INNER STRENGTH â—½ YOU
The Magic of a Marble
by Michelle Wyatt
Have you ever presented a challenge to a group of kids using a marble and paper towel holders? Are you someone who struggles when to intervene for your kids and when to let them work it out on their own? The following illustrates a time when I had to remind myself to take a step back and watch.
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Recently, my sons and two of their friends participated in a teambuilding activity using a marble and paper towel holders – an activity that I learned about back in my days as a mental health professional.
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Setting up the activity: First save a few paper towel holders. You want to have one roll for every two participants and more if you want to up the level of difficulty. Cut each paper towel roll in half. Have a marble handy.
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How to Play: Have everyone stand in a line side by side. Give the first person in line the marble. Then, give each person a half piece of the paper towel roll. Tell them the goal is for the group to use their materials to travel the marble from one end of the room/space to the other without the marble falling. If it falls, the group has to start at the beginning again.
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After giving my boys and their friends the “how to play” I had to stop myself from telling them the strategy behind the game. I’m glad I stopped myself. The boys immediately rose to the challenge and began communicating with each other. It was magic. The only time I said anything was to remind one of them to use
encouraging/problem-solving words. Aside from that, I loved being a spectator. They each had ideas and took the lead at different times.
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Now, it is worth mentioning that I wasn’t sure if my boys’ friends would be open to playing. They were glued to their video game. One of them is into engineering and the other one likes to be invited to join groups, so I knew there was a good chance. I presented the opportunity to them before it was time to start. The one who liked to be invited didn’t come right away, but he did join soon into the game. The other one was in right away after hearing it was related to an interest of his. Now granted, my oldest who gets “bored” quickly, said he was “done” after one round because it wasn’t as fun as he thought it’d be. Well, I didn’t say a whole lot about that. It didn’t have to be fun in the same way that a video game is fun. It was a success though, for many reasons.
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After watching this experience, several themes came to mind:
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Let kids bring out the best in each other.
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Replace conflict with connection.
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Create memories around the natural blessings that life brings without even having to try.
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As adults, let us take a step back and watch our kids rise to the challenge.
If I can do it, so can you!