We all grew up playing games like Tic-Tac-Toe, dots, and hangman. These games kept us entertained in many a situations and settings. They are good games and are still played by most kids today, even in the midst of our technology soaked world. However, Hangman has a pretty dark setting and negative connotations to it. If you fail to guess the word then the man gets hanged. yikes!
You might be thinking that I am being a little oversensitive or overreacting, and I might be. However, you probably work with parents of all different types of beliefs and convictions. It is our job to help them in their parenting journey, not to tell them how to parent their own children. There can also be some unintended consequences of playing the traditional game of Hangman.
One Wednesday evening a teacher in our ministry was teaching a Bible skills class. She simply mentioned the game Hangman and some of the boys focused on it instead of the lesson. She had to spend time getting them back on track. The very next day this same teacher got a phone call from a parent asking what I had talked about in the Bible study lesson that night (which was about Jesus’ birth and I did not mention anything at all about Hangman or anything even remotely similar). The teacher explained what I spoke about and proceeded to ask the parent why she wanted to know. Turns out that the child had gone home and got angry at something the parent had asked them to do and then stated they wanted to hang the parent.
Yikes again! I know that this particular child has some underlying complications that led to this extreme response. However, this is a family in our ministry and this outburst was a result, at least in part, of our midweek program.
As a result we have created a game that works the same as Hangman, but without the gloomy backstory. Same concept, one player selects a word or phrase and writes the appropriate number of blanks in the space provided. The 2nd player must try and guess the word or phrase by guessing letters. If the letter is contained in the word then it is filled in everywhere applicable. If the letter is not in the word, player one colors in an ornament on the tree. Player 2 is trying to guess the word before player 1 finishes decorating the tree!
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