Teaching the Gospel in Your Home

If you are a religious person, chances are good that you are highly desirous to teach that religion to your children. You want them to know what you know and have a testimony of those things. Children need to develop their own testimonies--they can't (and won't) rely on and believe your testimony forever. At some point the decision will come to them--do I believe or don't I?

Let me assure you that teaching the gospel is something that requires the slow and steady approach. You need to be consistent in your small efforts daily. You don't need some grand, pinteresty event that will give your child a testimony one day and you can call it good. You need consistency in your actions. You need small and simple things. These things are not grand. You will not read these ideas I am about to give and be impressed with this new, big idea I have come up with. Think tortoise here. We parents are all tortoises in slowly building up our children's testimonies. 

1-Family Scripture Study--Daily

Your children can't know the gospel and gain a testimony of it without hearing about it. And they need to hear over and over. We are commanded to study the scriptures (see John 5:39). Reading with your children gives you the chance to teach the meaning of scriptures and thereby testify of things daily. 

To be successful at family scripture study, choose a time of day you know your family can be consistent at it. I have written on Family Scripture Study in the past, so read that post for more details on making it work.

Let me also make a note--encourage your children to study the scriptures on their own. This is of course easy for the reader, but even McKenna did this each morning thanks to easy modern technology. All it takes is an app with scriptures that will read aloud (you could also do this "on tape). 

2-Prayers--Daily

We have family prayers together each night. After we are done reading scriptures, we all kneel in a circle and take turns each night saying the prayer. This is a great time for you to be able to teach your children how to pray, through instruction and example. Don't be fooled; every family prayer is not going to be this calm, peaceful moment. We got to a point where I declared any irreverence during the prayer would mean we repeat it until everyone could get it right. The thing to remember is that as you do it consistently, the effort over time does pay off. You are slowly painting a masterpiece, stroke by stroke. 

We pray before each meal. 

I also really like to say a family prayer with my children before they leave for school, but this is an area we really can improve on. I remember about half of the time in the morning rush. 

It is helpful to teach your children to pray on their own. We teach our children to pray individually each morning and each night before bed.

Also teach your children that they can pray any time they need to pray. 

3-Family Home Evening

This is a really great thing to do to build family unity. It gives you another forum for lessons on officially teaching the gospel to your children. It is a fantastic opportunity for your children to take turns teaching. Teaching requires bearing of testimony, and bearing of testimony strengthens testimony. Read my post on Family Home Evening for full details. There are powerful benefits to having this in your life. 

4-Holidays and Special Occasions

There are many holidays that are centered on the gospel, like Christmas and Easter. Take times like these to teach the true meaning of the season. I have found singing songs that talk about the religious side of the holiday is a great gateway to children asking questions about things, and when children ask questions, they listen to the answer.

5-Mealtime

Having everyone sitting at the table together is an excellent chance to talk about life--daily life and the bigger picture of life. Every meal does not have to be a preaching session, but gospel topics can naturally come up as part of the discussion as it makes sense. See my post on Prioritizing Family Meals for more on this topic.

6-Bedtime

You can work discussion into bedtime. You can tell scripture stories as part of your bedtime stories. You can be open to answering questions as you tuck your child in. Children often are willing to talk more at bedtime (delay tactic!). Take advantage of this time that they are willing to talk. 

7-Chore Time

I have talked before about Triad Communication. Basically, when you are both focused on something else, it is easier to talk about things. Stay mindful of chances to bring in gospel topics as you are working together. You can relate experiences to the experiences of those in the scriptures (and this, of course, requires that you have a familiarity with the scriptures yourself). 

8-Private Interviews

I very recently discussed having Private Interviews with Children. See this post to learn all about it. 

9-Family Fun

Do things together as a family that are fun. Spend time with your children. Doing these things with your children will help your children feel close to you and feel love from you. They then will respect what you have to say more and be willing to come to you with questions more. Children will no doubt some day have a doubt or two (or many) about the gospel. That is a pretty normal thing for most people. You want your children to feel comfortable coming to you with those questions and not seeking sources that do not have your child's best interest at heart. 

10-Be an Example

Always, always be an example to your children. Live what you teach. Your children will have a very hard time developing a testimony of things if you are a hypocrite. Yes, you will make mistakes. That is not being a hypocrite so long as you are willing to repent and make amends for those mistakes. 

Young children want to be just like their parents. If they see you living the gospel, they will do it, too. If they see you praying, they will pray, too. If they see you reading your scriptures, they will read theirs too. If they see you serving others, they will serve also. I feel really strongly about example and have written on it several times:

• More is Caught Than Taught

• Accepting Personal Responsibility

• Teaching Virtue and the Importance of YOU

• It Starts With You

• Be a Good Sheep

• You Teach What You Are

• Parental Influence Stands Supreme {Bloom Where You are Planted}

Family Scripture Study

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I believe it is important to teach your children the gospel at home. It is nice to have church, and a lot can be and is learned there, but the bulk of the learning should be done at home. What better way to do this than through the scriptures? We can't really know the scriptures unless and until we study them. We can't really follow the teachings and laws of the Lord until we know what those are. The scriptures give us examples of how to live. We can apply the teachings in them to our lives today. They contain standards for moral living. They teach us of the life of Jesus Christ. What a powerful tool!

We study the scriptures as a family each day. Here is some info to get you going.

CONSISTENT TIME and PLACE

For us, family scriptures works best as part of our bedtime routine. Pick a time and place that you know you can be consistent and do it most days.

READ SCRIPTURES

Our church has these great children's scripture stories for each book of scripture. We used to read a chapter from those and then a page in the actual scriptures. The stories are nice for children because it gets them familiar with the scripture stories.

Then we got hectic at night and frankly lazy and went to just reading the scripture stories. This is nice and fine, but I feel like it was a "good" version of a "good, better, best" scenario. Good to be reading something, but I felt like it would be better to read the actual scriptures if we were going to cut something.

So we now prioritize actual scriptures and cut the illustrated book if we need to cut something out. 

HAVE CHILDREN READ

I love having children read from the actual scriptures. Anyone who can read gets to read some of what we are reading that night. We first started this when Brayden was in Kindergarten, and I was amazed at how much reading from the scriptures boosted his ability to read. It is an ultimate fringe benefit of having your child read even just one verse a night; your child will become a better reader. 

Having your child read will keep your child following along. You can each have your own set of scriptures to read from and take turns reading.

INCLUDE PRAYER

As I was thinking about writing this post, it occurred to me that we should be having a prayer before our family scripture study. It can invite the spirit and calm us all down after we have been trying to get ready for bed (does anyone else get grumpy at bedtime?). We can also ask that we can pay attention and learn what we need to from what we are about to read. It turns scripture reading into a scripture study time.

We end with our family prayer. We all kneel down and take turns saying a prayer each night. 

GREATER PEACE

It stands to reason even from a logical level that if you are reading scriptures as a family each night, you will as a whole find you have more love and peace in your home.

Let me caveat, doing something like this with young children (and probably even old children) is not always happy, peaceful, and/or picturesque. Sometimes the kids won't sit still. Sometimes the kids can't stop giggling, poking, or moving around. Sometimes you will feel the precise opposite feeling from peace. 

This is one of those things that you work on day by day and get those payout moments every so often. One day, your 6 year old will suddenly bring up that scripture we read a few months ago--a night you remember distinctly because you were positive your 6 year old was not paying attention and you wondered why you even bother with this whole thing. Children listen even when you are sure they are not. 

I will encourage you and say that most of the time, our older three children (9, 7, and 5) are quite good during scripture study. Brinley (2) is still in that rough age where it is work to get her to be quiet, still, and not a distraction. Efforts do pay off some day.

Do you have family scripture study? How do you do it? What time of day works for you? What benefits have you seen?

Parental Influence Stands Supreme {Bloom Where You are Planted}

I think we have all heard the phrase "Bloom Where You are Planted." We tell ourselves and our friends that when we/they are living in difficult circumstances. But despite the phrase being repeated over and over again, how many of us actually believe what the phrase is teaching us?

Many of us parents today are micromanagers. We want to control every aspect of our children's lives, including what influences reach our children no matter where they are. Rather than encouraging our children to bloom where they are planted, we transplant them into nice greenhouses with perfectly engineered soils where nary a weed could even think of rearing itself.

Last week, I talked about how our efforts to help our children might actually be hurting them. I would like to expand on that idea more today in talking about influences on our children. 

Stanley G. Ellis said, "...do we really think the critical factor in the salvation of our children is the neighborhood where we live?...what happens inside the home is far more important than what our children encounter outside. How we raise our children is more important than where we raise them."

There is such a fine line to consider here. When we were young, we had to go looking for trouble. In our current day, trouble seems to be looking for our children. And unfortunately that is not just outside the home, but inside the home as well. So we are faced with a unique parenting conundrum. Do we all move to the best neighborhood we can afford, banish technology from our homes, carefully screen friends, and never let our children leave our sight? Or do we bloom where we are planted?

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I can't tell you where you should live, how you should school, how many minutes of technology you allow (if any), how often to have friends over, etc. I just can't give an answer that would cover every situation out there. What I can tell you is to bloom where you are planted. Focus on your teachings inside the home. Focus on raising strong children rather than sheltering them. I talk about it a lot, but there is a Fine Balance of Protecting Children. You can take it so far that you prevent the child from meeting his potential.

The young years in a child's life are often referred to as the "formative years." A couple of days ago, I drove to the valley where I grew up. It is very different from where I live now. The town I live in now has as many people living in it as I had students in my high school. It is a very different world even though the distance is not great. In the valley where I live, we have only four lane high-ways. The valley where I grew up has up to 10 lane freeways going on. So it is a different driving experience. 

I was reflecting on the fact that I feel very comfortable driving among the obviously more chaotic experience where I grew up even though it has been 13 years since I lived there. I also marveled that I had actually only been of driving age for about 3 years before I moved away. I really tied it into this post (because I think about these things for days before I write them). It struck me how even a short time spent as a child, compared to your lifespan, really has a huge impact on who we are as adults. Those really are the formative years.

Okay, so I can't give you hard and fast rules on what your zip code should be and all of those details that would be handy to have in life (though I of course encourage you to pray about those things! And trust the answer even if it seems like it isn't the safest "greenhouse" around, so to speak--I really love garden analogies don't I?). I can, however, give you some good basic "rules" to follow that will help you have that great home influence that strengthens your child to be able to bloom where he is planted. Your parental influence stands supreme. It stands above all other influence. "What happens inside the home is  far more important than what our children encounter outside. How we raise our children is more important than where we raise them." Keep that in mind.

Here are five ideas to be the best parents you can be and keep your influence above the rest. These ideas come from Elder L. Tom Perry in the talk "Becoming Goodly Parents". He states, "Parents must resolve that teaching in the home is a most sacred and important responsibility. While other institutions such as church and school can assist parents to "train up a child in the way he [or she] should go," this responsibility ultimately rests on the parents."

1. Pray in Earnest. Prayer is such a powerful tool as a parent. Pray for your children. Pray to get to know your children and understand them. Pray for help in raising your children. Pray to know if you should homeschool, public school, or something else. Pray to know if you should allow your child to ride his bike to his friend's house. 
2. Spend Valuable Time Together. Have prayer as a family each day. Study the scriptures together as a family each day. Spend time in the evenings together. Have meals together at night as a family as often as possible. Plan your schedules so that you can eat together. Visit with each other as you eat dinner (in other words, don't watch the television, play on phones, or even read books--have conversations).
3. Communicate with Teachers. L. Tom Perry talks about keeping communication open with your child's teachers at church (by the way, know who your child's teachers are. I teach Sunday School to teenagers who are 15 going on 16 and it shocks me that after teaching a child for 8 months, the parent finds out from me that I am the child's teacher--find out week one who the teacher is). I also find it valuable to communicate with school teachers, piano teachers, dance teachers, etc. These are people you are trusting to have a huge impact on the life of your child. Work together with this person to make sure you both understand the needs of your child.
4. Share What You Know. Tell your child of experiences you have had in choosing to do the right thing and the benefits and blessings you have experienced from that. Share the blessings of the Lord when we follow His commandments. Teach your children what you know of the gospel. Have it be part of every day life and conversation.
5. Organize Your Family. Have clear, basic, and simple family rules and expectations. Have family traditions. Have your child work in the home and have responsibilities. Give an allowance so your child can learn to budget, save, and tithe money.

How earth-shattering are these five suggestions? Not very, right? No "secret to life" revealed in this list. These things are "back to basics." This talk by L. Tom Perry is not the only thing revealing these basics as the way to strengthen and protect our children and create a strong family culture--one that  "...will help our children live in the world and not become "of the world" (John 15:19)." Even studies are finding the benefits of a strong family culture. I recently enjoyed this post titled, "Have We Forgotten How to Be a Mommy?" It is a very good read on bringing ourselves back to basics. 

Our parental influence can stand supreme. Have confidence in that. You and your children can bloom where you are planted! We are not victims of our circumstance. We can do things to help our children grow strong and bloom where they are planted. 

Memorizing Scriptures

I recently read a talk about the power of memorizing scriptures. There were so many valuable nuggets in it.

"Scriptures are like packets of light that illuminate our minds and give place to guidance and inspiration from on high."

I know I feel that way. Our world is so full of difficulties. I don't want to be all doom and gloom--there are without doubt just as many wonderful blessings in our world as difficulties. When those difficulties arise, however, it can be hard to hold fast to those good things we have experienced. 

Scriptures can really help with that--the can "illuminate our minds." Despite the availability of smart phones and apps with the scriptures on them, we can't always have our scriptures right with us, and our children definitely don't. So memorizing scriptures is a powerful tool.

"A memorized scriptures becomes an enduring friend that is not weakened with the passage of time."

"Scriptures can calm an agitated soul, giving peace, hope, and a restoration of confidence in one's ability to overcome the challenges of life."

I have found this to be true. I have found so much comfort in scriptures at various times, and I love how a particular verse might have meant nothing to me the 20 other times I have read it, but that one time it was just what I needed. 

"Scriptures can communicate different meanings at different times in our life, according to our needs." 

If you feel the same way about scriptures as I do, you will probably have an interest in helping your children memorize scriptures (if you don't already).

Each morning as we do our learning poster and calendar time, we work on our current scripture to memorize. 

For McKenna (two), I don't shoot for full memorization. I am happy to have a scripture read to her over and over. Each day we talk about the meaning of it. My hope is that maybe some phrase will really stick out to her at some point and she will remember those words in a moment of need.

When Brayden was barely four, our primary at church issued a challenge to memorize a scripture a week for the 13 weeks of summer. We did it! He was able to easily memorize each scripture. So a four year old can do it if you put the effort into it.

I imagine that each person does best with memorization differently. I will share how we do it, but Brayden and McKenna have very similar thought processes as I do, so it is easy for me to teach them things like that. Kaitlyn has an amazing ability to memorize things--she can often tell you the author of any given book if she has been told a few times. So this is how we do it.

1. We start with me reading the scripture. Then we talk about it. I find that if I pay attention to whatever I am trying to memorize actually means, it is easier for my brain to hold on to it.
2. Then I read a phrase and pause and they recite. 
3. At some point, we switch to working on memorizing. I say a phrase and we repeat that phrase over and over and over again. Once that is memorized, we do another phrase and do it over and over and over again. Then we say the two phrases together over and over and over again. And so forth until the scripture is memorized.
4. The key is really repetition. McKenna can talk along with a book on tape she has heard 10 times, so if they hear it often enough, they will remember it.

My hope is that the scriptures they know can be of comfort to them in a time of need. I think we all have those times of need throughout our lives. Maybe even throughout our days.

So if you do this with your children, how do you do it? What is your process?

And here are some scriptures I think are very beneficial to memorize:

• Exodus 20:3-17--the Ten Commandments
• Leviticus 19:18--Love thy neighbor
• Joshua 1: 8--Meditate on the scriptures
• Joshua 24:15--We will serve the Lord
• 1 Samuel 16:7--The Lord looketh on the heart
• Job 19:25-26--I know my Redeemer lives
• Psalm 24:3-4--Clean hands and pure heart
• Psalm 31:23--Love the Lord
• Psalm 32:4--Word of Lord is right
• Psalm 116:5--Gracious is the Lord
• Proverbs 3:5-6--Trust in the Lord
• Isaiah 54:13--Teach children of Lord
• Matthew 5: 14-16--Light of the world
• Matthew 16: 15-19--Thou art the Christ
• Matthew 22:37-40--Great commandments
• Matthew 25:40--Serving the least of these
• John 7: 17--Do God's will
• John 14:15--If ye love me
• Romans 1:16--Not ashamed of the Gospel
• James 1:5-6--If ye lack wisdom, ask God

I would love to hear your favorite scriptures to memorize and how you go about memorizing!

How I Do It: Personal Scripture Study

Scripture study is a very important time of day for me. I am a believer in daily scripture study. I find that when I study my scriptures daily, I am a more patient person. I am kinder. I am a better wife and mother. I am better able to manage my time and accomplish the things I need to.

Basic Info:

What: Personal Scripture Study

When: Early morning (right after I exercise)
Where: In my room

Why: To grow spiritually, follow commandments, and be the best me I can be

How: Linear reading, topical study, random reading

The Details....

What: Personal Scripture Study

As I said above, scripture study is important to me. I am talking about reading, pondering, and praying over the scriptures. 

Our family also does family scripture study, but I am talking about personal scripture study in this post.

When: Early Morning

I study my scriptures immediately after I am done exercising each morning. I think a key to accomplishing scripture study each day is to have it be at a consistent time daily. I also want to have my scripture study be something that I can learn from--so I find early morning to be a good time when my children can't constantly interrupt me.

My older two children do see me at the end of my scripture study each day. Then wake up and come to my room as I am nearing the end. I like it this way because then they see that mom reads the scriptures each day and so she must value the scriptures. 

Now, I haven't always done this in early morning hours before my children wake up. When I am pregnant or have a young baby, I don't get up early. I still try to do it as one of my very first things of the day, though. If I put it later in the day, I tend to forget. But that is me. Find a time of day that works best for you. It might be naptime, while nursing a baby, during indpendent playtime, or after children are in bed. The key is having a regular time. I can't just say, "Today sometime I will study my scriptures." I have to have a specific time.

Where: In My Room

I think having a consistent place for scripture study is also important. Being in that place reminds you that you need to do it. I like my room. It is peaceful in the morning. It is bright. I can sit on the floor and stretch if needed, I can relax in my bed, or I have a chair I can sit in (though I plan to get a nice comfortable chair for reading in--doesn't that sound nice?). You might like your kitchen table, a desk, the family room, your back patio...

Why: Personal Growth and Obedience

Like I said in the opening of this post, I am a better person all around when I study my scriptures each day. As to why scriptures, I love this analogy. Let's say we were going to make a cake. The recipe for the cake was pretty old so we decide it is not relavent. We just make up our own recipe. In the end, it doesn't turn out. The scriptures are like our recipe for our lives today.

How: Linear reading, topical study, random reading

There are several ways to go about studying the scriptures, and I think they each have their own merit. I like to mix things up. One way is to simply read the scriptures. So you start at the beginning and read. A great thing about this method is you read everything in context. You can draw from the experiences you read about and improve your ability to react in your own life. 

Another idea is topical study. So say you wanted to know more about prayer. You would look up scripture versus that talk about prayer and read it. A great thing about this method is you really get to know that topic. You can read everything the Lord has said about that topic in the scriptures and gain greater understanding.

Another idea is to simply open in a random place up and start reading. Many people say doing this at times can help them find answer to prayer. This is a fun thing to do if you need some spontenaeity. 

Yet another idea is to read linearly, but with a certain topic in mind. So you say to yourself, "I want to read and focus on all of the commandments the Lord has given" or "I want to read and focus on all of the blessings the Lord has given." As you read, you look for that topic. 

I think it is nice to switch up exactly how I do my studying. I do like to also study articles and read great books, but that is rarely part of my scripture study time--I just don't have enough time in the morning to put all of that in in the morning study time.

No matter which method, I think it is wise to pray about the scripture study, think about what you are reading (don't just read for the sake of reading, but ponder about what you can learn from it), and even keep notes. I don't always remember to do this, but I find scripture study most effective when I have my scripture journal at my side and write things down I want to remember. It might be a lesson from a story, interesting tidbits on a topic, or thoughts I had on how to improve myself as I read.