5 Great Board games for Therapeutic Play: ages 7-10
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This age range is a powerful time for growth in thinking, social skills, and emotional regulation. Children at this age are learning to plan ahead, follow multi-step rules, manage frustration, and think flexibly when things don’t go their way. They are also developing stronger communication skills, teamwork, and the ability to understand other people’s perspectives.
Through turn-taking, strategy, problem solving, and playful competition, kids can build important executive functioning, social, and emotional skills while staying engaged. Here are five great picks for the growing gamer in your life!
Monkey Palace – For the LEGO, Roblox, or Minecraft loving child, this is an excellent pick. Offering opportunities to secretly work on fine motor skills and frustration tolerance while having tons of fun, you should definitely add this one to your shelf!
You can work lots of extra skill-building into a game that is this engaging for kids. They won’t even realize they are working on planning, flexibility, and problem solving when you ask them what their next move is. Monkey Palace is a lot more forgiving than a game like Jenga for children with difficulty coordinating bilateral hand movements or grading the force of their movements. If you’re working on scissor skills or hand strength, have them pick up the LEGO pieces with some tongs!
Style: Competitive
Skills: Fine Motor, Visual-Spatial, Executive Functioning
Subject: Math & Science, Arts & Music
Forbidden Island – The simplest game in the Forbidden game series, this adventure team game is a great pick for families, classrooms, and therapy sessions.
This game can be adjusted in difficulty to accommodate players of any number or level of experiences. Working together each player has a unique power that helps them contribute to the team’s ultimate goal: capture the four treasures and escape before the island floods. Kids LOVE the flood mechanic of the game and honestly, even when everyone is losing they have such a great time.
Style: Cooperative
Skills: Visual-Spatial, Executive Functioning, Social-Emotional
Subject: English Language Arts, Math & Science, Fantasy & Science Fiction
Twister – This classic stands the test of time, and if you get a crew of 7-10 year olds they will thoroughly enjoy clambering onto the mat together to see who can be the last one standing, too.
Body awareness, strength, and motor planning all feature in the simple rule set of matching your hands and feet to the appropriate color. The colors are also used in social emotional programs such as the Zones of Regulation, so Twister (and Uno) are wonderful picks to practice learning social concepts in a whole-body way. Here is a free Zones of Regulation activity to use with Twister and other games featuring the same four colors.
Style: Competitive
Skills: Gross Motor, Visual-Spatial, Executive Functioning, Sensory Integration
Subject: Arts & Music
Catan Junior – This younger sibling to the acclaimed “gateway game” Settlers of Catan beloved by many for more than 20 years is a great introduction to more complex strategy games. The simple design, bright colors, and large pieces make it both accessible and satisfying.
Catan Junior is the least complicated game on this list, but it still hits a broad category of skills. If you have an especially adept younger sibling, I’ve known children as young as 5 to understand and love this game!
Style: Competitive
Skills: Fine Motor, Visual-Spatial, Executive Functioning
Subjects: Math & Science, English Language Arts, Natural World, Fantasy & Science Fiction
Labyrinth – This game is a Ravensburger classic (if you’re unfamiliar with their game library, you should check it out – so many great options). This is one of my favorite picks for challenging cognitive flexibility, frustration tolerance, and visual perceptual skills.
The sliding tiles are also a hit for free-play and creativity; after completing a game, I often like letting a client create their own new rules and adventures using the board. Just be careful – the rules might change faster than the tiles!
Style: Semi-cooperative
Skills: Fine Motor, Executive Functioning, Social-Emotional, Visual-Spatial
Subjects: Math & Science, Arts & Music