Board games that can help build cognitive flexibility

It means the ability to change your thinking: seeing a situation from a different angle, adjusting to changed rules or plans and looking for a new solution when the old one does not work. It also includes admitting a mistake and taking advantage of an unexpected opportunity. The opposite is rigidity. In everyday life, it shows, for example, when a child adopts different rules for a new game than for a familiar one, or can also see an argument from the other child's point of view.

Step by step. Three-year-olds can sort cards by colour or by shape without mistakes, but usually do not switch to the new rule, even though they know it. By four and a half to five, most children manage the switch. According to studies, children usually cannot jump flexibly back and forth between rules from card to card until the age of seven to nine. In this selection, the recommended ages start at age 6; games with quick rule changes such as Ghost Blitz are recommended from age 8.

Because the old way of seeing things does not disappear by itself. To switch, you have to actively hold back the previous rule and keep the new one in working memory; cognitive flexibility therefore builds on impulse control and working memory. That is why, in Cockroach Salad, it is so easy to call out the vegetable you can see. How a child feels on the day matters too: stress, sadness, loneliness or lack of sleep can affect executive functions first. A tired child who keeps getting it wrong needs a break more than another game.

Both train flexibility, just in different ways. In fast games, the switch has to happen within seconds. In calm tile-laying and strategy games such as Pentago, Sequence or Nova Luna, players adapt their own plan to the other players' moves. If your child quickly loses interest under time pressure, start with a calm game. What matters is playing regularly and gradually increasing the challenge: without growing demands, progress remains small.