Escape Rooms and Their Benefits for Children
There has never been a more exciting room than this. Sure, you’ve probably heard about escape rooms, but now children can experience them too.
There are a lot of good things to come out of this kind of experience, and the clues that follow the stories are thrilling too. Would you like to know more?
What are escape rooms?
A room, a mission, and 60 minutes to solve the mystery. These are the starting clues of every escape room for adults and kids alike.
There are many settings to choose from because the stories can be based on movies, or books, or a theme like mystery or adventure. You only need to pick a room that would interest your little ones.
It seems like child’s play, but the adrenaline and responsibility to accomplish the mission in time is very real. Who wouldn’t like to be part of an adventure like this? Now your children have the chance to join in on the fun as well.
Benefits of escape rooms for children
Kids can continually test their abilities and knowledge in escape rooms. It’s all about finding a different target that stimulates children, and escape rooms are all about it.
They’ll learn about teamwork
Working as a team will define whether they win or lose because communication among team members is key. Listening to all the clues and ideas might seem simple, but here they’ll be working under pressure.
Channeling their adrenaline and managing stress after every mistake will also help them work both as a team and as an individual. Every right or wrong move is the team’s responsibility, so they’ll have to leave their differences at the door to help each other escape the room.
Sometimes things will be easy, other times little ones will need their team’s help. Knowing what they’re capable of and when to ask for help is something that’ll help them develop in life.
Improves cognitive and creative development
Escape rooms aren’t all that you’d think they are. And nothing turns out as expected. They’re full of surprises. Every riddle, code and clue relates to the room’s theme. That’s why children need to immerse themselves in the story.
Unraveling clues requires cognitive and logical thinking skills. This is also great to practice their analytical reasoning skills, as the clues tell them what they need to do, but not when or how. If your children like detective stories, they’ll love escape rooms.
Developing better reading skills
Escape rooms won’t only develop your usual reading skills. In the game, it’s not just about knowing how to read, but how to interpret what’s being read. Just like the characters in movies or books, participants will find texts and clues. However, these consist of word plays to test their association and language skills.
These little challenges will teach children to read between the lines, to guess what words mean. They’ll also develop their creative skills through language and problem-solving skills.
Why are escape rooms so popular?
Children get to having fun while investigating, exploring, and being surprised by what they discover. Children can benefit from escape rooms because they’ll feel motivated to better immerse themselves in new situations and solve problems. Escape rooms can also help them strengthen their friendship with their teammates.
Sometimes children are too used to their comfort zone. These rooms offer them a chance to have fun with their friends and to reinforce their interpersonal, intellectual and cognitive skills.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- Castillero Mimenza, O. (n.d.). Las 15 habilidades cognitivas más importantes. Psicología y Mente. Retrieved from https://psicologiaymente.com/psicologia/habilidades-cognitivas-mas-importantes
- Grande-de-Prado, M., García-Martín, S., Baelo, R., & Abella-García, V. (2020). Edu-Escape Rooms. Encyclopedia, 1(1), 12-19. https://mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/encyclopedia/encyclopedia-01-00004/article_deploy/encyclopedia-01-00004-v4.pdf?version=1615950366
- López Tavares, A. (2019). Un buen hábito lector, clave en su futuro desarrollo. Magisterio. Retrieved from https://www.magisnet.com/2019/06/un-buen-habito-lector-clave-en-su-futuro-desarrollo/
- Marina, J. A., & Pellicer, C. (2015). La inteligencia que aprende. Madrid: Santillana.