 1/2 weeks. We are very close.

We eat dinner together every night (except if one of the girls have plans out for the weekend or something - then the other 3 of us will eat together sometimes having a meal the one missing doesn't like so much). I plan dinner around soccer practices (and have always planned around the various activites they have done over the years so we could eat together).

On the weekends we always rent movies to watch together (when we don't have evening soccer games). We go out to dinner maybe once a week together on the weekends (or sometimes just order pizza).

Our girls both play soccer and we all go to all their games (unless there is a conflict of some sort, which is pretty rare...basically the ONLY time we wouldn't go is if there were some other conflict). We also take friends with us to the games if they want to go. We just do everything we can together as a family.

We also take family vacations, including road trips with lots of time in the car together. We used to camp, but oldest dd lost interest in that, so we sold our camper.

Basically we just do everthing together, we talk, tease, laugh and hang out.

Lisa

__________________
"It's not having what you want,
It's wanting what you've got"

We truly have dinner together everynight, except if they are going out on a date with their boyfriend/girlfriend we also go out dinner together. We also are extremely close and call each other when we are not together, but I think the most important things are these to always talk out any problems or concerns and for us to tell our children we love them always and they do the same. Peace. Catherine

My Mom got my oldest son the board game "Apples to Apples" for Christmas. He plays it at college with friends and really enjoys it. He left it here when he went back after Christmas. We've all played it several times. It's nice just sitting at the kitchen table and spending some time with the kids once in awhile. We don't play games every week, but maybe once or twice a month. We also try to have dinner together when everyone is home. DH travels alot, but the kids and I always try to eat dinner together. To "stay connected" to my teens, I try to have one on one time with each of them...go out somewhere to lunch or take DD to Starbucks once in awhile and just sit and talk. ~Lisa

Every few months we get together with our entire family (sister in laws, brother in laws, nieces, etc.), and we do a big family night. Usually there are 15 or so of us. Its so much fun. Often the teens in the family will ask their friends over, and they always look forward to joining the fun. It turns into an event, and often ends up with the girls vs the boys. Of course, the girls usually win!

We love this game too! I had never heard of it before Christmas when my daughter brought it along on our holiday trip to Nebraska. We had a blast playing it with nieces and nephews; even the grownups loved it.

As far as a connection with the kids, I like to talk to them while driving in the car. Especially, if I just have one of them with me. I'm so thankful my daughter is not OCD with her cell phone (she's the only one who has one at the moment). I find that extremely annoying with young teenagers.

__________________
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!

We have two boys. One is 19 and lives at college. The other is 15. When my oldest was at home, we would have snack night, and the kids loved it. We would all pick things that we would love to eat but arent really a meal. We would make potstickers, cheese sticks, wings, nachos and sit around the table and eat. Then we would either play games or watch movie together.

We dont do the food part so much anymore because my youngest is a more picky eater and we cater to him more now that his brother doesnt live at home. But, every night we eat dinner together and there is no computer time after dinner.

__________________
Sell crazy some place else, we are all stocked up here.

Oh, I forgot to mention that texting has really helped us to stay connected. It isnt always cool for my son to pick up the phone from college, but he can text me whenever he wants and his friends dont know.

Same goes for the 15 year old.

__________________
Sell crazy some place else, we are all stocked up here.

Wish me luck ladies....today my baby is having her 14th birthday party. They are planning on going ice skating on the farm pond, a Rob your Neighbor game...then Pizza, chips and cake! Hopefully.....the bonding will go well!

When my kids were alot younger we would do family fun days where we chose an event or destination and spent the whole day together. Since they have become teens, I find these days are few and far between because of our busy schedules, and sometimes it seems it is a lack of common ground. Today was the last day of their winter break, and although I had taken two days off of work this week, they were too busy with other plans to spend much time with me. So I planned a family fun day.
Today I took my two teens to the Harry Potter Exhibit at the Boston Science Museum. They both slept on the way there since we left at 7:00 am, so no bonding there.... but we had an awesome time. The exhibit contains a huge amount of items used in filming the movies. My kids are huge fans and patiently answered all the questions I had. The drive home was about 1 1/2 hour and we laughed and chatted the whole time. I am so glad I asked them to go, and they are glad that they went.

Just dropping in to say that Apples to Apples is very popular in our social circle also. There are 5 teenagers and 1 preteen in our family/extended family, and whenever they get together, this game comes out. Something to keep in mind as a holiday gift, maybe.

__________________
"Dance like no one is watching."

My son is 11 and I am so worried about keeping that close bond... We spend a lot of family time, but often he has a friend join us. However, my son and I have been playing Scrabble recently and we both enjoy that. This weekend, we are having my sisters over and we will play games. We like Taboo, Guesstures, and Pictionary. We also play cards and dominoes. I'm hoping that we can maintain the relationship as he gets older...

__________________
Kim

We try to go to bingo at the local VFW once a week. Might sound cheesy, but we enjoy it!

I am a SAHM, and DH works full time. We only have one child.

But just that getting away from the house and being together as a family in a nice environment is great for us.

Plus, playing bingo I look at somewhat as therapy for my son. He is 13 and has ADHD. It takes a bit to focus on dabbing the right numbers and paying attention to which numbers are drawn. He also has incentive, as if he wins a game, the money is put in his savings account (so he really wants to focus so he will know if he gets a bingo).

It is relatively inexpensive for us all to play, and is fun!

__________________
"Yesterday my life was duller, now everything's technicolor!"

My experience has been that the best bet to stay connected with teens is to follow their interests as they develop and find something to maintain a common bond with them.....be it music, sports, whatever. I only have boys so my experience is one-sided, but have done things like play fantasy baseball with my oldest (follwing players, stats, etc) and we also are both into trivia and classic rock music. With my youngest, it's Ravens football and mixed martial arts and Kempo karate...just genuinely listening and boning up on their interests has helped to stay connected. They both like video games, but I just can't get into that like I can some of their other interests, so I don't even try to fake it.

On the other hand, DH tries to force them to do the things that he is interested in. It sort of backfires and unfortunately, their bond is not as strong as it could be (IMO)

cj/

__________________
I was walking home one night and a guy hammering on a roof called me a paranoid little weirdo. In morse code. -Emo Phillips