Rock Bottom Resilience – Booster: Discover the Power of a Future Promise
Activity Name: Waiting for Candy
Time Required: 15 minutes
Ages: 6 and up
Introduction: In the booster “Discover the Power of a Future Promise,” a person gains motivation to be resilient by having a goal or reward to look forward to, however small. This activity allows family members to list some of the things they are looking forward to in the coming weeks, months, and years, and uses candy as a way of demonstrating the good things that can happen when you’re willing to wait.
What you need:
• 1 bag of your children’s favorite candy or another favorite treat
• 1 medium-sized gift box or bag
• 1 piece of paper and writing utensil per family member
Instructions:
Before this activity, take out one piece of the candy or treat and put the rest in the gift box or bag. Use bows and wrapping paper if you wish to make the gift look as pleasing as possible. To begin this activity, ask for a family member to be a volunteer.
Bring out the single piece of candy and offer it to the volunteer. Right before your volunteer takes the candy, pause and say, “You can have this piece of candy now, or you can have this gift later.” Pull out the gift bag and allow your
volunteer to choose the single piece of candy now or wait until later for the gift.
After your volunteer has made a decision, have family members write down or draw a picture of the following:
• Something they are excited about in the next week
• Something they are excited about in the next month
• Something they are excited about in the next year
• Something they are excited about in the next five years
• Something they look forward to happening to them in ten years
Have family members share a few of the things they wrote down. If your volunteer chose to wait until later to receive the gift, congratulate them for waiting and give them the gift bag or box now. Ask them if they are glad they waited and why.
Discuss:
• When you have something to look forward to, how can that help get you through hard times?
• Think about the thing you’re excited about in the next week or month. How does that thing help you keep going in other areas of your life that might be hard?
• Look at what you wrote down for five years or ten years from now. What are you going to have to do in order to have those things in life?
• Is getting the bigger, better thing always easy? Why is it worth it in the end?