Anyone can do brain teasers and puzzles to enjoy the many cognitive health benefits they can offer. Puzzle games come in varying levels with children’s brain teasers being more straightforward than those designed for adults. They’re made to grab their attention quickly and provide a change to conventional learning.
As an independent day school, we encourage parents to introduce brain teasers into their children’s lives by utilising apps on a smartphone or tablet, finding inspiration online or embracing books filled with various puzzles and games. The choices are endless!
What are The Benefits of Brain Teasers and Puzzles for Children?
Brain teasers help stimulate a child’s cognitive abilities, as well as assisting them in improving their ability to stay focused on one task. Brain teasers are activities that allow you to think outside of the box to find the solution. They combine fun with critical thinking to sharpen the intelligence in children of all ages.
Playing with tactile puzzles and thinking through a riddle can:
- Sharpen the thinking process
- Exercise the mind
- Improve memory
- Improve concentration
- Stimulate creativity
Sharpening the Thinking Process
You must implement different processes of thinking to solve a brain teaser. Lateral thinking, or solving problems with an indirect or creative approach is often used and helps you come to a solution from a different angle.
As brain teasers are designed to stretch your mind, you are encouraged to think of arriving at the problem in an alternative way, a practice which can help children later in life with a range of academic subjects and general life skills.
Exercising the Mind
Brain teasers and puzzles exercise the mind differently from conventional learning. Like any other muscle, we need to keep our brains in shape and maintain mental strength.
Maintaining an exercised mind can help with children’s school work, physical activities and the ability to adapt to new things much more quickly. Playing a variety of brain teasers and puzzles helps with this, and many mental challenges are suitable for everyone, so you can get the whole family involved.
Improving Memory
Memory games are played with children from a very early age, as it is a starting point for learning and retaining information. Doing brain puzzles which require good memory skills is an activity your child should continue to do, as the skills they learn for a game can be applied to school work, tests and quizzes in class.
Best of all, children won’t even realise they are training their memory with brain teaser games, making it a fun activity which doesn’t feel like work.
Improving Concentration
Due to short attention spans, young children find concentrating and focusing on one specific task difficult. Brain teasers can improve overall concentration and encourage children to stay focused on one problem for longer until it is solved.
Make sure you choose a brain teaser appropriate to your child’s age and ability so they can get fully immersed in solving the problem.
Stimulating Creativity
Brain teasers can motivate creativity in various skills, thinking and problem-solving. Involving creativity to find a solution can aid other areas of children’s learning, from art, creative writing and even games with their friends.
Examples of Brain Teasers For Children
Brain teasers and mental puzzles come in various forms, offering endless opportunities to ponder over a solution. Fun brain teasers for kids might include things like:
- Riddles
- Sudoku
- Crossword puzzles
- Word searches
- Solitaire
- Solving a Rubik’s cube
Inspiring your child to embrace brain teasers and games will ultimately improve their learning, concentration and memory, helping them build the foundations of problem-solving and critical thinking for future learning.
Why not give this a try with your child today?!
