Candy Land Lessons

For Christmas, I got Jayden Candy Land. Growing up, my dad always played board games with us. I loved it and I still love to play games now. I intend to teach my kids the same way. I am sad that Esteban doesn’t care for games, but like I told him. He's going to have to learn to deal cause I'm going to teach the kids to LOVE them. hehehe

As Jayden and I played together tonight, I realized that in addition to learning colors (and the fact that there are an infinite number of candy selections out there) I was teaching Jayden important life lessons.

1) We start at the beginning and work our way to the end. There’s always a goal in sight. Sometimes we move forwards and sometimes we move backwards. We might get lucky and find a shortcut, or we could end up stuck on Licorice Space, but we always keep our eyes set on the prize. The goal is to get to King Kandy and the Candy Castle, no matter how long it takes. He’s not ready for this lesson yet, but I always remind him that we need to find our way to the castle so that we can win the prize.

2) We take turns. Everyone wants to participate. Jayden likes to help mommy move her pawn, and help mommy draw her card. I try to explain to him that everyone wants to have fun and play the game. So we share and take turns.

3) We don’t jump ahead. After all, that wouldn’t be fair. Sometimes Jayden draws the card with two purple blocks, but really he feels like moving ahead 3 or 4 purple blocks. So I share with Jayden that his card only had 2 purples and so he should only move 2 purples. OooooK! He says…

4) And a final thought…Do you let them win the game, or do you play fair and square? Candy Land is not a game of skill. It’s more of a game of chance. But as I played with Jayden, I found myself wondering…What do other parents do?

I lost his attention just before the end of the second game, but that’s ok. We managed to finish the game and that was good enough for me.