When I was a teenager (in the 90s) I was a chess teacher/coach. I won't quote cliches and metaphors which I believe are trite and gloss over the point. While

When I was a teenager (in the 90s) I was a chess teacher/coach. I won't quote cliches and metaphors which I believe are trite and gloss over the point. While we had a large group of behaved kids, some parents would send their troublesome children to learn chess as a way to socialize in a healthy intellectual environment with a strong value and ethics system. As a coach it was very difficult, especially since I was socially awkward and troubled myself as a teen. We wouldn't just play chess though - which can get very competitive and one sided. We also enjoyed team activities like the chess variants bughouse and kriegspiel, and we'd get outside and play soccer and kickball too - I found those to be the most helpful (I love those two variants I mentioned much more than chess). In short, the rewards were real and long-lasting. Chess helped turn me around personally, and gave me an exposure for responsibility (and I fucked up a couple times but that's part of learning from mistakes in life). I know many of the children in our club went on to have responsible and successful lives, and while it wasn't really our goal (we were just playing games!), it makes me happy that it was a side effect.