Tuesday Tips: The Power of Cooperative Games (Part 3)

Teens and Young Adults

Let’s be real: teens are an adventure all their own.

They’re smart, sarcastic, wildly creative, and also very much still developing the part of the brain that tells them those inside thoughts shouldn’t be using their outside voices right now.

Welcome back to the frontal lobe—still under construction.

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Why Teens Still Need Help Building Executive Functioning Skills

Just like with tweens, the executive functioning skills in the frontal lobe (planning, organization, inhibition, emotional regulation, flexible thinking…) are still wiring up in the teen and young adult years. In fact, that process isn’t done until the mid- to late-20s!

Add in hormones on overdrive, social stress, higher academic demands, and new expectations for independence, and it’s no wonder your teen might go from cool, calm and collected to complete meltdown in 0.4 seconds flat.

Here’s the thing: they’re not always being dramatic. Sometimes their brain is truly overwhelmed. When the external demands are higher than their internal executive functioning capacity, the brain takes a shortcut—straight to fight, flight, or freeze.

Read Monday’s article to understand this more.

To you, it’s just a request to start their homework.

To their brain? Tiger in the bushes. DEFCON 1.

That’s why it’s more important than ever to keep intentionally building those skills—but in a way that’s safe, low-stakes, and engaging.

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Enter: Cooperative Games for Teens and Young Adults

These aren’t baby board games or sugar-coated family fun nights (unless that’s your thing). These are smart, strategic, edge-of-your-seat games that challenge players to work together—quietly growing executive functioning skills in the background.

Think:

• Metacognition without a lecture.

• Emotional regulation through shared tension.

• Strategic planning that actually feels fun.

Let’s look at a few favorites…