Games for Success: Developing Children's Character Through Recreational Play

Recreational games provide a primary way for children to interact with, and learn from, their world. Games offer opportunities to practice motor skills, learn social values, and shape personal identity. By carefully choosing the games that children play and changing elements of a game when necessary, leaders in schools, churches, and other community settings can help children acquire positive character values, rather than the negative ones that are often conveyed in the media and the community. Games for Success provides 75 examples of age-appropriate games to play with partners and in small and large groups. Both cooperative and competitive games are suggested and many of the games may be used to increase awareness of other cultures, or to reinforce biblical teachings. The book provides leaders with the rationale and procedures for designing and modifying their own games and includes recommendations for developing healthy self-esteem among children by distinguishing between personhood and performance, and by monitoring the conditions under which children are expected to compete.

Steven A. Henkel is Associate Professor at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota.