I realized my niece was superhuman.

Her eyes darted from YouTube on her tablet to the movie on TV, while chatting with her siblings on winning a game she was playing on the pc with one hand, as her other was on a smartphone updating her social stream on everything, my mind grew weary just following. As information blurred into her brain; I wondered how much of it was absorbed. In the 90s we called it channel surfing.

Our parents would complain as we switched between MTV, a local channel and cartoons. Nowadays, kids and young adults engage in “content surfing”. They trawl for random bits of unrelated data, assembling them later in their head to form cohesive blocks of information, just like a torrent system.

People do not realize that the younger generation is evolving with an “asynchronous” perspective to learning and enjoyment. They are never in one moment for long, flicking from one reality to the next, choosing between their playlist of experiences.

When I started playing board games with my son, it was because I love games. I noticed that my son gained some lessons from this hobby of mine, which allowed him to better focus on experiences in this insta-gratification environment.

As a parent I saw these as an advantage and so, have compiled a list of:

The Top 10 Reasons to play board games with your kids.

10. Board games teach players patience.

Among the skills developed from playing board games, perhaps the most apparent are: Attentiveness, Patience and Focus.

As games begin, everyone’s attention is on the person setting up and explaining the rules. As players begin taking their turns, one must learn to observe what other people are doing while waiting patiently and attentively for their turn. “Analysis Paralysis” happens when a player is confronted with too many decisions and end up taking much longer turns. Some games take a considerable amount of time to finish and with “Analysis Paralysis” an even greater amount of patience is to be developed. (Smarter players will compensate for this, by thinking through their actions before their turn comes. Hoping the plan will still be applicable even after other players’ turns finish.)

9. Board games promote face-to-face communication.

One time, my son had a game day with his buddies. I eagerly filled up a bag of board games for him to teach and play, which they did, but not the way I had envisioned.

By the time I picked him up, a familiar sight dawned upon me: two kids were playing on a PS4 by the TV, while the other three had their heads slumped down on their ipads, chopping pixel trees. Occasionally, they would peek over their devices, asking the two other players on the console to help out. Alas, the console was also running the same pixelated game.

Board games mean human-to-human interaction, not human-machine-human interaction. They are played face-to-face, there is no other way. You make conversations, you negotiate, ask questions. You pick each other’s brains until you find the more efficient path to victory.

8. Board games are fun and educational.

Modern board games have innovated leaps and bounds from their roots in Monopoly and Risk.
Now known as “designer board games,” these games have whole teams spend significant time on research, development and testing before sending their creations out into the population.

Board games today tackle topics relevant in the real-world. The mechanics behind resource management, worker placement, economic engine building and area control strategy, are taught in a fun, non-intimidating way, preparing kids’ minds to these future realities.

I have in my collection, a game called “Compounded” from the company DiceHateMe games. In Compounded you play as scientists trying to improve your lab while performing research on stable and volatile compounds.

Using colorful crystal tokens as elements of the periodic table, the game simplifies chemistry’s fundamentals into a game the high-school version of me would have stayed home to play.

7. Board games provide kids with environments that creative exploration.

Modern board games come with well-written rulebooks that present how to play the game in an easily digested manner. The rules set the boundaries, the options players can take in the game.

In life, decisions need to be well thought of. Board games, allow players to be creative, and risky – providing greater rewards and punishment for bolder efforts. At the end of it all, it’s just a game – a rematch could occur, or the pieces go back in the box for another time.

Board games don’t simulate all the variables of a scenario, but it conditions the mind – preparing it for similar decisions in the future.

6. Board games inspire the imagination.

I used to play a competitive card game during college. I can recall every detail about the every card in my collection – its name, cost, rule text and statistics. I never seemed to have the same memory capacity for my school subjects.

This is the power of Tangible Imagination. Game plays slowly unfold in players’ minds, becoming vast stories that players perceive as real, because they worked for it.

The problem with watching videos on the internet is that it is too accessible. Content is so on demand that we no longer bother remembering. Do you remember the last funny cat video you saw? What we remember though are the keywords we typed in google to get to them.

We are storing so much of our personal data, important pictures and family videos online and I worry, that someday children will leave their thinking to the internet, or “cloud,” as well.

5. Board games create epic moments.

You and your friends can be anyone when playing board games. You can become heroes, saving one another in a precarious battle, or tacticians acting in concert to takedown overwhelming foes, even be the greatest set of minds that save the world from a pandemic that would’ve silenced everyone in their sleep.

The awesome thing about board games is that it can go either way – you can watch each other fall in battle, be taken out by the super boss-mad scientist or lose to the plague – and they too are epic moments shared between family and friends. And when these stories are retold upon teaching a new game to young padawans, watch as their eyes glint, their mouth drop slightly agape as their hands fidget, eager for their own grand adventures.

4. Board games are universal.

Regardless of your age or where you’re from, there is a game out there that will fit you and your group.

I recently visited Germany on business and was invited to dinner by some colleagues. One of them had her twin boys tagging along, so I thought I should bring along a game of Snorta. In Snorta you try to make the sound of the animal hidden in another player’s barn when your matching cards shows up. My Deutsche is abysmal so I my friend translated for me. It didn’t matter, as we needed no words, rather just the sounds of the cute animals hidden in our respective toy barns.

3. Board games train you to observe and listen.

Back in the day, people hung out at cafes and watched others walk by. These days’ people can’t do that, sitting in a café with heads bowed, eyes glued to gadgets.

Board games encourage observation. Being aware of the situation, how many resources do players have, what will opponents likely do, down to their facial expressions during turns – every parameter helps towards winning.

A child that learns the power of observation and listening is on their way to a great future.

2. Board games improves proper attitude.

Life is harsh. Being bold and bashful may break through some barriers, but being humble weathers most storms.

In a board game, you are not competing for some prize money; you are competing for fun and learning. Many of the board games are designed not in the context of belittling your opponent but focused on personal growth – winning involves managing one’s situation in the context of chance and others’ actions.

I often see the winners in this community quietly enjoy their accomplishment, say “thank you” for a pat on the back, reminisce on how they worked their strategy for hours on end, finally seeing it to fruition, only moments later turning their attention to the next game challenge. Boardgames teach kids how to win good naturedly, or lose as a good sport and how to try again.

1. Life Lesson: The more you lose the more you gear yourself towards success.

Board gaming teaches you the important value of losing gracefully multiple times over. One learns more in failing than in succeeding because success is just a validation of the all the failures leading to that point.

A board game encapsulates your loss into a repeatable and controllable environment where you can sieve through the dusts of defeat and find the nuggets of learning.

So until next time, Keep on playing!
Written by Ronald Villaver
Edited by Reg Tolentino