Family time: 40 home-based games to play with your family

Surviving and thriving with a family in lockdown is tough. Everyone is together 24/7 and tempers can fray. This is especially true if you have children who are a little different from the typical child, if you have to home school, if there is bereavement, and if you have financial worries. Spending time on play (so long as you are not sick) alleviates anxiety and promotes good mental health – plus, it is fun!

Here are 40 games and activities to keep you and your family going. Aimed at age 5-7 up. Parents are participants, but the ‘winning’ should be equally distributed.

The 40 games and activities

Why family games matter

The best way to survive lockdown for families with young children of all stripes, but especially for those with autistic traits, is to set routines and equally apportion the work involved. Meals, schooling, breaks, talking to friends are all essential for the age 7 years and up -the age group these games are aimed at. Structure in the day is key. Broken down in chunks of time, life is less daunting. A set time every day or every two days to play a family game can be really helpful.

Children need exercise, but they need to have fun as well. Sitting at their computers and enjoying screen time is only one aspect of how fun fun can be. It is very important, now more than ever, everyone needs to hang on to laughter, love and not lose the art of having a great time.

This list is to enable families to spend quality time together doing something fun together, other than work, exercise or screen time. Our family used to spend 20 minutes a day on this “family time” event each evening after dinner. We always played versions of each of the following games and activities, developing them as we went. We made up many of them as we went along. Creativity was encouraged. Laughter kept us sane, safe and bonded as a family.

I have a son, at the time of writing Aron is aged 13 and my daughter, Bronwen is aged 11. My partner, Hywel is a tree surgeon. We spend our “family time” playing games, making up stories and aimed to interact and have fun as a group: the family unit. Households have now, of course become an epidemiological unit.

Why is this important? In my view family time is beneficial for children’s mental health and well being. Having fun in the family context gives them emotional security that will promote resilience to life’s challenges in the future. There is research in child mental health to show that children with stronger emotional family security are able to cope better later in life. Group activities bring people together and thus serve to reaffirm their common bonds and to reinforce social solidarity.

Family fun time once a day or every two days maintains and revitalizes the social heritage of the family unit and helps transmit its enduring values to future generations. Family time counteracts feelings of frustration and the loss of faith and certainty that goes with our times by re-establishing the children’s sense of well-being, their sense of belonging to the world of which they are a part.

The family unit as a social institution serves to give meaning to children’s existential predicaments by tying them to that supra-individual sphere of values which is ultimately rooted in those of this society.

Rules of family time

The most important rule of family time is to have fun. If anyone starts to argue seriously, or get genuinely upset it is time to stop. Similarly if any person (normally an adult) starts to berate another person (normally a child) for not following the rules, for playing out of turn, for non-participation etc. then you are missing the point. The aim is not to win the game but to take part and enjoy the journey. The aim is to interact and for everybody to have fun, not for any individual to ‘win’.