Candy and Cockroaches

There are a few indomitable truths in the universe. Arizona summer is hot. If you jump in a lake you'll get wet. The Cubs will never win a world series (sorry Austin). And there are a few sure-fire ways to get kids either completely distracted or completely focused. One of these is candy. If you tell a kid that there is candy in their future depending on their behavior over the next few minutes/hours/days, their yours. But once they feel like they've achieved sufficient success to merit said candy future, there is no hope of deterring them. They will see that candy future realized. Also, bugs. This last Sunday I was teaching the Bible story to our kids in service, when out of the blue one of the girls squawks out, "What is THAT!" and points to one of the biggest cockroaches I've ever seen crawling towards them on the floor. The girls lost it. Everyone was up on chairs and screaming. It didn't help that this particular cockroach seemed unaffected by the screams and proceeded to meander through the entire girls' section. Naturally most of the boys were trying to step on it. One bold 6th-grader finally managed to accomplish this, leaving a half-dead, half-limbed cockroach in the midst of 4 or 5 1st-grade girls. It took about ten minutes total from the moment of seeing the bug, to getting it squished to cleaning it up and disposing of the evidence before I was able to continue with the story. I doubt the most of the kids heard a word of what I said from that point on. If you want to get kids off-topic or distracted or just focused on something other than what they're focusing on at the time, either tell them they might get some candy, or find a cockroach and run it across the floor in front of them. There's no looking back. It's an indomitable truth.