Connie K. Grier shares how playing chess teaches valuable life lessons and prepares kids for life.
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My sons are video game players. There, I’ve said it out loud, and the parenting police are not on my doorstep. While I allow my sons to indulge, we have a few rules that are so strictly enforced, that requesting to break the rules has not happened in close to a decade. Those rules are:
Video Games are played ONLY on the weekends, from Friday evening until right before dinner on Sunday
Video games can only be played AFTER assignments are completed, so if work is not completed on Fridays, there are no video games on Friday
Even with these tried and true rules with my high achieving sons, I still feel a little icky admitting that they are gamers. For this reason, I find alternative ways to engage them. As my non-profit currently serves as a sponsor for #ChessChat, a male mentoring program designed by a youth focused organization, Childhoods Lost, I decided to ask my WonderTwinz to participate. I dodged another “ick bullet” when they agreed. So, on a Sunday with biting winds and temps, we ventured out and made our way.
Upon arrival, I was excited to see that there were many other teen boys and parents who also thought that the event was worth the frozen toes. After a brief greeting, the young men got down to business, with guidance from the male mentors in the room. These young men experienced the highs and lows of a move across a checkered square, while having important life conversations.
Now, before you say it was just a game and the boys surely were not taking away the life lessons, you should know that chess has long been a game touted around the world as complimentary to students’ achievement. As 4-time World Champion Susan Polgar stated in a recent interview “According to research, test scores improved by 17.3% for students regularly engaged in chess classes, compared with only 4.6% for children participating in other forms of enriched activities”. In approximately 30 nations across the globe, including Brazil, China, Venezuela, Italy, Israel, Russia and Greece, etc., chess is incorporated into the country’s scholastic curriculum. If chess is known to have such a strong academic impact, the idea that chess has the ability to illustrate certain life lessons should not be a pill to swallow. In thinking about chess and life, I have been able to identify certain overlap areas. To succeed in chess and at life, the following are required:
- Goal Setting
- Critical Thinking
- Understanding Consequences
- Strategic Decision Making
- Building Confidence
The mentoring session at #ChessChat opened with an explanation as to how strategic thinking is an essential skill not in chess, but also in real life. While the boys happily played, they were utilizing these skills. The hope is that the more these skills are utilized in casual ways, the more they become a part of one’s personality and begin to manifest themselves in real life events. Practice does not make perfect, it makes permanence.
The WonderTwinz and I are excitedly waiting for session two.
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Photo: Malias/Flickr