Source:whatmomslove.com

What Are The Benefits of Playing Board Games with Little Kids

Some parents still think that playing board games with their little kids is just a boring choir with a single purpose to keep them occupied. But that’s probably because they still live in the world of Candyland and Chutes & Ladders. The world of board games has greatly evolved since we were kids, and modern game boards offer numerous benefits on several levels. For example, you can check out ʽlogic rootsʼ to get acquainted with a list of health benefits you probably didn’t even know about. Nevertheless, most of the benefits will be harvested by your kids, which will enhance their skills and prepare them for the life ahead. 

Training The Brain From an Early Age

It’s good to continue to exercise your brain when you’re older, but starting out young provides us with a foundation on which we build upon. And one of the best ways to keep your kids’ minds active and flexible is precisely through board games. According to chess-site.com, today’s kids are getting started with chess at earlier and earlier ages which helps their brains grow at a faster rate. But that doesn’t mean you should pressure your young ones into playing chess in an attempt to turn them into prodigies – you need to introduce it slowly as a fun and engaging experience. 

Source:mother.ly

Handling Math Down The Road

Almost every board game includes some basic arithmetic, whether it’s tallying up scores or adding pips on dice. There are also the ones that go further from these basic skills to more complex stuff like keeping track of modifiers or evaluating probabilities. This means that the world of board games provides quite a wide range of mathematical problems and solutions which will provide your kids with practice and improve their skills through interesting and engaging gameplay. You just need to have patience and let the kids do the math and figure out things themselves. 

Accepting Consequences And Thinking Ahead

At an early age, kids are not aware that each their action has consequences which can be positive or negative for both, them and others. This cause-and-effect must be learned from experience, and board games offer them a perfect closed environment where they can develop the mindset which will help them embrace it. That’s why its good to talk about the decisions they make through the game play and trace back the end results to the initial decision step by step. That will also make them think ahead and consider their actions more carefully – they’ll figure out that capturing your opponent’s pawn is useless if that will allow them to take your queen in the next move. Their ability to think ahead while playing board games will teach them to think ahead in life, too. They should gradually pass on to more complex games which require more long-term strategies. 

Building Relevant Criteria

The real world is full of tough choices so after your kids have understood that each action has consequences, they’ll soon enough realize that the choice is not so easy to make. Many board games require us to choose between options that are equally rewarding or punishing, so by playing them your kids will learn how to balance reward and risk. In other words, they’ll build relevant criteria for their choices, enabling them to handle tough decisions later in life more easily. 

Source:todaysparent.com

Learning to be Patient

You know how kids just can’t resist talking when somebody is already involved in a conversation, jumping in the middle of the sentence? No matter how hard we try to explain that they have to wait, they don’t seem to get it. Well, board games can definitely teach them to wait for their turn. Board games are a powerful tool to turn your kids into people of high character because they teach them to be patient. Every kid will have to embrace patience because board game rules simply function that way – there is a time to act, and a time to wait. No matter if it’s grabbing the dice, moving bits around the board, or drawing cards, they’ll have to wait for their turn. That way they’ll learn that there’s an appropriate time for everything. 

Board games are a lot more than fun evenings around the table – besides the fact that they’ll train the cognitive skills of your kids,  they also represent a closed environment full of life experience which will teach them to be patient, make their own choices, and accept the consequences.