Teach Kids Chess: Published Monday, March 31 2025 by Nicole Dieckman. This article may contain affiliate links, please see our disclosure policy.
Teach Kids Chess
We’re talking about screen free bonding that’s available even when it’s dark or cold outside. You only need two people but it can be a fun activity for the whole family. Something that creates core memories and is absolutely free, after the initial purchase.
For a period of time when I was in Elementary School, my mom was working early shifts and needed to drop me off at a friends house before school, so I could catch a bus when it was time. As a way of keeping me entertained early in the morning, every day, this friend, taught me how to play chess. This was my first experience with chess and it wasn’t extensive or overly scholarly by any means. But it was a core memory filled with nostalgia and positive experience. The dimly lit living room early in the dark hours of the morning, learning every piece and how it can work together with the other pieces to make a strategic plan, to outplay my opponent.
Those core memories were the reason I always wanted to have a chess set in my home, even when my kids were very little. But as my kids have grown, the chess set has become so much more than just a symbol of nostalgia. We’ve gone through several chess sets now and have invested in it as a staple in our home. Let me give you seven reasons why I’d like to convince you to teach kids chess.
Sportsmanship
Chess teaches kids through repetitive one on one game play where there is definitively a winner and a loser, good sportsmanship. If you teach your kids chess, you’re teaching them how to cope, process, and move through the big emotions of both winning and losing, and it’s an opportunity for you to teach them how to do both gracefully.
Reset and Try Again
When you sit down to play a game of chess with your kids, often you’ll find them playing more than one game. Either with you or with a new opponent like a sibling or your spouse. Chess is really good at teaching kids that when you lose, you can reset the board and try again. This applies to so many avenues in life and as your children grow, it will help them through the emotions of defeat and encourage them to get up and try again. Just because they lost this time, doesn’t mean they’ll lose again next time.
It’s fun
This may be an obvious one, but some kids have a hard time learning this. Competition is fun. If you teach kids chess, you’re teaching them that competition is meant to be fun, and it absolutely is if you handle it well.
Plan Ahead
This is a game that teaches all of us how beneficial planning ahead can be. It teaches not just to think about the step ahead of you, but your next several steps and how each step will cause it’s own chain of reactions that you should also plan for. This is going to create big picture thinkers. And big picture thinking is a great life skill to have.
Think Outside of Yourself
It’s always crazy to me, how many full grown adults do not have this skill. And because of that, my favorite reason to teach kids chess is that chess teaches kids a social skill that will benefit them throughout their entire life, in every aspect. The importance of considering what the person sitting across from you is thinking and why.
Not only does it teach your kids to consider this, to think outside of their own thoughts, it inherently teaches them how other people’s thoughts affect their actions, and how those actions will in turn effect our own thoughts and actions. It teaches kids to think outside of just themselves and what they would do.
Quality Bonding Time
Besides all the great things chess teaches your kids as a game itself, the bonding time it gives your family is even more valuable.
Some of my favorite memories are cold winter nights where the sun has set early and my husband and I are taking turns in the kitchen while us and the three kids are rotating through chess competitions in front of the fire place. The smack talk, the off topic gossip, and the laughter are all core memories that are creating a new generation of nostalgia around this classic game. This alone is a great reason to teach kids chess.
Timeless
I want you to think about this: chess is a game you can play with your kids that neither of you will ever age out of.
Short of a serious brain injury, you all can play, sick, old, or injured. You only need two of you, but it can always include more of you. So much gossip and conversations happened and still happens sitting on our couches around the chess board while two people go head to head in intense competition. And no matter how old my kids get, when they’re grown and out of the house, whenever they come to visit me, that chess board or one like it, will be there, sitting on the coffee table, ready for a conversation, a cup of tea, and a little friendly competition.
How To Teach Kids Chess
So, now that you have the reasons you may be asking yourself, how did we get there? How did we teach our kids chess in a way where they enjoyed it? Were my husband and I chess masters already.
The answer is no. I’m a moderate level chess player at best. You don’t have to be a skilled chess player to reap all of these amazing parenting benefits that come when you teach kids chess.
If you have kids under five or six years old, you will probably have to put your chess set up high or away when not playing because pieces will most likely get lost if not, dependent on your kids personality. Our youngest kid would leave the chess pieces on the board and we could leave it out at about four years of age. Before that we had a fun harry potter themed board with thick fun pieces that enticed the kids to enjoy when we played but put it away when it wasn’t in use.
After those very young ages though, using a chess set as decoration, I believe, is key to creating a culture in your home around chess. It’s visible, it’s pretty the pieces create intrigue. Kids often don’t think about or want to play things they can’t see. And they aren’t the only ones.
Play The Game
Next, play with your spouse, in front of your kids and they will ask to be a part of the fun. They will see how much fun you and your spouse have when you play together.
Be patient with them and let them learn all the moves over time. They aren’t going to get it in one game. It’s a process. Start with having them be on either you or your spouses team.
If you are a single parent, obviously that will go a bit differently, you can either play when a friend is over, or just invite them to play with you from the beginning, but the key is still to have the board out and let them ask to play with you on most occasions. Don’t try to push it. And when they do ask. Drop what you’re doing and make time for a game.
Most kids are ready to learn chess at about five or six years old. If there are older siblings they will probably want to get in on the action before this.
Teach Kids Chess With Teams
If you start to teach kids chess with “teams” then the kid that is learning doesn’t have to know right away how every piece moves and won’t be overwhelmed with all the new information, instead the parent on the team with the kid can discuss options on their turn.
If the game is out on a coffee table the kids will most likely help each other learn as well.
It May Be Seasonal
There will be times of the year when the kids are asking you to play often and then times when it will go through a hiatus when you are all super busy, but it will always be there, and it’s one of those things that will create a string though yours and your kids lifetime that will always be the same. And there are so few things in life that stay the same, I encourage you as a family to embrace it.
We always love to play a lit of chess around Christmas, near the tree, in front of the fire. When the sun is setting early and all the inviting weather outside is gone.
Hopefully this has been enough to convince you that if you don’t know how to play chess, you should learn, you should have a board in your house, and you should teach your kids, because it’s value is priceless.
Happy Nesting NestKeeprs!
Looking for a pretty decorative chess set? : Try This One : Classic pieces with a light wooden board. Gorgeous!
