It is every parent’s dream to be able to improve the abilities of their children and it is every child’s wish to work on only things that are fun. In this article, we cover a series of mind games and their benefits in developing the mind of a growing child.

Mind games are known for their ability to stimulate the brain and keep it active. An active mind, especially in the case of a child, has an incredible capacity for growth, development, and improvement. Most mind games focus on areas such as analytical reasoning, strategy, creativity, and memory.

The following are some of the ways mind games can contribute to development.

Improving Memory

While children are learning to recognize mundane objects such as furniture, animals or colors, they are already boosting their memory power. However, it does not do any harm to encourage this growth with fun and intriguing games.

Based on the age group, various games are available that focus on improving the child’s memory. For ages 2-4, simple matching of common groups (such as place all the fruits together). For adolescents, memory games focusing on remembering orders of lists or learning a new language with the help of an interesting storyline and fun quizzes. For older children, games such as crosswords, scrabble or word building can be encouraged to improve on vocabulary and in turn, memory. These games can be found online for free as well, making the task much simpler for the parents. Crosswords can be found on popular newspaper websites such as The Guardian or The Mirror. The Mirror Quick crossword answers can be used to work on crossword puzzles without the grids.

Encouraging Creativity

The next benefit offered by mind games is to allow a child to develop his/her creative side. While most formal education stifles a child’s creativity, games allow them to keep it active and growing. Games such as building blocks, legos, and assembly toys allow children to build in the most creative ways possible. With no restrictions placed on them, a healthy environment for budding creativity is established. Play storytelling where you encourage your child to contribute to the narrative. Doodling and puzzles are also a few other fun ways to stimulate a child’s creative juices.

For children older than 4, motivate them to take up a creative hobby such as art or music.

Building Strategy

A strategy is an important part of most games and developing this skill early on is vital. With games such as Monopoly, chess, and checkers, children can learn to strategize and plan ahead. These games not only help with strategy but also social skills as they are all group games. Outside of such board games, online strategy games for single players can also be found.  Rubik’s cube, Tetrix, and Minesweeper are fun alternatives for the same. Strategic games improve concentration, memory power and develop problem-solving skills in children, traits that go a long way in furthering an individual’s life.

Based on a study conducted to test the effects of chess training on elementary school students, it was shown that those students who had learned how to play the game performed significantly better than their non-chess playing classmates.

Analytical Reasoning

Another important trait that can be learned from early on is analytical reasoning. Encouraging children to solve puzzles, identify and fill up patterns in a series helps in improving this ability. Popular games such as Sudoku, mazes, assembly and unlock puzzles aid in this aspect. Even simple riddles held enhance this trait. Consider the following classic riddle as guidelines for the kind of puzzles to try with your child!

A man is trying to cross a river with a goat, a wolf, and a cabbage. He can only fit one of these with him in a boat at a time. Find a strategy to help the man cross the river without letting the wolf eat the goat or the goat eat the cabbage.

Keep your child interested in the riddle by drawing out scenarios and narrating the riddle as a story with ups and downs. Slowly inch them towards the right steps used to solve the puzzle without giving away the complete answers. With such a method, children are trained to think analytically as well as encouraged to persevere through challenging problems patiently. River crossing puzzles offer a wide variety of such puzzles that let you encourage your child to solve them without boring them.

While this list covers a variety of games and puzzles to try, it is far from complete. There is no right game as every child has their own interests and learning capacity. It is only through trial and error that you can find the games best suited for your child.

Author Bio:

Ross is a blogger who loves to write especially in the kids Vertical vertical. He has written many informative Blogs. He has also written blogs in other verticals too like personal development, unique gifting blogs.