People often buy children's board games in hopes that they will play by themselves as an alternative to television or video games.  Well I prefer to take a different approach in purchasing board games for families.  I am always on the lookout for games that I can play WITH my children and still have fun!  I have spent too many hours slugging away at Chutes and Ladders or Candyland and I finally decided enough is enough.  With a little monetary investment I have added numerous games to our family's game arsenol and now playing family board games has become one of our very favorite activities ... and not just for the kids.

Now don't worry that you will have to collect a bunch of childrens board games and not have enough time or money left for more grownup board games.  There are many ways that you can "dummy down" the rules of traditional board games in order to make them more "kid friendly".  We have a 5 year old and a 3 year old and they are both able to play a lot of our favorite games with us.  It's not always AS competitive as when we play without the kids, but it's sure a nice way to spend some quality time with eachother. 

Aside from modifying the rules of our games, we have also found that some children board games are actually quite fun to play!  There is a new genre of board games coming out of Europe that are just absolutely fabulous games.  While the game play is very simple to learn, there are some intriguing strategic elements that come into play if you choose to play at that level.