How often do you feel inspired to do something you really don’t want to do? Something that is outside your comfort zone and seems irrelevant to this moment in life anyway.

My suspicion is that you’re struggling to think of an honest answer to that…

That’s a key reason for trying to make learning an enjoyable experience. I doubt it will ever be regarded as light entertainment; however, it doesn’t need to feel like you are trapped inside the lion’s den with no means of escape!

When we use games to support our children’s education, we are hopefully making it more appealing.

The goal is, if we can entice our children in with something more enjoyable than a worksheet, they are more likely to want to participate. We can eliminate the hours of arguing and tears to achieve what should have been a 5-minute task. Success, give yourself a pat on the back.

So, for example, if we offer to have a game of noughts and crosses (with a twist) whilst we wait for the vegetables to boil, the adverts are on, etc they are probably more likely to be drawn in. (I’ll explain the noughts and crosses game at another time).

The more they participate, the more practice they get. With practice comes skill and confidence. With confidence comes the willingness to participate and we suddenly find ourselves in a positive spiral.

Confidence isn’t everything, but it is a key factor that holds many people back.

I appreciate that not everyone will agree with what I am about to say but, I’ll put it out there anyway.

Very often children who are struggling at school will feel like everyone else is better than them. They are a failure; they can’t do it. It’s too hard.

When we play games, let them win sometimes.

WHAT? Life isn’t like that!

I know, but they are children, and they already feel like they have pulled the short straw so occasionally give them a break. Let them feel what it’s like to win. To beat a parent or an educator. Let them experience the feeling of doing well and not always being the one who failed, the one who couldn’t do it. The one who might as well just quit.

The power of winning from time to time will be such a huge confidence boost. Those few seconds that you shed tears because you lost will mean the world to them, especially if they know how competitive you are.

Our goal is to boost confidence as well as knowledge; to encourage your child to believe they can do it, or at least in the first instance to have the confidence to have a go.

If this resonates with you, you can read more in Square Pegs and Round Holes, the book I published last year.

If you read it, I hope you find many nuggets of helpful advice in there