Tower of Trust

For this activity, you will need some type of building blocks or anything that will stack. You will also need to make the activity cards.  You can either do this ahead of the activity or if your children are old enough, you can engage them in creating the scenarios. Several sample ones are available in the download at the end of the post.

Once the cards are made, sit everyone in a circle. Discuss the definition of being trustworthy and the ‘I wills’ then begin the game. Have a pile of building blocks in the center of the circle. Take turns going around the circle with each family member in turn, drawing a card and doing what it says, each building their own tower. At the end of the cards, see whose tower is the tallest. Play the game again but have everyone participate in building a single tower.

When it is over, process the activity with these questions:

• Did you like it when the tower was built up?
• Did you like it when the tower got knocked down?
• Is it true that one incident of unreliability will knock down a whole tower?
• Did you notice that you got the most blocks when it was something you tried to do all the time? (You may want to sort the cards by the incident to see this difference)
• Where do you think the level of trust is within our family?
• What can we do to build more trust among ourselves?

After processing the activity, you may choose to play one more time with only the ‘add a block’ cards.  What a difference it makes when we all behave in a trustworthy manner!