The popularity of escape rooms has seen new peaks over the last few years. This recreational activity is very inclusive of people of all age groups. But for kids especially, escape rooms are highly beneficial beyond their entertaining qualities. Every escape room comes with some imminent elements of soft skill development and learning.
Escape games have the potential to train young minds into adopting life-changing mindsets and habits, all the while allowing them to have fun throughout the experience. There is a reason why even in traditional classroom settings, educators are setting up escape room activities to facilitate learning.
How Does Escape Room help in the growth of your child?
1. Increased Memory Retention
In an escape game, clues and hints are placed in different parts of the room, and you often need to connect those clues to get to the final key. You have to put in conscious effort to remember every small detail of the game in order to escape within the time. When kids interact with such an experience, they are encouraged to retain every single information that they possibly can. This gives their developing brains a very good workout for memory retention.
2. Enhanced Problem Solving
The main aim of rooms is to test the wits of the escapees and how well they perform a given task. Children can develop the habit of looking for multiple solutions from a very young age if they are introduced to escape rooms in their growth years. If they play enough escape games, they will be able to grow analytical and logical reasoning skills without having to sit in a class to acquire those life-sustaining qualities.
3. Learn Teamwork
One of the most vital aspects of escape rooms is the way they instil team bonding among the players. When children of different backgrounds and habits are put together in a team for an escape game, they learn to negotiate and work together towards a shared goal. This sprouts a growth of a very important skill, i.e., team spirit.
4. Boost Imagination
While today’s world seems to be placing primary importance on scientific thinking, a bubbling imagination is the biggest gift for a child. Without a creative mindset, it is not possible to progress in any field. Escape rooms are the ideal place to trigger imagination in children. Placed inside those simulated environments, kids are encouraged to let their minds run free as they slip into the shoes of their favourite characters. For an hour, they can disconnect from their immediate reality and keep in touch with their imaginative side for balanced mental growth.
5. Develop Time Management Skills
The very concept of escape rooms is tied together with the element of time constraint. Players have to escape the room within a given time limit (usually 60 minutes) while managing several tasks to find the final key. This structure of the game allows kids to understand the concept of task prioritising and time management in a hands-on manner.
6. Learn Perseverance
It is possible that your kid’s first escape room experience won’t be a successful win. But as long as you keep taking them back for another round every once in a while, they will learn to pick up important hints from each game and use those lessons to progress further in the next one. This is a very important mindset for developing an innovative outlook on life. You need to experience failure, confront the issues one by one, learn with each step, and evolve in order to create a successful end result.
7. Improved Observational Skills
In an escape room, paying close attention to every single detail is the key to solving the mystery on time. Consequently, kids are pushed towards developing a keen eye for finer elements of the room during the game. They need to analyse and examine every corner of the room to get as many clues as possible. This awareness of their immediate surrounding is a vital soft skill for people of all ages.
Escape rooms also nurture sensory functions in kids that help them grow more adaptive to their environments. When you take a deeper look, an escape room activity can hold life-altering lessons for kids only when they interact with the game enough times to sustain them.
Author's Bio
Charlotte Lin is a content creator at escaperoom.com. She’s a passionate young woman, mother to an amazing nine-year-old, and an avid reader. Over the years, writing has helped her explore and understand the world as well as her own self. She loves to travel, meet new people, and spend quality time with her daughter. You can find her on LinkedIn.