Feelings Family Home Evening

Well we missed yesterday having family home evening, but with all this free time on my hands being on bedrest and all, I figure the least I can do is get some home evenings planned :)

One thing I have noticed in the week that I have been on bedrest is how my kids are dealing with it. Like with any big changes they are struggling. They love being with their cousins and playing all day, but when they get home they are confused, scared I'm going to have to go back to the hospital, happy to be with me, but mad at the same time that I can't take care of them. It is so confusing to them, and within seconds they can go from laughing to yelling to crying in my lap. I thought this would be a perfect time to have a fhe on on feelings, not only discussing diffferent feelings, but especially talking about appropriate ways to deal with them.

First I am going to start off by telling the kids about the parable of The Prodigal Son. I got a lot of ideas from the Church's Primary Manual lesson on Feelings. Everytime I say a different feeling, the kids are going to stand up. After we read the story we are going to talk about how Heavenly Father gave us all different feelings and its up to us to deal with them in appropriate ways.

Then I printed out all the following pictures of kids showing different feelings.

Worried Scared

Sad

Happy

Excited

Bored

Angry

When I hold up a picture the kids are going to yell out what feeling they think that is and they are going to show me their best "feeling faces!"

After that little activity we are going to finish by reading one of my FAVORITE books I have for my kids, its called No Hitting. It gives a lot of different scenarios where a child gets upset and wants to do something naughty, then goes on to say thats not ok, but here is something else I can do instead.

My kids love it and I think it will tie in nicely with our night.

I thought of a few simple fun things you could do for dessert: sugar cookies and let the kids put different faces on them, cupcakes with the same idea, etc. Since I am laying low we will probably just have something Paul picked up from the store:)

As I have prepared this lesson I have been so grateful for the counsel we have been given to have weekly family home evenings. It creates a loving environment with the Spirit present where we can address issues or problems we are having with our children, and have Heavenly Father's guidance as we strive to show our children more love and compassion.