Centaur Chess

Posts Tagged ‘Teach’

It was only fitting that I would play chess with my daughters. Long before I became a father in 1999, chess was a big part of my life. My brother and father taught me when I was 5. Since then, I’ve played with friends, family members, even strangers (in a park in Boston, where I lost, badly).

Now I play chess with my daughters. I taught my oldest, Mikayla, when she was 6. She has already beaten me once. Liz, now 5, started learning when she was 3. When the baby, Erica, is older, she and I will also play. The reasons are simple: I did it as a boy, it’s cheap, and it stimulates the imagination. It’s an elegant hedge against TV on a cold winter night.

When the temptation might be to hunker down and watch a movie, my push for chess is my way of resisting the urge of the tube. Last year, I was given Dr. Meg Meeker’s book Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters. This book cautions fathers on the rancidity of the culture that awaits girls, and instructs on how fathers are uniquely positioned to help.

Our oldest girl is 8. So far, so good — but we have a lot ahead of us. Even now, she faces questions that I don’t recall being discussed when I was 8. A dad tries to find strategies to help her blossom, without hitting her over the head with it.

The book, which doesn’t mention chess per se, makes two important points. First point: A girl needs Dad time. She needs to bond with Dad, to know he is there for her, and to be assured of his love for her. When life gets hard — not if but when — she can go to him and she knows he will listen. Today’s bond helps weather tomorrow’s problems.

The second point: Protect her from herself. Wise decision making — maturity — is the final thing that develops in the mind. Teens can rationalize anything for fun. They have the ability to wreak adult havoc but lack the logic to consider consequences.

With this book read and these two points understood, I revisited my stalwart friend and ally, chess. In fact, chess, it turns out, is the perfect companion for raising daughters. It rewards long-term strategy, stimulates the executive decision part of the mind (precisely what Dr. Meeker says develops last), and it helps build a bond. So it brings the question: Could chess be a helpful aid in raising kids?

I’m not the only one to have this thought. Leopold Lacrimosa is a Scottsdale, Arizona chess coach who also runs the American Chess Coaching website. He observes, on the ChessCentral site, that a child who takes up chess “begins to develop logical thinking, critical thinking, decision making, [and] problem solving.”

In July of 2000, Dr. Peter Dauvergne, a professor at the University of British Columbia, Canada, and a visiting lecturer at the University of Sydney, wrote an article for the University of Sydney entitled “The Case for Chess as a Tool to Develop Our Children’s Minds.”

Indeed, a casual internet search of “chess children development” yields well more than a million hits. And how interesting it is, amid the unrest in Russia, that Vladimir Putin sees as his most serious threat, chess champion Garry Kasparov.

Closer to home, chess serves as a means of bonding with my daughter, and a way to show my daughter how to think long-term. Moreover, it provides a vital contrast to the culture at large. Consider the culture. Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, for instance, are young women whose current life situations scream “didn’t think ahead.” And yet, it’s hard to blame the fallen divas. When Lindsay Lohan was younger than even Liz, a beer commercial explicitly told us not to think. “Why ask why?” Yeah, why think? Just do it.

Many times, parents try to find any type of product that will help develop their child’s life skills, teaching them to increase these skills for use in later life. Chess is one of the games that parents will use today to teach their children life skills and help with their interaction skills.

One of the skills that a child can learn is competition; they learn to compete with their peers in a friendly environment. They are able to pick up the required skills through practice teaching them that they can accomplish anything. They learn to be gracious winners and good sportsmanship through these competitive games of chess. This teaches them to be confident and gives them a sense of independent accomplishment, helping them take on life’s challenges in their later years.

While in competition, another skill learned by children is the sense of community, by giving a helping hand to other children who are learning to play the game. They help create ways to win the game; they help represent the games at their schools. They take part in the two player teams where they help each other develop their skills through practice and cooperation.

Playing the game of chess also helps children learn fair play, this is very important in the child’s later years making them more likely to grow up and treat other fairly, and to be respectful of others feelings. In addition, to being fair they learn how to treat others equally. They play against children of all races, genders and many different ages. They will discover that everyone who plays chess has an equal opportunity to be winners of the game. They also learn to play the game by the rules and they know that everyone will have the exact same rules. In this process they know that they are not any different from anyone else and the game of chess does not have any favorites, in order to win you must be like everyone else who plays the game, and learn the game through practice and game play.

In the game of chess, children learn the value of working hard; they must study the game, from beginning tactics to more advanced strategies. They will learn that through intense study and long hours of practice that they will be able to succeed at winning in competition. These skills come in handy for your child when they are in school, and through out their lives, they learn that through hard work and persistence they will succeed.

The last but certainly not the least, Chess teaches your children responsibility, they learn to be fair and to take the time to do what needs to be done when training. It means that they must live with the actions they use, and accept the consequences that are associated with those actions. They learn self control and they are more likely to think before they make any decisions. The game of chess gives you the opportunity to introduce your child to very important skills that they will need to succeed in their lives.