5 Great Board games for Therapeutic Play: ages 10-14
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By age 10, children can handle and even crave more complexity in games. They are capable of more abstract thought, can organize multiple steps and plan ahead (although they benefit from help still), and have made significant gains in perspective-taking, which improves their overall social-emotional skills.
Sustained attention to task has also lengthened considerably, so they are both able AND willing to sit for up to an hour (or more, depending on the child) playing a more challenging game.
Here are five great picks for the blossoming gamer in your life!
Wingspan – And finally, we’ve arrived at one of the games any gamer-parent has been waiting for! This award-winning and beloved (and beautiful!) game from Stonemaier introduces many mechanisms used in strategy and Euro games.
There are many delightful tactile elements such as the bird feeder dice tower and the eggs, but underneath that is a medium-weight strategy game with many opportunities for problem solving and planning ahead. There is minimal player interaction, but the game still manages to challenge frustration tolerance because players will need to be adaptable in their strategies to the available cards and dice.
If your child becomes obsessed (and if you are, too) there are also a multitude of expansion packs featuring different areas of the globe such as the European Expansion, Asian Expansion and Americas, as well as other packs that add additional cards or feature fan art. There are also variants (which do have some changes to the rules) that cater to different interests / themes: Finspan (fish) and Wyrmspan (dragons).
Style: Competitive
Skills: Fine Motor, Visual-Spatial, Executive Functioning
Subject: Math & Science, Natural World, Fantasy& Science Fiction (if playing Wyrmspan)
Code Names – This team-based word game is great for paying attention, considering other’s perspectives, and abstract thought. I’ve written a detailed post on all of the ways to use this game for therapy, classroom, and home settings.
Players take turns providing clues to their teams to get them to guess from an array of words. But they have to be careful – they don’t want their clue to be similar to anything the rival team is trying to guess, and they definitely don’t want their clue to be similar to the assassin, which if guessed, will cause them to lose the game!
There are many variants of this game that include pictures, Disney, or Marvel, and more. This allows you to tailor it to your child(ren) both in interest and in ability.
Style: Semi-Cooperative
Skills: Visual-Spatial, Executive Functioning, Social Emotional
Subject: English Language Arts
Mice & Mystics – If you combine Dungeons & Dragons with the Secret of Nimh and add a dash of Martin the Warrior (hello, fellow 80’s and 90’s babies), you get this game. In it, everyone takes on the role of a person-turned-mouse and works together battling cats and rats and an evil sorcerer to escape in a story-based campaign that changes with every episode. Unlike D&D, there is no Game Master, so everyone is a player together.
This game is a longer one with a 90+ minute run time, so it challenges attention, but it isn’t that different in length than watching a movie. There is a fair amount of reading so comprehension and even handwriting skills can be worked on if you get creative.
Most importantly, this game helps children work together as a team because each mouse has different special abilities and talents that are needed at different times. There is also the chance of failure, which works on frustration tolerance and delayed gratification when they have to repeat a level.
Style: Cooperative
Skills: Visual-Spatial, Executive Functioning
Subject: English Language Arts, Natural World
Ta-Da! – This fast-paced and goofy dexterity game is one of my top therapy picks for kids working on motor coordination and visual motor integration. I always like to tell a little story and ask for their “wizard name” because it really helps get everyone in the mood for some whimsical nonsense.
Players have a collection of six dice that they all roll simultaneously trying to match the images on a spell card. The first one to get their dice to match shouts out the spell. But wait – it’s not that easy, because every round a different Feat is chosen (I like to call them curses, it fits our wizard-pretend theme, but call them whatever you like). The Feats require you to do something silly, like put your hand behind your back, or make your arms like a t-rex, or cover one eye and say “arrrgh” like a pirate while you try and roll your dice.
This game is also a good pick for working on handwriting or spelling, because the words are nonsensical, so kids have to listen & focus when trying to write letters in an unanticipated order.
Style: Competitive
Skills: Fine Motor, Visual-Spatial, Executive Functioning, Sensory Integration
Subjects: Arts & Music, English Language Arts, Fantasy & Science Fiction
Quacks of Quedlinburg – This sometimes chaotic, but delightfully exciting push-your-luck game is a big hit with this age group. Players work to create their secret brews gradually adding ingredients one at a time, but if they go over, then their potion will explode!
This is one of my favorite picks for frustration tolerance for this age group because it really helps children manage their feelings when things inevitably don’t go to plan, and when other people around them have plans that go well. Failing obviously when others are doing well can be super hard for pre-teens and adolescents. Skill-wise, there’s also a fair bit of math & counting and working memory, in addition to visual-perceptual aspects like tracking, scanning, and visual memory.
As a note, the price on Amazon for this game currently is ridiculous. I recommend hitting up your local game store or library to try it before you buy it! 🙂
Style: Competitive
Skills: Fine Motor, Executive Functioning, Social-Emotional, Visual-Perceptual
Subjects: Math & Science, Fantasy & Science Fiction