Playing board games is often the most effective way to learn because the experience is immediate and authentic. It requires players to participate, think and explore different nuances of a game so they can win or at least put up a strong fight. When children play board games from an early age, they start developing multiple skills that will hold them in good stead in life. Here are a few life lessons that children can pick up from these games:
- Early learning for young children: The earlier you start with board games for children as young as 3 years, the quicker they learn simple concepts like memory, colours, counting, and spatial ability. More importantly, they learn patience while they wait for their turn.
- Out of the box thinking: Board games put players in a box. They come with their own set of fixed rules. Players have to think of innovative strategies within set parameters which makes them get better at strategy. It helps them plan, organize and execute good decisions. For example: A game like Risk is great to introduce children to strategy.
- Easy introduction to complex concepts: Luma World’s Guess the Fence is a good option to get children to expand their visual reasoning and creativity skills. Family Board Game are good gateways to concepts like finance, business, city planning, creativity, resource planning, and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).
- Increase attention span and focus: When board games are played without interruptions, they increase children’s attention spans and focus. A study by Microsoft says the average attention span of people today has come down from 12 seconds to less than 8 seconds. Board games force players to pay attention because they have to outthink their opponents and come up with winning strategies. Word games like Scrabble or simple strategy card games like Sequence are good entry points for this.
- How to play in teams: As the world shrinks into screens, people are becoming more individualistic. Board games are an easy way to teach children how to team up and work together. It helps players to go through shared experiences, solve problems, overcome challenges and defeat their competition.
- Great bonding time for all players: Board games are easy ice-breakers during play dates. They are also a good way for children of different ages to play together, this is especially good for older children to bond with their younger siblings. And of course, this is a great time for parents and children to spend time together, and share some quality binding time.
- Accepting loss for situations beyond your control: For all the lessons that board games teach players, the best one they teach is that life is meta. Your luck can change in an instant. You can be one roll away from a win before a snake gets you to the last position. Or you could be last at Scrabble and suddenly get letters that put you at the top of the table.
- Teaches Socratic principles: As children get better at board games, they learn to break down the goals of the game into simple silos. It helps them adopt (subconsciously) Socratic principles. Critical thinking skills, reasoning and logic all play an important role as children learn from their mistakes and try to not repeat them.
The best part about board games is that they can be played both online and offline. As families struggle to find that perfect balance between letting their children run riot online and the physical world, board games could be the perfect solution.
