Beat the Parents Game: Rules and Instructions for How to Play

Objective of Beat the Parents

The objective of Beat the Parents is to be the first team to get both of their mover pieces all the way across the board. To do this, teams must answer trivia questions to move their token ahead. The parents will answer questions about “kids’ stuff.” The kids will get questions about “grown-up topics” like art, animals, and food.

Setup

Beat the Parent is played with two teams, all of the kids together in one team and the parents making up the other team. Kids and parents should sit on opposite sides of the board. Separate the three types of cards from each other and shuffle each deck separately. Place them where all players can reach them. To finish off the setup phase of Beat the Parents, teams place their two mover pieces on their starting positions.

How to set up a game of Beat the Parents.

Playing Beat the Parents

Question Cards

The kids team gets to play first. Someone on the parents team draws a question card and reads the first of the three “ask the kids” questions on the card. The kids team can discuss the question together to try to figure out the answer. They then announce their final answer. If they are right, they move one of their pieces ahead one space.

This picture shows the kids team correctly answering the first question on the card ("What is the yellow part of an egg called?" A: Yolk). They have also moved one of their movers forward one space.

The kids team successfully answered the first question on this card and have moved one of their movers one space.

The parent then reads the second “ask the kids” question on the card. If they are right again, they move the same token ahead another space and get a chance to answer the third “ask the kids” question. Teams can ultimately move one piece up to three spaces each turn if they correctly answer all three questions.

Whenever a team answers incorrectly, they do not get to move their token ahead and their turn is now over. They do get to keep any spaces they moved forward earlier in the turn though. The next question is not read and they do not get a chance to answer it.

A picture showing the parents team incorrectly answering the first question ("Carrie Underwood sings what type of music?"). They do not get to move one of their movers and their turn is now over.

The parents team has answered the first question incorrectly. They don’t get to move their token and their turn is now over.

Whenever an incorrect answer is given or a team correctly answers all three questions, the question card is discarded to the bottom of the pile and the next team is up. The parents turn is played exactly the same as the kids turn except that the kids read them the “ask the parents” questions instead.

Moving

Teams may only move one of their two playing pieces each turn so if they answer the second (and possibly third) question correctly, they must move the same piece they already moved that turn. Teams may not move backwards on their own. However, they may be forced to move backwards by a Wild Card or by being bumped by the opposing team. If a team lands on the same space as one of the opposing team’s tokens, they bump their opponent’s mover back two spaces.

A red parent's token has landed on the same space as a yellow kid's token. The kid's token will be bumped back two spaces.

The parents team has landed on the same space as one of the kids tokens. The yellow kids token will move back two spaces.

Once a playing piece reaches the end of the other side of the board, that team’s turn is now over. This still applies even if they still have questions left on the card.

The parents team has successfully gotten one of their two tokens all the way to the end of the kids side of the board. They are halfway to victory and only need to get their other token to the other kids start space to win the game.

While the official rules of Beat the Parents don’t mention this at all, I would assume that you can move to any spot you are adjacent to. The rules aren’t clear but I doubt you would be able to move forward to a space you aren’t adjacent to.

This isn’t discussed in the official rules for Beat the Parents but my assumption is that the yellow piece can move to either of the two spaces that I placed a circle on. I don’t believe they can move to the space with the “x” as it is not adjacent to their current space.

Wild Cards

Whenever a team lands on their own Wild Card space (the kids team lands on the kids one or the parents land on the parents one), they pick up one of their Wild Cards. Kids pick up a Kids Wild Card while parents pick up a Parents Wild Card. Follow the instructions printed on your side of the card and continue your turn as usual. If you have more questions remaining, you can still answer them.

The kids team has landed on their own Wild Card space. The card they flipped over allows them to move forward four spaces.

Whenever a team lands on their opponent’s Wild Card space, they will only draw a Wild Card if they are still on it at the end of their turn. This means they will draw a Wild Card if they land on it after their third correct answer or if they answer incorrectly while they are on the space. Draw one of the opposition’s Wild Cards (kids pick up a Parents Wild Card and vice versa) and do what your side of the card says to do.

The kids team has stopped on the parent's Wild Card space and drew a card that states "You ignore the sign and throw food into the monkey enclosure. What a chimp! Back 1 space."

If you land on an opponent’s Wild Card space you only draw one of their Wild Cards if you end your turn on the space. In this case, the kids team landed on one, missed the next question, and had to draw this card. They will move back one space (and their turn is over since they missed a question).

Winning Beat the Parents

The first team to get both of their mover pieces to the end of the other side of the board wins Beat the Parents. If you want a shorter game, you can also play with just one mover piece per team. In this case, simply get your one piece all the way across the board to win.

The parents team has moved both of their movers to the other side of the board and has won Beat the Parents.

Beat the Parents FAQ

What happens if you are bumped back onto a Wild Card space (your own or your opponents)?

The rules aren’t specific on this matter. I would play it as you pick up a Wild Card if you land on your own Wild Card space after getting bumped backwards. However, I don’t think you would be forced to pick up a card if you land on your opponent’s Wild Card space. The difference between the two is that you have to end your turn on the opposition’s Wild Card space to pick up a card and it wouldn’t be your turn if you got bumped to that space. If you then fail to answer the first question on your next turn, I would say you would probably have to draw a card then.

Who moves the bumped token? Also, what if the bumped token lands on the opposing team’s other mover?

The official rules say “you bump their mover back two spaces.” I would guess that the team that bumped chooses which spot to move the other team’s token to. However the rules aren’t 100% specific here so you can play it however you want. This is important to know as a team could theoretically get bumped backwards and land on the same spot as the opposing team’s other mover (thus bumping them back two spaces as well). It’s probably just easier to let the bumping team pick the space the piece lands on to avoid this issue.

Is there a time limit for answering the questions?

No time limit is mentioned in the rules at all and no timer is included with the game. The game’s box also says nothing about needing a timer to play. Take as long as you need to give your answer.

Note: If you have any questions about how to play Beat the Parents, leave a comment below on this post. I will try to answer any questions asked as best and as quickly as possible.

Beat the Parents Components

A picture of all of the components included in Beat the Parents including the box, a long game board, the rules (which are printed on the box insert), three stacks of cards, two yellow movers, and two red movers.

All of the components found inside Beat the Parents.

Note: Other versions of Beat the Parents may have different amounts of cards and other components than the version I used for this post.
101 question cards
32 parents wild cards
32 kids wild cards
4 mover pieces
1 player guide
1 game board

Year: 2004 | Publisher: Spin Master

Genres: Trivia, Family

Ages: 6+ | Number of Players: 2+ | Length of Game: 30 minutes

Difficulty: Low | Strategy: Low | Luck: Low

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