Board Game Families Win
FAMILIES that play board games together improve their social, educational and life skills, new research has found. (Cheryl Critchley reported in the Melbourne Herald Sun newspaper August 19, 2009)
Playing board games at least weekly helped improve the children’s concentration, social interaction and co-operation with siblings.
It also boosted their patience, concentration, teamwork, sharing, social interaction, communication, sportsmanship, critical thinking skills, maths and spelling.
A major nation-wide study (OMD Insights study) into playing board games has revealed that putting a family games night on the agenda provides much more than fun and games, with a host of unexpected benefits including increased communication, improvements in key learning areas and positive behavioural changes.
The study (of 125 Australian families aged 5-12) also showed that board games are bucking the social trends of the digital age providing a catalyst to return to family values and spending quality time together.
Some interesting findings were:
- By the conclusion of the survey, 9 out of 10 families planned to continue playing board games on a weekly basis, with 87% of kids initiating play, proving they are far from enslaved to the digital world
- 97% of participants rated the appeal of playing board games together as a family as either very appealing or appealing
- 95% either felt strongly or agreed that playing board games had improved their children’s life skills, 94% agreed it had helped their children learn, while 89% felt it improved their children’s concentration.
