Fun fact: My family currently consists of children ages 12-22. That puts us smack in the middle of raising tweens, teens and adult-ish kiddos. 
This also presents one MAJOR problem. People don’t like doing the same things. Period. It’s HARD, so very HARD to find things that everyone enjoys willingly. At any given time, someone is usually compromising what they want to do to make someone else in the family happy.
This is true on vacations, going out to eat, watching movies and DEFINITELY while playing games.
One stage ALL our kids have hit is the one where they don’t want to play games with us anymore. Sniff. We’ve got many collecting dust.
I’m guessing if you’ve read this far that you have this issue sometimes too.
I’ve found the key to buy in on family game nights lately is to limit the game options to ones that EVERYONE enjoys. The end. It sounds too simple. It is.
I polled my teen, my tween and the adult-ish kid who is home. I asked them each to identify their favorite games from our large collection.
In doing so, I made some interesting discoveries that might help you in your attempt at the next family game night.
Below are 5 games that ALL of our children will willingly play with us!
Telestrations. This game makes BIG points particularly with the tween crowd.
What is it? In a nutshell, it’s Pictionary meets the old Telephone game. You know, that one where you whisper a phrase in someone’s ear and they whisper it to someone else, and they whisper it to someone else and so on. By the time it hits the end of the line, “My dog has fleas.” has evolved into “My mom sells bees” and you have no idea why. Yeah, that game.
Each player in this game has a dry-erase notepad. Each player draws a card. A number is rolled that determines which item on the card each player will write/draw.
The first page the player writes the name of the item. The notepad is passed. The next person flips the card and draws a picture. The Notepad is passed again. . next person draws a picture.
This pattern repeats until each player has their original notepad back.
Now each player flips through their cards and shows the progression from the name they wrote at the beginning, all the way to the last picture drawn.
Get ready for lots of laughs with this winner of a game! It’s creative, hilarious and there are no winners or losers. Just a boatload of fun!
To get more information about Telestrations, go here.
Apples to Apples. This game was my tween, teen and adult-ish kids’ first picks! For real! Everyone is happy to play this game!
The object of Apples to Apples is to be the first player to collect 5 descriptor cards (fluffy, scary, mysterious etc.).
Each player in Apples to Apples is dealt 5 cards containing a person, place or thing.
When it is a player’s turn, they draw one of the noun cards and read it, along with the definitions of the word to the group. Each player sends an adjective card face down to this player. The player analyzes each card and determines which one best matches the noun card.
For example, if the adjective was mysterious, other players may send noun cards like “ghost” “girls” “lizards ” “haunted house” etc. The player may decide “Haunted House” is the best match. The player who submitted “Haunted House” gets to keep the “Mysterious” card.
What everyone loves about this game? The art of winning this particular game lies more in knowing how each player will respond to the cards. For example, we all know that Thing 3 will pick “Toilet” every time, no matter what the adjective card happens to be.
This game produces a lot of laughs. People LOVE if “stinky” coincides with having a card like “Brothers” in your hand.
Naturally, we have the Disney version of this game. However, the standard version works exactly the same.
For more details, go to here.
- Snake Oil. Props to my friend Amanda for recommending this game to us! This game was also picked quickly by all three age groups as a favorite.
What exactly is snake oil? Well, it’s a marketing game. Each player takes turns being a buyer. This buyer will specifically be an actor, a camper, a teacher or fall into some other specific category. Knowing this, each other player will try to sell them an object using 2 of the 6 cards in each hand. 
Trying to sell to a wizard? Maybe some fizzy potion is in order. Does Grandma needs a new product? How about a guilt sandwich?
Thing 2 is a master at this game. He has a flair for the dramatic in his execution.
We all love this one! It requires each player to be creative and often to think outside the box. It is a hoot hearing each person heartily promote their product to the buyer.
For more details. go here.
Chameleon. We won this game at a white elephant gift exchange Christmas 2019 (back when parties were a thing). Knowing nothing about this newer game, it sat on our shelf for a while. 
We took this bad boy to New Mexico with us and BOY it got a workout!
Each player is dealt one card. This card either has a grid of numbers and letters, or it tells you that you are the chameleon.
A different grid card is placed in the center of the table. This card may say “Types of Food”, “Countries” or so on.
Two dice are rolled and determine which part of the grid your word falls in.
Players go around in a circle and share a one-word description of the mystery word from the grid. If you are the chameleon, you throw a word out there, hoping that it matches up with the mystery word. If you are lucky, you get to take cues from other players before you throw out your word.
After everyone has shared, players guess the identity of the chameleon. If they are right, points are awarded. If the chameleon guesses what the word is, points are awarded.
At 15 minutes in length, this a great one when you are short on time, but still want to squeeze in some fun!
For more details, go here.
Throw-Throw the Burrito
Throw-Throw the Burrito is the newest game in our stash.
Do your kids need to burn off some extra steam? If so, this might be just the ticket!
The object of “Throw-Throw the Burrito” is be the player at the end of two rounds with the most points.
Players collect various types of cards. When they earn 3 of the same card, they lay the set down in front of them.
Sets of Brawl, Duel and Duel cards will inevitably involve pelting someone else with a squishy burrito! Getting hit by a burrito is not Bueno as you earn “Burrito Bruises” and lose point.
It’s frigid here and the natives are restless. Consequently, they really had some fun with this one the other night. Duels got a little crazy!
Throw, throw the burrito is a fun, fast game. If you’ve love Exploding Kittens, this bad boy hails from the same company. To top it off, it comes with two squishy burritos. Who can top that?
For additional details, go here.
These 5 games ensure that my tweens, teens and adult-ish kiddos will happily play with us. It also means that they have something to do with their friends that doesn’t involve staring at a phone.
Let me know how these games work out for you! Do you have any others you adore playing with your kids? Share below!