Over the last couple of posts, we’ve been emphasizing the importance of training your mind with chess. We brought up personal experiences, discussed how it could help you understand and approach the stock market and more. However, today, we would love to shed light on how chess could have a positive influence in our daily lives especially for kids. Today’s kids are far more matured and advance than how we were. The amount of exposure they have to information and content is incredible and by the time they’re seven, they know what they’re talking about.
With such advanced minds, orienting them with the right training approaches could make them do wonders. Apart from just academics, training their minds with chess will reflect on their personality and help them have core decision making skills, strategic thinking capabilities and lateral thinking. All these act on a daily basis when they communicate with other kids, with teachers, with elders and most importantly, when they spend time with themselves.
So, our recommendation has always been on coming out of smartphone screens and internet connections to actually connect with the world and evolve. From being commodities of luxury, smartphones have become a solace, where parents simply give kids their smartphones when they throw tantrums, feel bored or if they want them to keep them quite. Kids too these days get instantly bored because their wants are immediately satisfied. They can’t wait in line, can’t wait for the train to come, don’t ask questions no matter how annoying they are or simply feel restless if they don’t have smartphones on their hand.
We suggest you give them chess or a Rubik’s cube that will actually engage them in the most positive way and connect them with life. If you want to know what change these games could bring in, read on.
1) They improve your kid’s ability to solve problems
The game of chess has infinite ending. Till date, there has been no algorithm or pattern that can actually predict how a game would unfold and end. This literally means that as you play, your kid will be thinking through infinite probabilities of moves in your mind. As your kid thinks, he or she is involuntarily working on your critical thinking skills, abstract skills, intuition, pattern recognition, creativity, analysis and more. For every plan your kid comes up with, he/she is also coming up with its consequences and alternate plan, helping your kid implement those skills in life as well.
2) Time Management
In chess, you have to make your move within a stipulated amount of time. This means you need to think fast. Be it a strategy you’re coming up with inside your mind or if it’s a defensive move, you need to think fast before your time runs out. This fosters quick problem solving skills and advanced time management and reflects during exams, especially the entrance exams where you need to allocate calculated durations of time for each section ask in the question paper. It also builds presence of mind, which is crucial for civil service aspirants.
3) Note Taking Skills
Playing chess teaches your kids the importance of note taking and referencing. You will be surprised to know that students at the institute play with their notepads and pens in place. They make a note of every move played in the game and refer it and learn from it when they are free. This helps kids become organized and disciplined. This soft skill is perhaps the most important one that no institutes will address.
4) Communication
The way your kids behave at home is very different from the way they behave in a chess institute. Here, your kids are surrounded by people of similar age groups, where they not just bring back their knowledge, thought process and experiences but of the other kids’ they have played with or against. The language they use in the institute is far more reformed and matured than they would use otherwise. This increases their social skills and gain confidence among their peers, which is very essential in academics or any other aspect of their life.
As we always say, early exposure to chess and Rubik’s cube is all that you need to channelize your kids towards excellence. Every kid is born to achieve and these games just put them and their aspirations on the same page. Get your kids started with chess or Rubik’s cube today and if you’re keen, you can take up classes too. It’s never too late to learn and evolve you know!