Bridge and Your Family

Bridge is a great game for all ages and a terrific game to share within a family. How many activites is your child involved in that you can actively share with him. You can watch him play sports, admire his grades, be proud when he does something well but how often do you get actively involved in playing with your child? I know from personal experience that at 55 I can only keep up with my 9 year old grandchild for 30 minutes or so if we are playing a physical game. I can't come close to playing video games with him - his turns last 15 minutes as opposed to my 30 second turn. We go to movies and the book store together and that's always fun.

The only thing I can do with him is play games. Board games and card games are something we can share for hours. The trouble though is that 'kids card games' get old. There are only so many hours of War an adult wants to play.

In Bridge you can find a game that adults and children can learn and enjoy. It is complex enough that you will never learn it all. You can look forward to playing it for years to come. When your child (or grandchild) learns it also you will have a common bond that you can share with him for the rest of your life.

One of the parents of a young man I teach told me that she, her son and her daughter (who had all learned to play bridge in one of our summer camps) went to visit their grandmother. In past years even though her son certainly loved his grandmother, they didn't have much common ground to spend talking with each other. This visit they played Bridge. The son as partners with the grandmother and she and her daughter as partners. The Son/Grandmother soundly trounced them. Talked, congratulated each other on good plays and generally had a terrific time. She said this was one of the best visits they had every had.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had learned at 11. Both my parents played duplicate bridge. When I reached 15-16-17; those awful years when you want to be grown up and you're really not. Parents just don't understand! Bridge was one thing that we could still share. Maybe we weren't talking about really important things, but it kept a line of communication open between us during those tough years.

From a personal standpoint, I always felt a little out of place as a teenager. I was pretty smart, had some really good friends, a little athletic (though in my school days there were much fewer athletic opportunities for girls) a few boyfriends; but just felt a bit awkward. I'd rather curl up with a good book than talk about boys. I wasn't very interested in shopping. Playing Bridge was a social outlet for me, an intellectual stretch and a competitive opportunity.

Bridge may be the perfect 'fit' for your child and family as it was for me.