In this section we will examine how to begin and evaluate a Family Game Night in your community. At first glance, a Family Game Night may appear to be a trivial activity that can be easily overlooked in an era of tight budgets and strict oversight by funders. Sometimes, though, simple activities can have profound consequences.

The first task in creating an educational program is to determine the program goals for children older than six years of age and their parents. A family games night can:

Build and strengthen family cohesion
Strengthen children's desire to succeed and overcome adversity
Teach children how to become gracious losers (and winners)
Promote children's honesty and a sense of fair play
Strengthen children's respect for common property
Build shared memories through a common, enjoyable experience
Strengthen children's decision making skills
Build math skills and an understanding of probability

Many of us complain about how much television children watch and how distracted children are by activities outside of the home. As you can see from the goals, family game night is a great way to counter trends that tend to fragment family togetherness.

The second task is to create learning experiences that show parents how to set up and run a family game night. Finally, we have to conduct an evaluation of family game night to determine if the program goals were successful.