Cooperative Board Games for Families

Right before the winter holidays, I had a friend recommend a company for some wonderful board games. She told me that these board games are designed for the family to work together to win as a whole unit. What a great concept for families. Especially families with children of various ages or very competitive little ones, these cooperative board games make a big difference. If you are wondering about the benefits of playing board games, check out our post on Family Bonding: Board Games.

What are Cooperative Board Games?

Cooperative board games don’t have one winner or loser like traditional board games. Instead, these games ask the entire group playing to work together towards a common goal. There is one main goal and all team members work together to meet this goal. As a team, we win or we lose which definitely helps with sportsmanship since we all celebrate together.

These games eliminate the competition tension that comes with traditional board games. On the other hand, they focus on working together to meet your goal. They bring together the players in a fun, social environment. The focus becomes on cooperation with the other players instead of competition.

Benefits of Cooperative Board Games

When your children work cooperatively to win a board game, so much goes one with the one game. Your children begin to develop the life skills necessary to become independent. These games help to grow your family, but even more importantly they help your children to grow too!

Family Bonding and Teamwork with Cooperative Board Games

Cooperative board games bring the family together. Since you all work towards a common goal, your family builds positive relationships with each other. They develop a more positive attitude towards one another too. The best part is that this teamwork can transfer to other areas of their life. They become a team that knows how to cooperate, which can lead to supporting each other with school work, chores, playing together and so much more.

Social Growth from Cooperative Board Games

Working towards a common goal supports other areas of development too. You children provide each other greater social support since they win when everyone wins. Therefore, they are motivated to help each other. This might manifest in providing individual attention or assistance with the game. Plus, the younger children want to learn to be a better team player. This can translate into your children helping each other throughout the day too. They may pause to provide encouragement, support, or even physical help with an activity.

Another wonderful area of growth is your children’s communication skills. You children will need to articulate their thoughts in a way that their other siblings understand. This forces them to organize their thoughts so they are best understood. In addition, they need to show that their strategy is more powerful than other strategies that exist. Therefore they begin to gain confidence in themselves leading to higher self-esteem and greater internal motivation.

Cooperative Board Games Lead to Emotional Growth Too

While playing these games, your children will grow as leaders too. This is especially important for your older children, but younger children can shine too. They will need to support each other when making decisions and sharing information. This leads to improving their decision-making skills and even conflict management abilities since they may disagree on the best decision. Additionally, they will learn to take personal responsibility for their actions and decisions. These are all great skills to transfer into day to day life.

Throughout the game, they will need to look at ideas from another’s perspective too. This helps your children to develop tolerance for other’s ideas and acceptance of different ways of thinking. They may even begin to think about how their words and opinions impact others too.

On another note, they become more self-reflective. This leads to learning some self-management skills. Moreover, your children begin to increase their attention stamina. Finally, they become more responsible. Throughout the course of the game they hold each other accountable as they work towards their goals. In order to play successfully each child needs to be aware of themselves. Plus they are so engaged and want to play longer to lead to a team victory.

Cooperative Family Games

On her recommendation, we purchased 4 of the Peaceable Kingdom board games to try out with our family. We decided to try “Feed the Woozle,” “Fish Sticks,” “Engineering Ants,” and “Cauldron Quest.” We were not disappointed.

Games for Younger Children

Feed the Woozle

My youngest loves “Feed the Woozle.” She (18 months) enjoys placing the food onto the spoon and trying to walk it towards the Woozle and place into his mouth. The older three also loved the game as well (5, 7, and 9), especially my 7 year old. They enjoyed the extra challenge that came with the spinner. Before their turn, they would need to spin, which told them which silly move to use while trying to feed the Woozle. Another challenge, asked them to close their eyes or even write their own moves to add to the spinner.

Fish Sticks

“Fish Sticks” was a little disappointing when we first tried to play the game. The directions were made to have 1 clear winner and were not written to work as a team. However, we quickly wrote our own directions and this game became an absolutely favorite. For instance, we had to work together to get 10 of each fish in a row going in the same direction. This introduction game for dominoes became a new family favorite. While the 5, 7, and 9 year old loved this game, this game has a lot of pieces. Therefore, it is definitely a game to play while the 18mo is napping.

Games for Older Children

Engineering Ants

“Engineering Ants” definitely did not disappoint. All the kids loved using the various materials to engineer new ways for the ants to overcome some obstacles. Even after we were able to win the game, the older three continued using the pieces to try to engineer different ways to overcome the obstacle. Additionally, they loved helping each other design and engineer the piece.

We did need to designate a head engineer for each obstacle. The head engineer held all the pieces used to create. Meanwhile the assistant engineers gave ideas and handed them additional pieces. Each obstacle had a different head engineer with the youngest going first. Our 18mo loved taking all the pieces so again, a great nap time game.

Cauldron Quest

“Cauldron Quest” cannot seem to stay in the box. Our oldest loves everything Harry Potter, so we thought this would be right up her alley and she did not disappoint. All three of the older children absolutely loved trying to beat the wizard to making their special potion.

The added math on even and odd numbers plus adding to 12 is just a bonus. They cheered each other on to try to roll certain combinations. In addition, they even helped each other pick the right dice to roll again. This one had them all working together in no time! The five year old definitely benefited from the older two offering help, but the game kept his attention and all had a blast (except the napping 18 mo old).

Final Thoughts

With the success of these four beautiful board games, we cannot wait to try out some other new Peaceable Kingdom games. These games will also become go to games to give as birthday presents. Just fun family fun all around!

Do you have a favorite cooperative board game for the family? Leave us a comment below and let us know which ones your family loves.

Hi, I’m Nicole.

Here at Creatingbutterflies we provide families with practical solutions to real life problems for everything parenting, scouting, dual language, and enjoying time outdoors. We are a family of 6 with 4 wonderful becoming bilingual children who loves scouting, camping, and hiking with their family. Mom is an educator and dad is a firefighter/paramedic.