How Can Escape Rooms be Family Therapy Activities to Build Trust?

What are family therapy activities to build trust? And can they be fun?

With escape rooms, yes.

If your family has a hard time trusting each other, you’re not alone. Every family struggles to be an effective team at some point. How can you help your family trust and talk to each other again?

Consider taking them to an escape room!

It might be surprising, but escape room games can serve as family therapy activities.

In this article, we'll tell you how an escape room can help build trust among your family members, and explore the best escape room themes for your family.

Let’s dive in!

What are Escape Room Games?

Escape room games are themed puzzle-solving adventures.

Your family enters a room with a specific theme. For example, it could be an eerie Victorian-style haunted house, a peaceful tropical island environment, or a fortress surrounded by groaning zombies. Throughout the room are hidden puzzles and clues.

The goal of the game is to solve the puzzles and decipher the clues - before the hour-long time limit runs out. Escape rooms are meant to be played as a team, which makes them an ideal family outing.

Most escape rooms are completely immersive adventures. The final goal is typically unlocking a hidden door in the room. As such, they can feel like being in a real-life video game!

How Do They Work as Family Therapy Activities to Build Trust?

Escape rooms can be more than just a game. They can help your family learn to solve conflicts together and to build trust.

How? These lessons teach your family how to be closer by…

Encouraging Planning and Collaboration

Escape room puzzles usually can’t be solved by one person alone – you and your family must work together to win the game!

This requires planning and collaboration. You will have to agree on a strategy and assign roles to each family member.

Who will tackle the word puzzles? Who will run around collecting clues? Who will put the pieces together?

The planning and collaboration required make escape rooms a great family therapy activity to build trust.

Practicing Communication Skills

Because your family must work together to beat the escape room game, effective communication is key. They’re not just family therapy activities to build trust – they build better communication skills too!

Do your family members tend to keep their thoughts and feelings to themselves? Encourage them to say what they see and think throughout the game.

When your spouse at one side of the room says, “Here’s a lock that needs a four-number combination,” and your kid at the other side says, “There are four numbers repeated in the wallpaper over here,” then they’ve solved a puzzle together through communication!

As your family practices expressing themselves clearly to win the game, they will learn communication skills.

Developing Problem-Solving Skills

If you and your family tend to start shouting and slamming doors when things get difficult, then escape room games can help you break that pattern.

In an escape room, you only have an hour to solve the puzzles. Getting angry won’t fix that! The desire to win is a powerful motivator.

It gives you an opportunity to teach your family useful methods for staying calm and clear-headed. For example, taking a deep breath and counting to ten before trying to solve a challenging puzzle.

After the game is done, your family can remember the problem-solving skills they developed in the room. You just enjoyed family therapy activities to build trust without even realizing it!

Fostering Group Play

Put simply, an escape room is a safe space that is away from the normal arguments and frustrations of daily life. As your family works together to escape the room, you are able to “escape” the things that you usually fight about as well.

Escape room games pull everyone into an immersive, imaginative world. They require everyone to get on their feet and be an active part of the story - pouring through a mad scientist’s journals or pretending to be pirates in search of a hidden treasure.

The result? The game brings everyone out of their individual shells. You will create memories of laughter and fun together, which last long after the game is won.

What are the Best Escape Room Themes for Your Family?

Escape room stories can come from a wide range of genres.

You and your family may find yourselves exploring an undersea laboratory, sneaking through an abandoned casino, searching an old house for your eccentric uncle’s inheritance, or trying to escape a safe room with zombies trying to break down the door.

The themes can be adventurous, comedic, or focus on horror or mystery.

The best escape room theme for your family is one that everyone will enjoy! If your spouse is not a big horror fan, then try avoiding the zombie apocalypse escape rooms. If your kids love science fiction movies, then an escape room in outer space or in a high-tech laboratory might be perfect!

Try to closely align the theme with your family members’ hobbies and interests. As such, they’ll be more engaged. The more engaged they are, the more positive lessons your family will take away from the game!

That’s what truly makes these rooms work as family therapy activities to build trust. They allow your family to escape everyday struggles, create fantastic memories, and learn valuable lessons that you will carry with you for the rest of your life.

Why 60OUT?

Are you looking for an escape room game to help your family improve their trust and communication? Then you should check out the escape rooms at 60OUT!

Every 60OUT escape room has an immersive theme, which transforms the puzzle-solving fun into an exciting adventure. The games cover a vast range of genres and stories.

Each room is full of puzzles which encourage problem-solving skills. The clues require teamwork and communication to beat. Best of all, you never have to worry about a stranger intruding upon your family time. All of 60OUT’s escape rooms are privately booked!

You can book your 60OUT escape room adventure on their website today!