Weekly Family Night

Every Monday evening

for about a half an hour

to an hour we have what we call

Family Home Evening.

It consists of the following:

• Opening Song
• Opening Prayer
• Lesson
• Closing Song
• Closing Prayer
• Sometimes activity &/or treat {seldom)

Opening & Closing Song

The family member giving the lesson that night chooses a family member to pick a song or hymn.  If the family member wants, they will stand and lead the song. {By waving their hand around as music conductors do :)}  Our songs are usually from a children’s songbook or hymn book, ones we have committed to memory.  For your family this could be optional.

Opening & Closing Prayer

Again, the family member giving the lesson will ask someone to offer a family prayer.  Faith in our family is important so we like to begin & end our family time together in prayer.  For your family this could be optional.

Lesson

The majority of time I give the lesson.  Most of the time it is because I fail to ask another family member to prepare a lesson.  However, every member of our family has given a lesson several times.  It doesn’t have to be long.  When our children were young, it was very short, maybe a couple of minutes because as you know, they have short attention spans.  As they have grown older we have been able to have longer lessons.  This is the perfect time to teach your children the values you want to instill in them. Strong families with goals and values don’t just happen.  It doesn’t matter how much money you have or where you are on this journey in life. If you don’t take the time to teach your children, then who will?  Unfortunately, they might learn from a movie or a friend from school or an inappropriate Internet site.  Hopefully every day parents will take time to teach their children.  Sometimes, though, we get so busy doing things that we don’t.  So, at least we have one day, amongst the busy schedule, set aside to regroup and teach these values. If prayer or singing does not appeal to you, does not fit in with your family values, then don’t do it. Just make sure that you have some sort of a lesson. So you are thinking, “I don’t have time to prepare a lesson.”  Well, most of the time I don’t either so this is what I do:

• Purchase books or check out at library that have lessons already planned out. {If you want to know more about these, let me know & I will give you some sources}
• Play a short video that has to do with the value you are teaching.  You tube has many wonderful videos.  Just search the value you are teaching.  Make sure you watch it before hand in case it has objectionable content.
• Play an audio excerpt from a speech with a family value.  The Internet makes finding these easy to find.
• Read from our family history journals.  This is a great way for your children to learn about their ancestors.  Values & lessons are observed in their stories.
• Read an article from a Church magazine.
• Read verses from scripture.
• Think about a value my children are struggling with and talk about it.  Maybe they haven’t been truthful lately, so I might talk about honesty.
• Read a poem and talk about the values in it.
• Many blogs have information and lessons you can use. {I will post these resources in the future, don’t have the time to include it today.}

Many Monday’s I improvise and come up with something very quickly.  The kids don’t really care how elaborate the lesson is, or if I have visual aids etc.  What matters is that we are spending quality time together. I have to tell you this…it is not always fun.  The kids sometimes act as if they aren’t listening.  Sometimes they will complain about their siblings.  Sometimes they ask questions that don’t have anything to do with the lesson or the value we are discussing.  Sometimes they argue about the song choice.  Let’s face it, it’s not always fun teaching or learning lessons.  However, I testify that having consistent weekly family night will bring unity into your home.  It shows your family you love them. If a baseball game comes up on a Monday or another conflict arises we simply do it another day.

I am going to include a wonderful video I shared as a lesson a few weeks ago.  During the lesson I had everyone write down specific values they saw being represented by the boy in the video.  Afterward we all read out loud the values we wrote down and discussed them.  It was easy but went very well.

The bottom line is…we have to be deliberate and intentional to create the family we want.

Have a Family Night,