Oh, the temptation...

We, as teachers, parents, coaches, and/or youth group leaders want all the children in our lives to be successful and happy. But how can we make it happen? 

Here’s just one idea from Learning That Never Ends.

Lifelong Learners are tenacious! In order to help build our students’ tenacity, my coauthor and I knew we needed to teach them how to control their impulses. Here’s a great teaching idea to do that.

The Stanford Marshmallow Experiment indicates that good impulse control is psychologically important for academic achievement and for success in adult life. In this popular test, several children wrestle with waiting to eat one marshmallow in hopes of a bigger prize.

1.   Share a little background about the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment, but don’t give away the results.

2.   Show the clip below. It is adorable

3.   Then, have students do a Think/Write/Quad/Share using some thoughtful writing prompt. An example could be “What lesson can you take away from the video clip? How can you apply that lesson this week in your life?”

4.   Then do the big reveal! Show and tell your students that Stanford actually followed the lives of those students in the marshmallow tests and those who had the self-control to not eat the one marshmallow were more successful and more fulfilled adults.

5.   As an exit ticket, have your students revisit their journal entry and then dig deeper into what this may mean to them.