Board games not only provide a cure for rainy day boredom or a source for family entertainment, but they also provide a positive and collaborative outlet in which critical thinking and interactional skills can be enhanced. Therapeutic board games are not needed to help identify and foster skills like compromise/negotiation, turn-taking, impulse control, frustration tolerance and problem-solving.  Even the most fundamental games can facilitate the integration of these key social factors. Child growth and development in the most natural of settings provides real-life applications for how to implement these skills.

Here are a few of my favorite games to help foster skill development:

Connect 4: Success in this game comes from anticipating the next person’s move and negotiating his own patterns, while also making moves that prevent the other player from achieving his pattern. Social thinking, impulse control, and frustration tolerance are essential when playing this game. Teaching your child to look not only at his own goals, but also at the potential goals of the other person, is critical to win. One strategy to improve social thinking is to also implement impulse control. Ask your child to Stop, Think, Act.  This will help foster more favorable outcomes.

At the onset of his turn, encourage your child to do the following:

• Stop!
• Think about his future move.
• Think about his opponents next perceived move.
• Act. Put his chip in.

Add a visual or written schedule to decipher the appropriate steps for each turn.  This will help foster social thinking as well.

If your child gets upset if he lost the round, encourage him to evaluate the size and severity of this problem. This is a small problem, as compared to getting bullied or falling down and hurting himself, so the reaction should be small too.  For example, “Oh well, I can try again next time.” or “It’s ok to win and lose at times.” Read more