The Night We Played Board Games Instead of Scrolling
Liam O'Connor
17 followers
The lights flickered and died at 7pm. No internet, no streaming, nothing to do — so we dug out the dusty board games box.
The awkward start
Nobody wanted to. We sat with blank faces, phones in hand, realising how strange we looked without a screen. Then my son asked if I remembered how to play Monopoly. I did not fully. We read the rules together. Something about fumbling through it broke the ice.
What the evening gave us
- Four hours of actual conversation
- Me learning more about my kids' humour in one night than a month of dinners
- Nobody checking notifications
The shift we made
We now have a "screen-to-table" rule: Sundays, phones go in a basket by the door, and we play or talk instead.
Why it matters
Connection is not about being in the same room. It is about being in the same moment. A board game forces the moment to happen — someone has to look you in the eye while taking their turn.
One evening of cards does not fix everything. But it is a start, and a start is what family time has been missing.
