Movies/TV/Books/Games with my kid

For some reason, my family tends to watch TV together after school/work. We also occasionally play the same games and read the same books.

This thread is a collection of stuff that good for both kids and adults.

Card Games:

Gubs (although I think it’s out of print)
Abandon All Artichokes

Played Mexican Train (Dominoes) in the Dining Room son+gf while watching out for trickers-and/or-treaters.

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Mexican Train is a favorite here as well as Ticket to Ride.

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Castle Panic might be a good game for adults and kids to play together.

In terms of board games I like to play chess with my kid but we rarely get far before it turns into a game of dolls, which is perfectly fine.

In the last game, she was using the latch (that closes the foldup-board) to launch misbehaving pawns over the battlefield.

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My daughter and her husband introduced us to Sleeping Queens.

It has been fun and can include fairly young kids as well.

Drinking games: fun for the whole family.

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Taboo

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Mancala is fun to play with the kids. Easy to learn, but playing can be as simple or complex as you like.

I should point out some interesting aspects of this game:

  • It is generally a cooperative game rather than individual-competitive type game
  • There is an option for one player to take the role of the “monsters” . . . so you can get a “Dad vs. kids” type of set up.
  • Also has an expansion pack to add more variety as the kids (and adults) get use to the overall game play.

Another fun game (along the lines of chess): Stratego.

good old jigsaw puzzle.

500 piece takes about 5 hours if you’re fast

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Neither my kid nor I have any patience… so we don’t usually get far with board games of any sort.

We’ve had some luck with Deck Builders like Dominion and Machi-Koro though.

Current Book: Wayside School (4 book series)

Short story collection about school kids, but always goes silly / dark / bizarre / ironic.

For example, there’s a chapter about a girl who only likes icecream, but eventually gets tired of every flavor. So the teacher tries to help her by making a flavor of the girl???

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Can you still stream How It’s Made? We used to watch that a lot with our son, it’s low key and educational - and not annoying, imo.

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I have read 2 and 3. Reading 1 and 4 now. So weird that book 4 came out 25 years after book 3.

Another kids book that I like is the Fudge series by Judy Blume…

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I don’t know if it is streaming, but a lot of them are on YouTube.

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Tops I can think of that mostly stay off of heavy violence or sexuality and teach good life lessons, yet are excellent.

Age 7+: on Netflix, She-Ra (still loved this as a full-ass adult). High on feminism, LGBTQ rights, a nod to mental disability
Age 11+: Full-Metal Alchemist:Brotherhood. Simply one of the best animes in existence, however does explore some issues with atheism and death, some sexuality but it’s never explicit. Much less “fan-service” than much anime.
Age 9+: RWBY. Heavy on feminist badassery. Lots of fighting but really cool and never graphic to be my recollection. Worst violence I can recall is a character losing an arm, which precedes a self-redemption arc paralleling disabilities. Some characters do die but not with gore. Later seasons get a bit darker, earlier seasons are a little lighter on meaningful violence/betrayal/etc.

Nods to: Ouran Host Club (any age). Fluffy and cute, explores issues of non-binary gender. Very little violence or danger, only fluffy “sexuality” with characters sometimes flirting.
Gurran Lagann: (11+): Great show, some good themes, however has too much fan-service for me to give it a 10/10 recommendation, with a main character in a bikini and canonically fawned over by men. However your kids won’t see anything they wouldn’t see walking by a Victoria’s Secret.
Your Lie in April (11+): Sad, short, good. Very musical show (diegetic). Explores terminal illness. I cried.
Fruits Basket (5+): Total fluff. There is some light violence (pushing somebody over, sparring) and jealousy, however nothing I’d expect the average kid to be frightened by.

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what about Big Mouth lolol