Monday Night Madness
An anonymous reader writes:
We're trying to hold regular Family Home Evening. How can you keep them consistent and positive?
Jeannie says:
Going waaaaay back into my memory banks here, sisters. It's been quite a while since my sons were together, participating in our family night activities. I wish I could say our early lessons had been cleverly delivered and hugely successful (anything but!). My friends would report their wonderful experiences to me; i.e. how their children couldn't wait for family home evening, would listen reverently and—gasp—not touch one another once during the lesson. Honestly, there were more than a few times (when they were little guys), I would like to have booted the whole gang into the next county and forgotten about ever attempting another family night fiasco. I tease them about it now.
Strangely, they have little or no recollection of the contention that was so appallingly blatant to us at the time. Some may call it sublimation or selective memory. I prefer to call it "spiritual filtering." I believe it is a gift reserved for those families who, in spite of contention, scheduling difficulties or indifference, tenaciously hold family home evening—Monday after Monday. The good times, the fun, the positive and the spiritual landmarks appear to be the only remembered residue after time has distilled these experiences.
Some of the sweetest memories I have (excuse me while I wipe those danged tears off the keyboard), are of family night with my teenage boys. We are sitting in the cozy front room of our little house. Larry, my husband, conducts our meeting and we sing and pray together. We open our scriptures and the boys ask questions.
Many, many times our conversation would continue through midnight as we discussed in detail everything from procreation to protozoa. We didn't have a strict format and no subject was "taboo." Our feeling was, if presented within a spiritual framework, even a delicate or potentially embarrassing subject could be addressed with the blessing of the Spirit. They heard it first from us and were never shy about asking more questions.
Often, during these discussions, we were able to get a spiritual "temperature reading." If some of their concepts were errant or skewed, we could at the very least exert a positive influence or try to clarify doubt. I don't know if our words helped them circumvent some huge disaster, but I do know that the Spirit bore witness to those truths of which we spoke and they felt it. It was hard to bring those evenings to a close. I had forgotten how much I miss them.
Hopefully, the suggestions of our contributing sisters will give you new ideas and help refresh your resolve to consistently hold family night. Your children will look back through that spiritual filter and remember the "crazy cake," or better yet, the discussion that may have changed the course of their lives.
Kathy says:
Looking back is a more leisurely and cerebral activity than scrambling to make the magic happen again each Monday night. It becomes much clearer that the purpose of Family Home Evening is to strengthen your family against the devastation of the destroyer. Like all aspects of sharing our yoke with our Savior, that makes the burden light and the blessings immeasurable. It also sharpens the focus. What do we want to teach our children? We could probably create a list that would begin to sound pretty universal. Love? Obedience? Discipline? Service? The principles and ordinances of the Gospel and their importance? Maybe we would all settle on "Salvation."
Do we want to undertake the privilege of teaching a beloved little flock of kids about the plan of salvation in a grumpy or harried mood? Do we want to begin each lesson with a wrestling match over chores and allocation of scarce funds and a detailed summit meeting around transportation? I think I would rather manage those necessities at a separate meeting, as simply as possible. Mom and Dad can choreograph schedules, transportation, financial priorities and even custodial realities easily, and just post the result and ask for input on Saturday morning or another time that is less sacred. This is only my prejudice. Other families incorporate these housekeeping matters very successfully into their Family Home Evenings.
I think Family Home Evening needs to be a "love-in" to misuse a sixties phrase. Very young children adapt immediately to the family mood. If they learn from birth that their home is a place where love, gentleness, consideration and affection are the norm rather than the exception, the foundation is in place for family night. There is a reason for our routine of opening with prayer and singing. These activities focus us on the purpose of the meeting and away from negative influences. A child understands that you love him or her, when he or she is being tenderly rocked or cradled, stroked, listened to attentively and looked upon with sincere delight and respect. In this setting, sacred principles and attributes can be absorbed by the youngest baby through the grown kids who are there primarily to lend support.
A number of activities that promote sacred learning adapt themselves readily to this little home school. Cooking or baking open a world of delight to any toddler who can stand alone on a chair or step stool. The job can be as complicated or simple as the family chooses to make it. Tiny children can dump the contents of a measuring cup into the bowl, a baby old enough to know where her hands are can grease the pans. If mom isn't too squeamish, just scrub the little hands and arms with mild soap and dry thoroughly, and let her at that Crisco. An older brother or sister or grandparent can pop her into the kitchen sink for a bath while the first batch bakes, or if the damage isn't too intense, she can just be swabbed down from her diaper up and be right back in business. The family preschooler can even practice forming letters on the greased cookie sheets. That's only one gooey little finger to clean up. Remember, we are having a love-in--not an exercise in kitchen asepsis. Grade school kids can practice adding fractions as they figure out how to double a recipe that calls for 2/3 cups of sugar. Older kids can keep the clean-up and work flow going, and can take much of the responsibility for pre and post implementation, such as making sure the ingredients are stocked and the end destination of the food is well planned. In a young family, much of the work will involve keeping the babies and tots content long enough to complete the task. This should always be part of the process--not an interruption. The end goal can be love. The family can take a tin of cookies to a neighbor and drop them via a door-bell ditch, for fun and drama, or come in and have a visit if the neighbor might be lonely.
If there is a ward or branch member or a neighbor who is sick or recovering from surgery, this is a wonderful way to teach kids that we look out for these folks and find a way to support and love them. It's a perfect way to respond to the need for a meaningful Monday Night activity and lesson, and to teach kids from infancy forward to care about others.
Another activity that works well with preschoolers through young adults is taping messages to missionaries. In families that like music, the littlest tykes can tape a song and be delighted to hear how they sounded. Older kids can do a reading theatre, as crazy or serious as they please—the missionary on the receiving end will love it no matter what. Kids old enough to read can read scripture or biographic information from the prophets, or any material of their choosing. The babies can play with the mike, and toddlers will love the notion that the babies' little voices are now part of "their" tape. Mom and Dad can let the little ones know the tape is recording, through the "lesson" part, so we need to be careful to talk when it is our turn, not big brother's or sister's turn, because that will make it harder for the missionary to hear. Tape recorders are great fun for young kids.
It adds a sense of importance for them to hear their parents say "I love you" on tape, and to express a short message of gratitude and encouragement. If there isn't a missionary in the immediate family to help enforce the lesson, find one in the branch or ward and "adopt" him or her for this purpose.
Stay focused on "love at home" and the principles you hope to instill, and it will be fun to plan and execute Family Home Evening. One of my best memories: A lesson about the attributes of the Savior that we hoped to learn and practice in our family began with a question: "Who do we know who loves us all the time, takes good care of us, helps run our world, and was willing to die for us?" Our four-year old brightened and answered confidently, "It's Peter!!!" (His oldest brother.) Not quite the "right" answer, but a sweet family memory. Peter is alive and well, happily, but I believe his baby brother was correct in assuming he would have died for us if necessary. He is a very devoted big brother in addition to his new duties as a doting daddy.
I was a guest in his home for Family Home Evening last week. Pete baked the cookies, aided by his two-year old son who has his own hand mixer (no cord). Baby Sam's job was to dump the chocolate chips into the batter. No force on earth could have dissuaded him from this duty. I think he is in good hands, floured and sticky though they may be, on Monday nights.
Sharon writes:
I get most of my ideas from the Friend. They have great things to do every month! I just try to keep the "lessons" to about 5 minutes, then do something that allows the girls to get up, play, run, color, cut, glue, playdough, something like that. Since Gary is home now, we also go bowling sometimes, or mini-golfing. The girls love that. We also meet with other families and do it together sometimes. The Ensign has occasional articles giving Family Home Evening ideas. I also try to use the Family Home Evening Resource Book that the church publishes.
Our lessons are not earth shattering, and are pretty much one- sided, but the goal now is repetition, and starting a habit. We'll go for more substance when the kids can handle it.
Alison says:
Since I am living right smack dab in the middle of the Family Home Evening Angst Years, having five children ranging in age from one to fourteen, my only thought is to agree with Kathy about dealing with administrative issues at a time other than FHE. When we need to discuss such things we either have a family council on Sunday night or call another special meeting. (Not practicing what I preach, however, we did have a three-minute intermission during tonight's FHE to discuss "concert manners" after the toddler ran under the piano squealing, the four-year-old stood on her head, the eight-year-old made faces with her hand stretched over her face, and the eleven-year-old called the cat—all while the fourteen-year-old tried to perform the second movement of her new piece for us.)
I admit that sometimes it is a struggle to remain positive on family night when the only thing anyone seems the least bit enthusiastic about is the treat. But I hold out hope that if we remain constant (and my husband remains awake) we will somehow be blessed for trying to follow the prophet amidst all manner of opposition. It seemed to work for my parents, perhaps it can work for us as well.
Renate writes:
You know those games you play in the car while traveling? Well, they work really well for Family Home Evening. It helps you to know what your children know or don't know. It's an activity as well as a teaching moment. There's no competition—just pure fun. Some examples of games I'm referring to are: the alphabet game—they name a religious/gospel word that begins with each letter of the alphabet; twenty questions game—one person draws a card from a pile, the rest of us take turns asking yes or no questions in order to guess what the gospel word was (we cut it down to ten questions to keep up the pace); I'm thinking of someone who… game—two or three clues are given then the family has to guess who the scriptural person is or prophet.
Other ideas are to hold up a picture from the Gospel Art Picture Kit depicting stories from the scriptures and have them guess what the picture or story is about. Or they can chose a picture or story themselves and roll play it or do charades. Kids love to be creative. How about have them draw a picture about a scripture story or gospel principle—even mom and dad could do this. Then guess what each others drawing represents. How about playing your version of LDS Pictionary? We sometimes will play hangman with a subject in mind; i.e., Christmas, Jesus, prophets, church, family, etc. Then sing songs on the same subject.
Often the simple ideas for family time can be less stressful on planning time and even sometimes more enjoyable than one that took some time to put together. These ideas work well with elementary children through teenagers. Having fun brings in the Spirit.
Mickealy writes:
As the only member in my family, "our" Family Home Evening is that all of my children, including those that do not live with me, come for dinner every Monday. We sit at the table together and chat. I know that this is better than before I joined the Church, when it was rare for everyone to be at the table at the same time. They would not appreciate any scripture, but they do appreciate being told that I love them. They would not appreciate prayers, but they do appreciate shared smiles. Hopefully all that is required of members such as myself is that we try to make Monday special.
Alison says:
Marvelous! So glad that you brought up the important idea of following the prophet's counsel, even without the luxury of having the the all the traditional family structure in place. Janene Wolsey Baadsgaard wrote another article along these lines, titled Family Home Evening for Two. There are also lots of FHE resources on the market offered by various LDS authors.
LeAnne writes:
Most of our success from Family Home Evening has come recently as we pushed through the tough times. There was a time when my husband hadn't quite reached his potential as the leader of the home, and so I had to make sure everything was done on my own. Sometimes, much to my distress, he would even fall asleep in the middle of the Family Home Evening lesson! But we continued to have it week after week.
It has been four years now, and I would say we haven't missed more than a handful of Monday nights and the success has shown. My husband is there leading the meeting and some of the most beautiful lessons have come from my nine-year-old son. We have found that when there is a gospel principle that my nine-year-old is having a difficult time accepting (such as understanding why we would like him to participate in the law of the fast following his baptism), we assign him a FHE lesson of that topic. He learns from his preparation and we come to understand his perception of that principal.
I have four children: 19 months, four, seven, and nine. It hasn't always been easy on the adults, but the children love Family Home Evening. We divide up the month with the two older children being in charge of one night a month, and mom and dad taking the other two. We help the boys plan their lessons. My seven-year-old likes to invite a friend who is not a member of the LDS church to participate in Family Home Evening with us each time it is his Monday night. Dad is currently focusing on stories from the Bible and what we can learn from them. None of us will forget the night we acted out David and Goliath and the kids got to take turns pelting Goliath (Dad) with a pair of rolled up socks. That night we learned that with faith in our Heavenly Father we can accomplish great things.
As our local Primary president, I like to use the Friend for my FHE lessons. I feel it is a good way to reinforce what I am teaching to the kids on Sundays in our sharing times. The boys use a mixture of things from the Friend and some FHE lessons I have already made up. Some years ago I was involved in a FHE group. We made up lessons each month with the games, handouts, flannel board figures, etc., for everyone in the group. Then we would meet and exchange the lessons. When we first started out we relied heavily on these prepared lessons. They have helped the boys learn to deliver a complete lesson with stories and scriptures, songs, etc.
I am so grateful for FHE. It is truly an inspired program.
Debbie from Ardoch, Ontario, Canada writes:
Have to admit I had a bit of a chuckle when I read some of the responses to the Family Home Evening dilemma—especially the one about "taping messages to the missionaries." My initial thought was of our boys (ages nine months, nine, and ten years) taping messages onto the missionaries…until I continued reading! Not that our missionaries would mind; they are all pretty good sports! And later, the comment about keeping the kids from running amok and keeping the husband from falling asleep. Can I relate! I try to do something special, a little out of the blue, something that we don't do all week. We homeschool our kids, so we have a lot of family time together, we have to try to find something different to make our family nights stand out.
Sometimes we bring up things that have been on our mind that week and find gospel principles we can attribute to them, and look them up in the scriptures. Sometimes we watch a movie and discuss it—the gospel messages that can be applied to it, etc. Always we do something together, building a model, making valentines cards for far away friends, sometimes downloading a special picture and sending an email to someone we haven't made contact with for a long time. Money is tight in our family, but little things can make a difference. One night we found out it was a girlfriend's mother's birthday—she is currently in a bad way suffering from cancer. We made cards for her and picked some flowers from our garden and walked the eight blocks over to visit her and bring her a birthday gift after dinner. That really made her day, it is something the boys remember and showed how gifts don't have to come from the wallet. It's the ones that come from the heart that mean the most.
Kathy says:
Loved your letter. We'd better check our duct tape to see if there are product warnings about applying to conservative suits. Yes, it's a good thing our valiant elders are such good sports!
I also really, really liked the reminder that time spent together does not have to involve commercial entertainment. Sometimes I wonder what our families might do with all the money spent on expensive outings, if we had plopped it into an interest-bearing account instead and just spent the evenings walking together to deliver a love offering such as the one you described. Thank you for reminding me that money management is a wonderful thing to teach kids; especially in a spiritual setting and context.
Family Home Evening Resource Manual
The definitive (and official!) source for lessons and ideas. This manual is old, but so chock full of plans and insights, every family should have a well-worn copy.
Keeping Your Kids Awake during Family Home Evening, Vol. 1
Keeping Your Kids Awake during Family Home Evening, Vol. 2
Do We Have To?: Another Look at Family Home Evening
Enriching Our Lives Through Family Home Evening
Family Home Evening: It's a Matter of Time
Family Home Evening Suggestion Box
Looking for a Family Home Evening Lesson?
Successful Family Home Evenings
What Makes a Good Family Home Evening