3 ways to make the MOST of your Family Home Evenings!

 

Hello friends!  Today I wanted to share with you 3 simple tips that have made all the difference in our Family Home Evenings and have helped me focus as I prepare and seek inspiration for the things my family needs to learn.

Now, I am certainly no expert, but I did want to share the 3 things that I think have been the most effective in our home...with 5 kids 8 and under ;)  The great thing about these tips is you can change them up to use in whatever way works BEST for your family!  Not into the cutesy FHE's?  No problem!  The point is receiving inspiration for YOUR family and focusing on what will bless them the most.  So...lets get started!!

First up, tip #1

As with any thing we want to teach our children, repetition is the key!!  For me, that means that we focus on the theme of our FHE all week long.  I have a magnet board next to our dining table, so every week I whip up a printable that has a quote or scripture from our lesson and I hang it up before family night.  That way every morning at breakfast or as we eat dinner together it is simple and natural to tie our lesson into our every day lives when we see our little reminder :)

Tip #2

I can only speak for myself here, but my kids don't have the longest attention spans :)  If I expect them to listen to a lesson, I need to give them an opportunity to not only listen...but experience some things as well.  Kids need to touch and smell and see things to have them stick sometimes!  When we learned about King Benjamin, we all sat in a tent and listened to a conference talk.  When we delved into the Anti-Nephi-Lehis burying their weapons of war, we physically went into the backyard and buried our own weapons.  As we spoke of Nephi's courage in obtaining the brass plates the kids completed Nephi's Courage Course...an obstacle course that represented some of the trials Nephi faced.  Getting your kids physically involved helps them take an active part in Family Home Evening and it creates experiences that will help them remember the precious lessons they have learned.  

Finally, Tip #3

I am passionate about helping my children understand how the scriptures apply to THEM!  It is so easy to get caught up in the big words and the stories we have heard a thousand times, and forget that these words were written for US.  We need to teach our children these are not just stories from a different time with weird words...these are messages our Heavenly Father preserved for US...to learn from and model our lives after.  As we spoke about Jonah and obedience, it was simply to give the kids real life experiences where THEIR obedience has been tested.  When we learned about Enos and talked about the power of prayer, it was natural to help the kids come up with things we can be more grateful for in our prayers to Heavenly Father.  A parable about Skittles was a kid-friendly approach to helping children see the importance of paying an honest tithe, and when we talked about Nephi and his broken bow we talked about times we had to trust Heavenly Father...even when things seemed scary.  As we teach our kids that the scriptures are meant for them, I think they are so much more likely to seek out the scriptures when problems or questions arise.

So there you have it!  My 3 tips to making the most of FHE's with young kids!  I hope these provided a little bit of help and as always...I would LOVE to hear anything you do at your home that has been successful, so comment away ;)