Kids and Go

In my previous blog post, I forgot a lot of what I was supposed to be writing about. Blame time constraints for I'm a father of two lively children. (Yes, Two! I never got around to telling about that either. Oh my.) Leo, whom about you already know if you had read some of the earlier posts, and Miro who was born in September 2010.

They both play Go.

Well. This is not a story about them, actually. It's more of a story of how kids ultimately get interested in stuff like Go.


It starts by a seemingly innocent case of me and Miro (who was 3 years old at the time) playing what was a "just for fun" stone placing game on a 9x9 goban at the park last Summer. I hadn't planned it in advance or anything, just felt like taking the boards out and testing the boys if they were interested in playing some games outside.
  Suddenly we were surrounded with small kids, boys and girls, ages from 5 to 10 wanting to know what we were playing, and if we would teach them to play it too.

The rest of the Summer holidays were spent teaching and watching the kids play. Even when their holidays ended, they would still be playing Go after school. Almost every kid in the neighborhood were interested in the game.

I was a bit worried about what should come of their hobby, come Autumn. It'd soon be out of the question to play in the park as the weather gets colder towards Winter. So Leo came up with an idea, they could set up their own Go club, separate of the adults' club I went to every Thursday, as they could probably play in the club room of our apartment building.
  It was the starting point of the kids' go club which was sort of a success story.

I even had to get the key for the club room so we don't have to ask for it each time we used it. My wife Vera, was kind enough to occasionally bake some goodies for the kids to snack on when taking a break between games. It was fun times for everyone.

But since there were a lot fewer kids there than in the park by Summer, some of them eventually started losing interest in coming to the club. And by Christmas, it was evident, that the club activities had to cease. Leo wasn't able to convince his friends to play at the club. So after New Years' we had to put it on hiatus for the rest of the Spring.

Now. As the weather has finally gotten warmer (as we had a long, cold and wet Spring), I've been taking some goban to the park whenever going out with the kids. But the enthusiasm of last Summer doesn't seem to exist anymore. I am confident though, that if they start playing again, they probably won't stop... After all, there seem to be new kids who have moved into the neighborhood, who might get interested.

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What eventually prompted me to write this post was having read a Google+ post by Thomas Rohde. Looks like something I could use. ^^

And like always, have good games everyone!

Update: the post I referred to was actually written in 2013. For some reason I misread it having a more fresh date. Sorry about this. If "Euro Kids" is still active, please give me a shout out. Maybe we can push go further for all kids. :)