We've all seen scenes in movies like "Searching for Bobby Fischer" where parents get carried away with competitive chess and turn into monsters. They scrutinize their child's games and turn from supportive parents into abusive dictators. Is this just a Hollywood gimmick to tug on our heart strings? Unfortunately not. I've personally seen parents interrogating their children after a game and I'm sad to say that I'm no longer shocked when I do see it. The consequences of these parents behavior can derail a child from acquiring all the benefits that chess offers. So exactly what benefits are they gambling with? Just about every skill you can think of as necessary for a successful adult life:

In a 1973-74 Zaire study conducted by Dr. Albert Frank, employing 92 students, age 16-18, the chess-playing experimental group showed a significant advancement in spatial, numerical and administrative-directional abilities, along with verbal aptitudes, compared to the control group. The improvements held true regardless of the final chess skill level attained. [1], [2], [7]

In a 1974-1976 Belgium study, a chess-playing experimental group of fifth graders experienced a statistically significant gain in cognitive development over a control group, using Piaget's tests for cognitive development. Perhaps more noteworthy, they also did significantly better in their regular school testing, as well as in standardized testing administered by an outside agency which did not know the identity of the two groups. Quoting Dr. Adriaan de Groot: ...``In addition, the Belgium study appears to demonstrate that the treatment of the elementary, clear-cut and playful subject matter can have a positive effect on motivation and school achievement generally...'' [1], [3], [7]

In a 1977-1979 study at the Chinese University in Hong Kong by Dr. Yee Wang Fung, chess players showed a 15% improvement in math and science test scores. [4]

A four-year study (1979-1983) in Pennsylvania found that the chess-playing experimental group consistently outperformed the control groups engaged in other thinking development programs, using measurements from the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal and the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. [1], [4], [5], [6], [7], [23]

The 1979-1983 Venezuela "Learning to Think Project,'' which trained 100,000 teachers to teach thinking skills and involved a sample of 4,266 second grade students, reached a general conclusion that chess, methodologically taught, is an incentive system sufficient to accelerate the increase of IQ in elementary age children of both sexes at all socio-economic levels. [1], [7], [8], [9], [10]

This is just a small sample of experiments that demonstrate how chess isn't a worthless pastime just played by old men. It's a tool that can and should be used to cultivate children into adulthood.