In a world where academic and social pressures weigh heavily on young minds, resilience is a crucial skill that empowers children to navigate challenges with confidence. How can we enhance resilience and reduce the fear of failure among children?
Our answer: blending psychology, play-based learning, and cultural philosophy into a fun board game.
Type
Role
Product Design
User Research
Prototyping
Date
Jan 2025 - Mar 2025
INTRODUCTION
Children face mounting academic and social pressures, often paired with a debilitating fear of failure. This anxiety stifles exploration, creativity, and emotional wellbeing. Rooted in psychological research, fear of failure manifests as avoidance, procrastination, and self-sabotage.
🤔 Can play-based learning help children embrace failure as a step toward growth?
RESEARCH & INSIGHTS
I grounded the intervention in behavioural science:
🎯Achievement Motivation Theory:
→ highlights how fear of failure manifests as avoidance of challenging tasks to prevent potential embarrassment or criticism.
→ can lead to development of maladaptive behaviours such as procrastination and self-sabotage.
🔮 Growth Mindset & “Ordinary Magic”
→ show how everyday, manageable challenges ("ordinary magic"), fosters resilience by teaching emotional regulation, problem-solving, and persistence.
🧩 Constructivist Play Theory (Piaget, Vygotsky)
→ validates play as a safe, low-stakes medium for learning and social support.
→ collaborative play promotes peer support, reducing the isolation often associated with setbacks.
→ Reflection during and after play enhances learning by encouraging children to process their emotions and reframe challenges.
DESIGN OBJECTIVES
From these insights, four design goals emerged:
✅ Promote Controlled Failure: Create an environment where failure is inevitable but safe, allowing participants to practice resilience.
✅ Encourage Reflection: Include guided prompts to help children process emotions and extract lessons from setbacks.
✅ Leverage Tangibility: Use physical objects to make abstract concepts like resilience and growth more relatable and memorable.
✅ Foster Collaboration: Design activities that require teamwork to normalize shared challenges and collective problem-solving.
And what better way to achieve these goals than through a fun and engaging board game?
In Kintsugi, players use a set of stacking stones, action cards, and gold polymer clay to simulate controlled failure and subsequent repair.
Kintsugi offers a creative twist on traditional stacking blocks, paired with an Action card deck to encourage structure, collaboration, and controlled moments of failure as the stacking stones inevitably break.
When a stack collapses, children engage in reflection prompts encouraging emotional processing, resilience-building, and group discussions. The physical act of repairing the "broken" stones mirrors the emotional resilience they learn to cultivate, turning failure into a celebratory moment. The Reflection card deck helps to lead these discussions, and includes fun exercises such as creating your own inspiring quote.
ITERATION & PROTOTYPING
I prototyped multiple tactile versions, from initial paper mock-ups to assembled game kits, and tested them in school settings.
Observations included:
⭐ Children became more playful and inventive with failure than expected.
⭐ Reflection prompts sparked deeper conversations, often revealing surprising self-understanding.
⭐ Tangible gold repairs were emotionally resonant and created lasting personal ties to resilience.
DESIGNING FOR CONNECTION
Kintsugi's design draws inspiration from the Japanese art form it’s named after, seamlessly blending modern minimalism with traditional aesthetics. The gold accents symbolize resilience and the beauty of overcoming challenges, while a clean, approachable colour palette ensures inclusivity and accessibility for a younger audience.
Beyond the visual elements, I placed great emphasis on connection and collaboration:
Game Materials: The tactile nature of the game gives focus on hands-on interaction and emotional engagement.
Reflective Prompts: Curated cards feature thoughtful, inspiring quotes, creating a warm, supportive tone for children.
Take-Home Elements: The option to bake and keep the repaired stones offers children a lasting, personalized memento of their journey, extending Kintsugi's impact beyond the game itself.
VISUAL DESIGN
I also took the opportunity to create a logo and brand image for the Kintsugi team: Zensaic. Zensaic incorporates the words 'zen', and 'mosaic', reflecting the team's goal of bringing together ideas to create a unique solution. I drew inspiration from the team's Asian roots, combining Chinese, Korean, and English typographies into a mosaic logo.
DISCUSSION & IMPACT
Kintsugi highlights the importance of integrating structured failure and guided reflection into educational frameworks. By transforming abstract psychological concepts into a hands-on, engaging activity, the project empowers children to see failure not as an endpoint but as a stepping stone for personal growth. This approach holds promise for integration into schools, after-school programs, and therapeutic settings, providing an innovative solution to a universal challenge.
An in-depth psychological report can be read here, including a mixed-methods study to validate the Kintsugi intervention.
© Rhea 2023 ⚡