What are the benefits of DND? Let us count the ways…

In the past few years, lots of people have been researching the benefits of Dungeons & Dragons for kids, tweens, teens, and beyond. They’re studying the benefits of D&D for children, testing if D&D is good for mental health, and exploring the social benefits of D&D. We’re Young Dragonslayers – a crew of educators, therapists, and parents with a shared goal: running well-crafted D&D games and creating a safe, supportive space for teens and tweens. We’ve been running games since 2020, but we’ve also been sharing about the benefits of D&D: at game conventions, in interviews, and on our YouTube channel and blog. So we decided to collect everything we’ve shared about the benefits of D&D – from education to mental health – in a singular compendium. Whether you’re a parent, educator, gamer, or some combination of the three, we hope this can serve as a resource for you.

What Are the Educational Benefits of D&D?

DND is good for your brain because it offers so many opportunities to learn and challenge yourself.

We’ve seen many amazing people bring Dungeons & Dragons into education – from after-school clubs to full-on classroom exercises! Game Master Steph and Founder Katie teamed up with several of them to found GAMA’s Game-Based Education & Therapy Conference, where they were featured on a panel about tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) like Dungeons & Dragons for education. The full recording is still available to watch on Steph’s web site.

Game Master Sergio also weighed in with our article and video about the many educational benefits of D&D. He shares his experience learning about music, culture, history, and religion through D&D and teaching his players about history, culture, and, shall we say, consequences – all backed up with real research! We also have a whole section of our blog with articles for educators, like a D&D game that teaches sign language and an educator’s guide to D&D school clubs.

Social Benefits of D&D: Learning SEL Skills

SEL skills are a major social benefit of DND.

Practicing social skills through Dungeons & Dragons is a major benefit of D&D for children, teens, and adults alike. Founder Katie is a licensed children’s therapist, so she knows what she’s talking about when it comes to social-emotional learning (also known as SEL). In fact, she was featured alongside other experts in both the School Library Journal and U.S. News & World Report in articles about the ways roleplaying games teach social-emotional skills!

She breaks it down even further in our article about the many different SEL skills used in Dungeons & Dragons. The piece breaks down the different kinds of SEL skills and shares how D&D helps to build them. Here’s the full list of skills she discusses:

Effective communication
Public speaking
Nonverbal communication
Active listening
Cooperation and teamwork
Shared decision-making
Compromising to reach a consensus
Negotiation
Appreciation for others’ strengths
Empathy
Perspective-taking
Self-awareness
Emotion regulation
Growth mindset
Creative problem-solving
Analytical thinking
Anticipating and evaluating possible consequences
Impulse control
Resilience
Adaptation and flexible thinking
Data-driven decision making
Overcoming obstacles as a team

That’s a whole lot from just one game!

D&D’s Social Skills Include Leadership

One of the many benefits of DND for children is helping them build leadership skills that will serve them later in life.

A key social benefit of D&D is the way it teaches leadership skills – particularly to Dungeon Masters. We wrote about the ways that Dungeon & Dragons helps build these leadership skills by giving players opportunities to express themselves by creating a character, practice public speaking with character voices, boost their executive function with the many in-game tasks to juggle, practice negotiation by coming up with a unanimous plan, and deal with disappointment (and even failure) in a safe environment. (We even pulled in an article from Forbes to help make our point!)

The Benefits of D&D for Mental Health: What the Research Shows

The mental health benefits of DND have been explored with actual scientific research.

Lots of people are wondering about the effects of D&D on mental health. Founder Katie dove into academic journals to find 10 different pieces of mental-health research that specifically studied Dungeons & Dragons. In our article, she shares studying showing the game increasing creative thinking, helping autistic kids with communication and friendship, building confidence and empathy, teaching youth positive morals, helping gifted kids regulate emotions, reducing social anxiety, helping to manage stress, and even guiding people through mental-health recovery. Yeah, she’s a bit of an expert; she was even interviewed for National Geographic for their article about the ways D&D is good for mental health!

What Type of Games Help With Anxiety?

DND is good for anxiety for a number of reasons.

Especially when you’re considering D&D for yourself or someone you love, general mental-health info is great, but specific information is better. Founder Katie share about how our games have helped players deal with anxiety with Game Master Steph on their blog. She lays out the nuts and bolts in our article about the way social anxiety affects kids and the specific aspects of D&D that can help kids learn to navigate their social life with less fear. It shares how anxiety actually appears in kids and teens, how D&D creates a low-pressure environment to try new behaviors and skills in a structured and collaborative setting, and the parallels between imaginal exposure therapy and D&D expansion of social comfort zones.

D&D Mental Health Benefits for Depression

The positive effects of DND on mental health can work with therapy to decrease depression symptoms.

When asking if D&D is good for your brain, a lot of people are talking about depression, the rate of which doubled for teens during the pandemic. It’s something many of our players are dealing with, too. We discuss the ways playing D&D can help with depression symptoms in another great article by Katie. She shares the ways depression shows itself in teens and children; she explains how D&D can work alongside Cognitive Behavioral Therapy by letting players practice Behavioral Activation, participate in social activities, gain a sense of accomplishment, express themselves creatively, and forge social connections that last beyond the games, and, of course, she gives vital resources for help with depression like crisis text lines and therapy resources.

Is D&D Good For ADHD?

DND is good for ADHD kids - and they love playing it!

Many parents are wondering if D&D can help with neurodivergence like Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Many of our players (and Game Masters!) are neurodivergent, and we’ve seen the ways Dungeons & Dragons is especially beneficial for us. We focus on ADHD specifically in our article exploring the therapeutic benefits of D&D for children with the disorder. It discusses how the game keeps players engaged with creative and imaginative elements, boosts executive functioning with its mechanics, builds emotional regulation with in-game trials and setbacks, gives slow but tangible rewards through experience points, and offers a safe escape from everyday stress with its fantasy immersion – all of which are hugely beneficial for players with ADHD!

The Benefits of D&D for Autistic Kids

DND is good for neurodivergent kids of all types.

But what about the benefits of D&D for kids on the autism spectrum? D&D has something to offer them as well. Game Master Jaclyn (that’s me!) discusses the ways both autistic kids and ADHD kids can benefit from playing Dungeons & Dragons in our article. I discuss the difficulty of finding activities that suit neurodivergent minds and the way D&D gives security with rules, parameters, and consistency, reduces (but doesn’t eliminate!) unpredictable scenarios, and gives players the chance to master knowledge they’re rewarded for, both socially and in the game itself.

Reap the Benefits of Dungeons & Dragons

So there you have it. A veritable quiver full of the arrows of research, experience, and expertise about the many benefits of D&D. If you’re the parent of a tween or teen and we’ve piqued your curiosity, why not check out our games? We’ll call you and your child ahead of time to discuss the program, evaluate support needs, and get an idea of what your child is looking for in a game. From there, we’ll match them with a professional Game Master suited to them and a group of players with similar ages and play styles to get them started smoothly on their D&D journey.

If you’re particularly intrigued by the leadership benefits and think your child would thrive as a Dungeon Master, we have a course to help them become their very best! Dungeon Leaders is an online, self-paced course with bite-sized videos and worksheets meant to help your child practice leadership skills and develop their very own Dungeons & Dragons adventure.

Benefits of DND for Teens and Tweens: The Young Dragonslayers Compendium