Life in the Wight House

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Marshmallow Experiment

The kids watched this Mormon Message today on the computer: Continue in Patience and wanted to try the experiment. They both said they could wait patiently for 15 minutes with a marshmallow in front of them and not eat it. So we let them try it.

I first put RJ at the kitchen table his back to the kitchen and a marshmallow sitting in front of him. I tried to remove all the distractions as possible and then we all went downstairs leaving him with his marshmallow. I was able to sneak a peek at him every once in a while and he stayed in his chair, layed his head on the table, and tried his hardest not to eat the tempting marshmallow. After 15 minutes I entered the kitchen and the marshmallow was still there. He succeeded and so I gave him another marshmallow as a reward. It wasn't till later that he told us that he did nibble a few tiny pieces off it during his 15 minute minutes of silence. So, I guess it really wasn't a complete success after all.

Savannah then wanted a turn so we let her try. She lasted 7 minutes. She couldn't take it any longer. I first saw her nibbling a little bit of her marshmallow. Then I saw her out of the chair playing with some stuff on the counter. I told her to sit back down and that is when she said, "This is too hard, I can't do it" and she picked her marshmallow up and ate it.

And there we have it, our own marshmallow experiment. Patience is definitely a hard virtue to master. I know personally, this is an area I need to work on. Having patience is hard, in our society we seek immediate gratification, things are so much easier to obtain in this day of age. It isn't always a bad thing but in some areas of our life patience will give off wonderful blessings and rewards. Especially when patience is asked of us from the Lord.

1 comment:

Aleena said...

Funny! I wonder how my kids would do?