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 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
That moment when you realise a six year old paints better than you did when you started at the age of 12...

I was self-taught, so it doesn't bother me too much. I'm just glad I can pass on all my hard-earned wisdom to him.

@joshinjapan, with skills like that (even with some help) at 6! It would be heresy for him to not continue. Must be in the genes. You can tell him from all of us WELL DONE!

Hell, those minis were painted by a 6 year old? Colour me IMPRESSED!

A six-year old and his father. I did a lot of touch ups on those models.

Gotta say, my now 23 year old son and I still play, of course not as much as before, but it will always be something fun we have done together since he was in fifth grade (almost 12 years ago) We spent hours painting together and playing games as well as talking about articles and blog posts and sometimes about other stuff going on in his life. We did argue about rules and how they applied to the games, but it was a great opportunity to listen to each other and work things out. My brother and his daughter also play against each other and I know it has been a positive thing for both of them as well.

I play a lot of games with my 10 year old...D&D Attack Wing, Smash Up, Small World, Talisman...he's generally up for trying anything in my collection, but did not like Summoner Wars or Sentinels of the Multiverse. And while he's played X-Wing, he finds the ship names too confusing because they are similar and do not help describe the ships.

My 8 year old is not so much into gaming. She'll play Forbidden Island, and has asked to play Zombies Keep Out!, but her time spent wandering the halls of Adepticon was full of "there's nothing here but boys games!" I keep offering, and maybe one day day....

My 6 year old will play Attack Wing with us, and even has asked just to play with me. She's also played Rampage with us, and I think in general has the gaming bug, but not the attention span just yet. She was bored at Adepticon last year, even though we told her she was getting figures to paint.

My 2 year old loves playing with my figures, and I hope that translates into playing the games they are for eventually. I think he'll be a shoe-in, though, in a few more years.

My 12 year old and I play car wars, 40k, blood bowl & space hulk

here is my daemon/csm getting mullered last weekend

Honestly:

I play to get away from my kids.

 Frank&Stein wrote:
Honestly:
I play to get away from my kids.

There are those moments too.
It is just when they get all happy playing "dad's game" that is the time you do not feel like getting away.
The time you find your fully painted miniatures mixed in the lego bin however, yep, time to go to the FLGS for a bit.

 Frank&Stein wrote:
Honestly:

I play to get away from my kids.

7pm, bed time. Sweetest time of the day.

7PM bedtime? You must be a miracle worker.

 Talizvar wrote:

sushi2001 wrote:
funny you are talking about your kids playing warhammer when my dad complains that I am to involved!
Automatically Appended Next Post:
sorry too involved

Parents are always afraid their kids will get sucked into some hobby or cult that prevents them from having a proper grasp of reality or priority.
Too much passion scares us... should be something to cultivate rather than prevent I know.
I had parents that every time I liked something they used it to punish, made me learn pretty quick to not like anything or hide it well.

Wasting time... it is all relative to what you value.
Grown men who will watch and talk about sports for hours that they do not even participate in.
Skill development is always worth-while.
Social interaction, competitiveness, assembly and painting skills, collaboration, community development... there are many good things to be found in the tabletop hobby.
Heck, when I made the mental leap of treating my kids like miniatures for making costumes for Halloween it reached new levels of awesome finding a "new" skill set.
I wanted a better surface to play games on and made a few, carpentry! Who knew!

Anything that gets your kids engaged in creating / making in general is a great gift to give to them.
It makes for kids that grow up to be parents that are fairly fearless and tackling new things and not saying "I can't do that!", sure you can, it is only a matter of research and effort.

It took me till I was 16 to realize the punishment thing sadly... and ditto on all of the above.

You treat your kids to whatever they want bud, if it's the hobby, go for it! It will help them learn to paint and I wish my father would have done something like that for me.

I've just returned to the hobby due to the interest from my two sons and have to say how great it is to have something that is real quality time with them, no sitting their with headphones on watching StampyfrickinLongNose videos on YouTube or staring at episodes of Regular Show but instead we sit round the kitchen table like a little sweatshop painting the miniatures up (they apply base-coats and washes, I do dry-brushing and highlighting) then we all have a battle, currently just with two forces with either myself overseeing or the both of them v me (getting a 3rd army though at Christmas to mix it up).

Since gaming, painting and drawing is big part of my life it is normal that my son was introduced to it since his earliest age. This pic is taken when he was merely 2 years old. I have luck that he seems very cautious and he never broke, swallowed or destroyed in any way any single figure. I have all my stuff on working table and dont have to worry about it for a second. Even when other kids come to our house he keeps his eyes on them not to touch anything. Wife is a problem.

Morning one:


Death to the false emperor:

Gamed when I was younger, reality got in the way and it all went west. 2009 roof brought home three space marines, apparently painted with the aid of a catapult and what appeared to be masonry paint... Dug up a few books that had survived, which he loved.

Got him the 40k black reach box for christmas, it looked lonely so got myself one..

sort of went downhill rapidly as it does, he now has more FoW tanks than me, and possibly more than have ever actually been made, and is joining the army after doing well in cadets, gave him a purpose he was lacking, also taught him patience.

The sod can also paint better than me now..

My first born grabs his first loot counter in Gorkamorka!

My nephew cornered my brother after our 6th Ed. DOW vs Beastmen match with tons of technical questions. Seems pretty interested, and my 3 year old daughter has been stressing that she wants to play my model game. She's leaning more towards Space Marines, but she's also fascinated with my Minotaurs as well, so we'll see which ruleset she dives into first.

My boys are age 9 and 11 now and we've been playing 40k together for about a year and a half. I'm back to the game for the third time and this time is by far the most fun. We've collected a small Crimson Fists army, about 2,000pts of Imperial Guard Steel Legion army (bought painted off eBay), and a solid 3,500pts of Orks... over 200 Boyz by latest count. Also a very small collection of Genestealers and a couple of Broodlords because Daddy is a huge Space Hulk fan (which of course we also own and play).

The great thing is that my sons are actively helping to assemble and paint up everything, which is tremendously helpful with the Orks. We've got the vast majority of the Boyz basecoated and are just about ready to go through with final details and basing, so by year's end if not sooner we should have a full painted Goff Green Tide.

We've played mostly smaller games in the 750 - 1250pt size. Guard vs Orks is great fun, we've fought so many Battles for Armageddon now I can't even count them all. We've also been giving Kill Team and Combat Patrol a whirl.

So, on both the gaming and hobby front, my sons have been actively involved and enjoying 40k quite a bit. The game system has many flaws, but we're able to mainly focus on just bringing the stuff we love the looks of and having fun with it on the table. There are other game systems that are better for competitive endeavors, but 40k is great for that "sci fi movie on the tabletop" effect. Good times.

3 player Kill Team... Space Marines vs Orks vs Tyranids


The Tide washes over Armageddon

I don't have any children but play lots of board games when my nieces and nephews are over. Rampage, boss monster, small world are some of the games we play. They really enjoy Rampage since you get to destroy the city, throw cars, blow over building and eat meeples.

It's been a real trip watching my son's hobby journey.
When my son was almost 3, he'd occasionally join me at my hobby table and I'd give him some random model for him to paint. The seed was planted.
When he was older, around 11 and became curious about actual gaming with those miniatures, 'The Hobbit' came out and 'Escape from Goblin Town' was the birthday gift. He assembled the set by himself...I threw in some occasional advice and tips, but he did the work... got tutored by the guys at the local GW on how to play, found a friend at school that was into it as well and then proceeded to recruit his circle of friends into the madness and binge game with his bros whenever possible. Summer was a blur of driving a car full of hobbit-sized boys out to GW almost every other day so they could play until the need for food overpowered their Middle Earth addiction.
Within a year or so of that, it was WHFB...my bag baby, yeah...and that meant gaming with and against Dad. He got 'Island of Blood' and I gave him the HE and Skaven Army books to read and research so he could pick a side. He took Skaven and I then took HE...an army I vowed I'd never play, but they turned out to be a lot of fun. His Army is probably up to 11K+ points now, he's 15, and my HE is about the same. We've played some insane sized games that have lasted days and utilized up to 3 interconnected 4' x 6' tables as battlefields. It's been Epic! I've loved it.
His gaming fervor has abated with the demands and distractions of Upper School(High School), but this last summer when he was at home in the evenings from his summer internship, he took on the project of building and painting the new Skaven Vermin Lord. No help or tips from me...I didn't even know he was doing it until it was assembled and he wanted to show me the "before" prior to painting! It's all done now, built, painted, base flocked and in the display case with his other vermin and I must say there's no small amount of pride felt by yours truly every time I pass the case and see it there.

My little one is only two and I think she has lots of time to decide if she might like any of this stuff in the future...but Mrs Captain Brown would be against it.

Cheers,

CB

BigWaaagh, damn, that is fantastic! If the kids I have someday end up like yours, I think I will die of joy! (Or just be the proudest/happiest parent ever)

 Red_Ink_Cat wrote:
BigWaaagh, damn, that is fantastic! If the kids I have someday end up like yours, I think I will die of joy! (Or just be the proudest/happiest parent ever)

Thanks, man.
I never forced it on him, he just became curious through osmosis. He's always been more of a gamer...he views building and painting as nothing more than a necessary chore. That's why the Vermin Lord effort really blew me away.

Awesome thread.

I don't have chilluns, and likely won't if I can keep it that way. However I do have a nine year old nephew. Like...every child today he's a little too tractor-beamed to TVs and a tablet his parents bought him.

I had some space marines laying around (selling off a friend's huge collection) and decided to see if he had any interest. He was immediately interested and I whipped up a quick version of Kiddiehammer.



First game. I've assembled his figures, I use Army Painter spray and I paint his bases brown...he paints all the details. We've been developing the rules and he's built up a cool little collection. I pick up 40K or similar stuff online for cheap and he has his own little store where he can spend $5 for some marines, or $10 for a squad of terminators etc.).

I whipped up some Kiddiehammer dice as well, so he's learning icons vs. numbers at the moment. He grabs that a lot faster.



I'm slowly teaching him strategies/tactics and asking him to explain some of his decisions when we play. He's starting to realize what is good for what.

I've done up some unit cards and laminated them and he has a laminated weapon list. Last time we started army building, where he's responsible for the math to add up weapons/options and build an army within a points structure --- so there's his math for the day! All in all it's been a good project and he said he loves painting more than playing.

It's a good break from TV and video games and he gets to get out of his house and do some "guy stuff". We normally make an evening of it and have pizza or chicken nuggets or something "kid friendly". He's learning about losing/winning etc. Most importantly we shake hands after every game.

A later game

 Elbows wrote:
He's learning about losing/winning etc. Most importantly we shake hands after every game.

This has been the most valuable aspect of "gaming" with my son. He used to cry and/or throw things when he lost, got a bad die roll, or anything didn't go his way, but he's getting the hang of the storytelling aspect of gaming which makes it a lot easier. The next step is getting him to use the rules...

 JoshInJapan wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
That moment when you realise a six year old paints better than you did when you started at the age of 12...

I was self-taught, so it doesn't bother me too much. I'm just glad I can pass on all my hard-earned wisdom to him.

I was talking about myself there.

My son was into Daddy's hobby. He was 3 at the time. He always "won" and had a blast. Sadly as he grew up I was teaching him the "real" rule since he wanted to play pick up games at the store, and found out the rules were boring, bloated and NOT FUN when we played before.

So to keep him interested we played my house rules, he had fun. As he grew up he lost interest in his Terminators (Necrons) and went to Magic. Now he is loosing interest in Magic but has no interest in painting anymore.

Would love to play with him agin, but when kids have more interest in Call of Duty it's hard to compete with that. I tried Call of Duty and get my arse handed to me very easily lol.

My son likes 40K models, and knows a lot of the background from flipping through all my old books, but is no less interested in Frostgrave, Deadzone, and SoBaH. When he's ready, I plan to start with one or all of those instead.

Yep, my nephew says "when I'm like 20, I can have..." and I'm quick to calm him and let him know he may completely change interests by then. I became a wargamer/modeler, my brother did not (we play PC games and some board games together though).

I think it's still quite rare (particularly today) to have a younger kid embrace a hobby which is quite time consuming and tough when there is so much immediate gratification available in gaming on Xbox/PC etc. Be honest, we don't stand a chance!

My 5 year old son started gaming with me recently. We used Sean Patten's (Necromundicon, IronHands.com) Starcrashers rules. It's been his first try at gaming and at miniature painting.

I've been semi-blogging the process here:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/691684.page#8797990