As someone with decades of experience as a teacher, I’ve been trying to figure out why children today often struggle to express themselves. There are several reasons for this, but one of the most significant is what I call “silence at home.” Sadly, this is a major barrier to developing expressive skills. Parents who are overwhelmed with work want peace and quiet in the evenings. The children come home tired, too, but they would like to talk, to share the big events and small troubles of their day, but their mom and dad hush them. Not out of disinterest, but because they themselves are burdened with problems.

Language is our most important tool for thinking and connecting with others. Without it, community life becomes impossible. In the classroom, the teacher—regardless of the subject they teach—is a key figure. Their personality has a unique influence that cannot be replaced by anything else. Their role is to nurture in children the ability to express their thoughts and feelings, both in speech and writing.

One solution is to talk with children more—and The Gate of Adventures card game is a fantastic playful tool to do just that. It helps build creative problem-solving and coping skills through magical adventures. The everyday scenarios in the game encourage a kind of bravery in life that supports the development of effective coping strategies. Even the “silent ones” at home start speaking up, bursting with clever ideas.

It was truly heartwarming to see and hear how they found solutions to even the trickiest situations using the item tokens. They loved the skill tokens, and as a team, they filled their success albums together. The game got even more exciting when we flipped the item tokens face-down and asked them to recall and turn over one from memory. The hilarious ideas they came up with had us all laughing.

Mrs. Dombi
István Bocskai Primary School of Derecske