Raising children is a very difficult job, both mind numbing and exciting, fun and disgusting, often on the same day. I stayed home with my two children for 7 years, so I claim to have some expertise. Sometime late in my tenure as a stay-at-home dad, I invented a game that, as far as I know, is unique and new. I call it the 'handy game' for reasons that will become obvious. First, a little background.
When I was a kid, we sometimes played the following game. One person would press on another person's back firmly with their finger tips. The challenge was simply for the second person to guess how many fingers were pressing on their back. It's not easy. The problem, I suppose, is that we have few nerve endings on our backs and they are separated farther apart than we are usually aware. So the fingers need to be spread far apart, but children have small hands. In this way the players learn a little physiology, and get a few surprises and a few laughs.
My game evolved from the finger counting game. I'll describe it first and then discuss some aspects that I think make it particularly interesting.
How to play the Handy Game
Let's name our players 'Mom' and 'the child'. Mom tells the child to 'keep your eyes closed and reach over and touch my hand'. When the child's eyes are closed, Mom makes a shape with one of her hands, for example a 'thumbs up' sign. The child touches Mom's hand and Mom says 'OK now, feel my hand. Use both of your hands if you like. When you've figured out what shape my hand is in, you try to make the same shape with your own hand.' When the child makes a shape with a hand, Mom says 'Now open your eyes.' Then they both see if the child figured out the shape. Laughter ensues, guaranteed. Now the players switch roles and the child makes a different shape for Mom, after she closes her eyes, of course.
Some interesting aspects
This simple version is for very young children. One aspect to the game is that you can make it more complicated as the child gets older or more sophisticated. You can make more complicated shapes. You can make shapes with two hands, together or separately. You can twist your arms around. You can add rules such as the guesser must use only one hand, must make the shape with the same hand, or must figure it out by the time I count to 30. Older children will quickly clue in to make some rude shapes, forcing their parent or sibling to make the same rude gesture. It's all in good fun.
You can play this game almost anywhere. You don't need a board, tokens, or any other game parts. In the car, among siblings stashed in the back seat, it postpones the 'are we there yet?' phase of a long trip. During an illness, this can break the monotony of a child's bed rest without too much physical effort. It's a very gentle competition.
I think this game is a great exercise in mental visualization for both players. It's fun watching someone's face as they try to figure out a shape by touch alone. It's a real challenge to think up new hand shapes without trying them first and giving them away.
I really don't know if this game has been invented anywhere else before. I would like to know, but I have no idea how to search for it. Perhaps a child psychologist has developed something similar as a test for cognitive ability. I do know that my boys and I had fun with it.
Brad Bjorndahl - As a technical writer, my mantra is "clear, concise, correct".
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