Hosting a Game Night for Your Kids’ Friends

When we first starting hosting a game night for our kids’ friends, I didn’t know what I was doing. I wanted our five kids who live at home, aged 15 to 23, to have an opportunity to extend hospitality to their friends in an intentional manner.

Together or individually, they had been extending invitations to their friends and acquaintances for a few years, but I got the idea to make Game Night a regular thing. In this way, I could plan for it and have a regular event on the calendar.

(To be honest, it was my need for regularity and planning that probably started it, but I’ve seen such good come from it, I’ll overlook my own selfish motivation.)

I never imagined that it would be such a great experience! Not only do my teen and adult children get a chance to be hosts while still living at home, but Bryan and I also get a chance to get to know their friends.

An added benefit is seeing the wide range of young people gathered together in one place. Our kids invite friends from church, school, and work. Some guests are believers, some are not. Some have intact families, some don’t.

All are welcome — and as far as I can tell, everyone has a good time. Attendance has ranged from 20 to 45 people!

What is Game Night?

Once a month we host an open game night for our kids’ friends. Each FishKid extends the invitation to whomever he or she wishes. On the set night, we make food, set up tables, and open our home to whoever comes.

No one is forced to play a particular game. Instead, small groups form fairly naturally and each group chooses a game that they want to play.

We have a large collection of board and card games to choose from as well as several video game consoles; guests often bring their own games as well. Many guests bring their Magic the Gathering decks so there are often multiple tables of that ongoing.

Tips to Make Game Night a Success

Hosting Game Night has become pretty easy now that we’ve done it so often. Here’s what we do to make it a success.

We choose the same week each month.

I like systems and routine so choosing the 3rd Saturday of the month made sense to me. This way I don’t have to think about when to put it on the calendar. Everyone just knows.

We have an open door policy – to a point.

Any and everyone is welcome, but the kids’ friends know to check with them before they bring newcomers no one has ever met. So far this has never been an issue.

We would never turn someone away, but we like to know who’s coming or who might be coming, especially so we can plan for food.

We make dinner.

Originally, I didn’t want to make dinner for so many people. I thought snacks would be sufficient with a later start time.

However, this didn’t pan out well for a few reasons:

1. Starting later meant ending later — and I am not a night owl.
2. It was harder for some guests to get dinner before coming meaning they might not come at all.
3. It turned out that it was a blessing to others, especially the college kids and young marrieds to have dinner provided for them.

I don’t mind making dinner, and with some trial and error, I’m finding out which meals work better than others. Having some of these hospitality tools has helped!

Be sure to read –> Game Night Snacks over at Good Cheap Eats for tips on feeding a crowd on game night.

Due to food allergies, I do all the food, except for the exception of Friendsgiving. Everyone who wanted to brought a dish to share. I used Signup.com to coordinate it all and made some sign up options “free” things like setting up so that everyone could participate, regardless of money.

I would like to think/hope that we’re modeling how to host to some of the kids whose parents maybe don’t do this kind of thing.

We serve no alcohol.

Depending on the age of your kids and your personal preferences, this may be a no-brainer, but I think it bears a mention.

Most of my kids are in college or graduated from college. However, I have two daughters who are underage. Though it would be permissible for some of our guests to indulge, we don’t offer alcohol and no one has ever brought any.

This has not been an issue. In fact, it’s one of the things that I think is so amazing about our Open Game Nights – college students and young adults flock to our house and have a fun time — without any booze.

I stay present.

If my sons are hosting their friends, I am free to do my own thing. However, since we are hosting high schoolers as well as college kids, I stay present all the time.

I do not suspect anything untoward would happen, but I invoke the golden rule here. I wouldn’t want my girls to be at friends’ houses with older guys unchaperoned. I also invoke the right to call on the women in their 20s to help me to that end.

Honestly, I blend into the woodwork. If I’m not fussing with food or dishes, I sit in a corner and read or sometimes play a game with some of the young married women.

We plan a later activity.

Our invitation is good from 5:30 to 8:30. Inevitably it goes later. College kids can play until all hours. I cannot chaperone according to those hours. [insert sleeping emoji here]

The under-18 crowd is usually gone by 9 or 10, but kids who don’t have curfews don’t always consider the time. Something we’ve learned through experience is to plan an alternative activity once I am ready to turn into a pumpkin.

If the crowd is small, the boys and their friends can move to the garage where the gaming is more muffled from the rest of the house. Otherwise, we’ve found that a 9pm outing to Chick-fil-A or Handel’s is a better option. We don’t want to squelch the socializing, but some people gotta sleep!

We debrief regularly.

Since we have Sunday dinner each week, we get a chance to debrief and troubleshoot as issues arise. Nothing big or bad has ever happened, but we like to cut things off at the pass.

We discuss what went well, what could have gone better. We Win or We Learn, that’s How We Play the Game

We’re also able to encourage our kids about good things we notice, like making a special effort to include newcomers. It’s been such a gift to see our kids grow as hosts in this way.

Last year FishChick16 and I read Life is Hard. God is good. Let’s Dance. by Brant Hansen. This quote jumped out at me, “Hospitality is making outsiders feel like insiders.” I have often felt like an outsider — to this day I often do — I never want our guests to feel like that.