What I Told an International Chess Conference About Chess for Kids

Last week I had the honor of speaking at the Munich Chess Festival, joining educators, historians, and chess enthusiasts from around the world.

My talk centered on something I think about every single day: what happens when chess meets a three year old.

It started with a song. One day when I was driving, a melody just popped into my head out of nowhere. “Bishops bishops zooming by, through the corners they will glide.” I pulled over and sang it into my phone before I could forget it. That was the beginning of it all.

Out of all the subjects I have taught over the years, chess wowed me the most in what I saw happening in kids. Not the ratings. Not the theory. The thing that happens in a child’s face when something clicks. When they make a move on their own and look up with this quiet flash of: I did that. That is what I built Musical Chess around.

I am no chess master. I did not grow up in chess clubs or playing in tournaments. I grew up in theatre, dance, and music. But I am great with kids and great at finding ways to reach them. This game has changed my life for the better and I know it can do the same for many others.

My goal is not to create chess people. My goal is to create great people. Confident, curious, compassionate humans who have the tools to show up as their full selves and reach their full potential. Chess just happens to be one of the most powerful vehicles I have ever found for getting there.

Our Kids Need Help

Generation Alpha, the children born from 2010 onward, are struggling in ways that are measurable and alarming. Depression diagnoses are up. Attention spans have dropped significantly as well as proficiency in reading and math. Parents are doing everything they can, but many of them feel genuinely lost, navigating a world that feels overwhelming.

At the same time, screens are everywhere. Most of what children are consuming is passive. It does not ask anything of them. It does not build anything that transfers to the real world.

And now Generation Beta is arriving. The children being born right now. If we do not change something, they inherit the same trajectory.

Here is where chess comes in.

A peer-reviewed study published in Frontiers in Psychology in 2025 examined chess instruction in young children and found significant improvements in attention, memory, logical thinking, patience, and self-discipline. The research is clear. The game works. The challenge is getting families to the board in the first place.

Since I started Musical Chess, I talk to parents about chess constantly. And I have gotten very used to a particular reaction when I tell people what I do.

The body language closes up just slightly. There is a little pause. And then I hear some version of:

“I could never play chess, I don’t even know how.”

“My kid is definitely not ready for that.”

“You are telling me my three year old who is currently running around in circles screaming in delight is going to learn chess?”

And my answer is always yes.

In my experience, chess can carry a certain image. It can feel serious. Formal. Like something that requires a certain kind of mind before you can even begin. That is the barrier to entry that Musical Chess exists to remove, completely, for children and for the families who want to share this experience with them.

Why This Combination Works

Musical Chess is fun, playful, colorful, and built around a powerful combination: music, chess, movement, and play.

On their own each of these is a powerhouse. Chess builds critical thinking, focus, patience, and early logic. Music supports memory, emotional regulation, and language development. Movement builds coordination, confidence, and social connection. Play is how children make sense of the entire world.

When you bring all subjects together, children are not just thinking. They are feeling, moving, expressing, and creating all at once. The learning becomes whole.

Think about how you learned your ABCs as a child. For most of us, it was through a song. And decades later, we still remember it. Because music encodes information in multiple pathways in the brain at once. Auditory, emotional, rhythmic. That is why it sticks. Kids are used to learning through song. It is just in them to do so.

A 2009 study published in the Journal of Neuroscience found that structural brain changes occur in young children after just 15 months of musical experience, with measurable improvements in motor and auditory skills. Research from Boston Children’s Hospital found a biological link between early musical training and improved executive functioning, one of the strongest predictors of academic success.

And movement is not just a way to keep kids engaged. Research consistently shows that when a child’s body is involved in learning, the brain holds onto it differently. Movement builds gross motor skills, coordination, body awareness, and spatial orientation. For the youngest learners these are not separate from academic learning. They are the foundation of it. A child who knows where their body is in space is a child who can understand a chess piece moving across a board.

Others Are Starting to See the Power of Chess Too

The benefits beyond the board.

Multiple NBA players are publicly championing chess for what it builds in them as people. The ability to slow down before reacting. To think past the immediate impulse. To sit with something hard and choose what comes next. Rajon Rondo said it simply: you might lose your queen. Do you panic? How do you handle adversity? These are life lessons.

ESPN recently covered the NBA’s growing chess culture. Derrick Rose described his mission as yelling at the top of the mountain that the game is cool. And that visibility matters. When someone a child looks up to says this game changed how I think, that is an opening.

That is the moment Musical Chess is designed to meet. Chess is getting cool. We are making it joyful for the youngest learners. And when we get that first experience right, we are not just creating chess players. We are creating a lifelong relationship with the game.

We wrote a full piece on the NBA chess boom and what it means for young learners. You can read it here: Why the NBA Loves Chess and What It Means for Chess for Kids.

Slowing Down

Something I notice with people teaching the game, especially parents, and I say this with deep respect because it comes entirely from love.

There is a tendency to move through the basics as quickly as possible. Learn the pieces, learn the rules, get to the “real game.” The openings. The tactics. The “actual chess.”

As if the mechanics are just the entrance hall you have to rush through before you reach the house. But I want to suggest something different. I think the mechanics are the house. And we have been moving through them so fast that we are missing everything inside.

Think about what happens with just the king. One piece. One simple rule. The king moves one square in any direction.

Are you sure a three year old actually knows what forward and backward mean? What diagonal means? These are spatial concepts that are still developing at that age. A three year old picking up a chess piece for the first time is figuring out how to hold it, how to place it in the center of the square instead of on the line. These are fine motor skills we take completely for granted as adults because we went through all the developmental steps that built them. But for a young child, all of that is happening at once. Every single moment is a learning moment if we slow down enough to see it.

I see it all the time. A child will have the objective of moving the king one square to land on a music note. They move the king one square, but to an empty space. The parent sees the child “make the mistake” and their instinct is to help. So they redirect. They correct. They fix it before the child even had a chance to sit with the mistake, to feel it, to decide what to do next.

And I have watched what happens in that moment. The child stops taking risks. They start looking to the parent before every move. They are no longer playing. They are performing. And when children perform instead of play, the love of learning quietly slips away.

In that moment I like to celebrate the child first. Yes, that’s right, you moved the king one square. Now let’s try again and this time let’s figure out which direction to move the king so he lands on the music note. They learn resilience. They learn it is okay to take their time, to try again, that “mistakes” make you stronger.

We do not want children to be anxious about getting it right. We want them to fall in love with the process of figuring it out.

What Musical Chess Is: Chess for Kids, Reimagined

Musical Chess is a web-based app and edutainment platform designed for children ages three and up.

Inside the app, children are not watching. They are singing along to original songs written to familiar tunes, solving chess puzzles, following movement activities, and building confidence with every small success.

On our YouTube channel, families find not only chess, but breathing videos for when big feelings show up, yoga-inspired mindful moments, and affirmations that model how to work through hard things. Because the whole child is always in the room, not just the chess student.

We started today talking about a generation of children who are struggling. Attention spans shrinking. Depression rising. Passive screens filling time without building anything.

Musical Chess is built on the belief that every child, regardless of background, deserves access to the tools that help them grow into their fullest self. Chess happens to be one of the most powerful of those tools. And our job is to make sure no child ever feels like it is not for them.

When we remove the barrier to entry and the intimidation, what is left is just a child, a song, a chess piece, and the beginning of something that could last a lifetime.Chess is the subject, growing young minds is the mission.

And if you are ready to explore Musical Chess with your little one, the app is waiting for you!

Musical Chess App!

Sources

• Ye, Y. (2025). Research on the application of chess teaching in the intellectual development of young children. Frontiers in Psychology, 16, 1592247. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1592247

• Hyde, K.L., et al. (2009). Musical training shapes structural brain development. Journal of Neuroscience, 29(10), 3019–3025. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5118-08.2009

• Zuk, J., et al. (2014). Behavioral and neural correlates of executive functioning in musicians and non-musicians. PLOS ONE, 9(6), e99868. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0099868

• American Academy of Pediatrics. (2025). The Power of Play: A Pediatric Role in Enhancing Development in Young Children. Pediatrics.