Getting one's children interested in wargaming

[Harry Faversham]

Saddest part is getting them interested, then losing them, in my case I was fully to blame. A lad will be interested in most things his Dad does, if for no other reason than getting a bit of undivided attention. Mine, when he was 11 or 12 would constantly mither for a wargame, I'd put him off being busy doing something else. How I wish that I hadn't because, the day duly came when I approached him for a game he'd grown up a tad and was busy dong something else, he's been busy ever since.
I was lucky, I got a second chance with his younger sister, and didn't make the same mistake. She's 29 now and living in Scotland, first visitation after plague lockdown ended, she told me to have a FFofL game set up and her Cowboy in a kilt painted and ready!

[Duncan McDane]

I'm a complete failure at that.    My son never cared for miniature gaming - we played the odd Battle Masters game but it never lighted a spark - and my current wife doesn't care either, although she's more than happy I spend my free time and money on it 

[Mindenbrush]

My son expressed an interest as they had gaming at his school so I painted a WRG Hordes army for him, not sure what happened to it as I was often working away at that time.
He never pursued gaming but signed up for the real thing and has been in the RAF for 23 years now, seen plenty of the bad parts of the world and had some stick time in a Tornado.
He does have 2 young sons who were fascinated by my toy soldiers so one never knows.

From what I have seen at conventions the kids games need to be simple yet exciting and full of action.

[Dentatus]

Altho all my kids enjoy board games/party games, only one of three expressed any interest in the hobby back when. We had a good run together, doing after-school programs and managing a weekend game room for several years. He's in his 30s now, moved on, and I'm gaming with my grand kids now.

For them, I offer cool painted figs, nice sturdy terrain, simple rules where they usually win, and snacks. It works.

Now will that take root? Have no idea but it's wonderful right now.

[boneio]

I'd say it's a matter of "exposing" children to the idea of wargaming, vs. "getting them interested".  I don't support anyone forcing an interest on anyone, be it child, sibling, significant other, etc.  It's why I despise the "How do I get my GF to play 40K with me!?" kind of posts/threads.

Absolutely this. My two are 4 and 6, and I very rarely 'invite' them to do anything wargame related. Instead, they live half their life (I'm divorced!) in my house surrounded by 'tiny monsters' as we call them. I've taken them to Warhammer World a lot. We've been to wargame shows a fair bit and played demo games. In every case once they were old enough to be asked, they were given the choice.

Upshot is they've now asked to paint some Bones figures on (I think) two occasions over the past month, and they volunteered themselves to 'help' set up my new cardboard dungeon the other day. The 6-year-old was actually useful, we got a production line going!
They do ask to play but the 4 year old is too into make-believe at the moment so I think once he's good with simpler boardgames and can follow structured play better, we'll try some simple games.

If they like it and want to play now and then, great. If not, that's fine too, I have friends 

We all play on the xbox together as well so gaming in general is definitely a thing in our house.

I share a lot of my interests with my father - not wargaming, but model railways for example. He was pretty hands-off, I just seemed to naturally gravitate to liking a lot of the same stuff... music, miniature things, steam railways, etc. When I see families with older offspring who share interests or tastes with their parents, I tend to assume it just sort of happened that way rather than being deliberate.

Overall the healthy philosophy is of course (I know we all agree, just voicing it) to let the kids like what they like, as long as it's not harmful to society (or the hobby budget )

[FierceKitty]

My wife started to get enthusiastic when she realised she was capable of winning. Cook the set-up in the first few games.

[carlos marighela]

My wife started to get enthusiastic when she realised she was capable of winning. Cook the set-up in the first few games.

Most wives are quite confident in the knowledge that will achieve ultimate victory, they just like to jolly us along/ fuck with our minds.

Now you have to question who really cooked the set-up?   Think about cats and balls of yarn for a while.

[FierceKitty]

I'm sure she's controlling my every move. 

[warrenpeace]

No kids of my own. I wish that I had had the opportunity to introduce my nephews and neices to miniatures. At least my brother has played in a few miniatures games, and did attend a miniatures convention with me the last couple of years. Unfortunately that convention was cancelled this year, along with so many others.

I've noticed that there are more kids at that convention, even though it's more oriented toward historicals. They seem to gather around sci-fi or fantasy tables, chariot races, pirate themed games, and games presented with toy figures more. But some are in more historical games. There is some effort made to present a few games that would attract the kids.

I've noticed that the Pulp genre is attractive to kids. I think Pulp Alley in particular is a good set of rules to introduce kids to playing with miniatures. It was developed by Dave Phipps playing games with his daughter and her friends. I've had 12 to 17 year olds in my Pulp Alley games, and those usually go well and entertain them. One actually decided to paint a fantasy army after playing in a game or two with us.

Another advantage to the role playing scale of Pulp Alley and other games like it is that very few figures are needed. So if a kid decides to paint a little faction of 3 to 7 figures, that's not so daunting a project.