Taken from Lds.org:
Family home evening is a special time set aside each week that brings family members together and strengthens their love for each other, helps them draw closer to Heavenly Father, and encourages them to live righteously.
In 1915 President Joseph F. Smith and his counselors in the First Presidency began a Churchwide effort to strengthen the family. They called on parents in the Church to gather their children once each week for a "Home Evening." Families were to take time to pray and sing together, read the scriptures, teach the gospel to one another, and participate in other activities that would build family unity.
In 1970 President Joseph Fielding Smith joined with his counselors in the First Presidency to designate Monday night as the time for family home evening. Since that announcement, the Church has kept Monday evenings free from Church activities so families can have this time together.
Latter-day prophets continue to urge Church members to give highest priority to family home evening. They have promised that our dedication to this program will help protect our families against the evils of our time and will bring us abundant joy now and throughout the eternities.
Although family home evening should begin and end with prayer, it is not intended to be a formal class. In a statement regarding family home evening in 1915, the First Presidency said that "formality and stiffness should be studiously avoided, and all the family should participate in the exercises."
Family home evening can be held by every family and in a variety of different ways. Whether you have children in the home or are a family of one, the resources available on this site can help you plan and prepare successful and memorable family home evenings.
As we have set our theme for the year on Love at Home, I thought I would share some of the things that I/we do to actually exercise our efforts to strengthen and uplift our family unit. The one thing we do, as Latter Day Saints, is hold a Family Home Evening each Monday night. Now in reality most Lds families know that this can often be hit and miss, especially as kids grow up and everyone is in different directions. In fact kids of any age are hit and miss with this night but making it fun and less restraining is always the way to go. In the past we have held our FHE's on a different night for a variety of reasons, but though it is not set in stone it is often nice for the kids (and parents) to know the routine of FHE.
The
idea for a Family Home Evening is to bring the family together for a short time and talk/teach/learn about principles of the gospel, the Lord life and anything else that is good and essential for good, wholesome living. Strengthening the family is more than just being in touch a few times a day, more than knowing how their day went. Its about really spending some pre-set time together that is focused and planned. The bond, love and friendships that come from such times as this are priceless, trust me, if my kids and I can do it then so can anyone else!
In the past my family and I have done lessons on such things as Food Storage, The Commandments, Free Agency, Christ's Life, Temples, Baptism....to name just a few. We take it in turns to have our own part in making the night fun and full of learning and generally this is how it goes:
Preparation:
* Through the week prepare a lesson, use visuals, talks, short dvd's, act outs etc. Anything to make learning the principle fun and easier (especially for younger children).
* Buy in a few goodies for treats afterwards.
* Assign prayers, hymns, teachers etc, whatever is relevant to how the FHE is going to be offered.
* Plan a fun activity for afterwards.
Programme:
* Sing a hymn
* Opening prayer
* Lesson - this can be given by one/two people or done between everyone. A scripture can be shared, a mini play can be acted out, pictures etc. There are lots of ways to teach and learn a principle. Keeping in mind that the focus throughout is on Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, about Their teachings, life essentials that we have been given by revelation and/or something that is personal to your family.
* Have fun with your activity. This can be anything that includes all family members, be it a board game, a walk, an extension of the mini play offered already...in fact its all about just enjoying being together.
* Closing prayer
* Eat! My kids love this part, they get some stuff that I purposely only buy for FHE and they think its great! It's also a great motivator when they want to go off and do other things instead of do FHE!!
Sometimes our FHE's have lasted hours, sometimes they last barely 5 minutes, it really is about where the heart is and making the effort. I admit though that on average ours last around an hour not including the activity which I often extend through to bedtime, inclusively.
Tonight for example, we sang our 2009 family theme hymn, Love at Home. Charley opened with a prayer then we listened to a talk on byu.tv about families being sealed in the temple for time and eternity. Afterwards I back tracked to the Family Proclamation and picked up certain parts of that to read and discuss. Charley done pretty well giving his young age too. We chit chatted about our family, where our weaknesses were, where our strengths were and then set a goal for us all for the next week. We decided that we would each work on 3 things that would increase our roll in our home. Kirsten (hope she doesn't 'get' me for saying this!!) chose to work on her patience when Charley is dominating the tv, walking around after herself so I dont have to and going to bed when I say. Charley is going to work on not snapping at Kirsten when she would like to sing and he's watching tv, he's going to spend more time doing creative things that doesn't include the tv! He's also going to carry on picking up his toys and putting his dirty washing away. Me, I'm going to...what am I going to do? I thought I was perfect? No? Darn it!! Ok, i'm going to moan less when I find I am walking round after Kirsten, I am going to try harder to not win at board games and I'm going to read longer stories to the kids at bedtime. Wish me luck!!
After we finished we played pairs with some cards I got for Charley from Early Learning Centre, where you face all the cards down and turn two over, if they dont match you turn them back upside down and try and remember where and what they are for next time. The person who finds more pairs wins. Charley loves this game and Kirsten and I are getting pretty good too!! We stayed at the dining table for a while, even though we played about 4 games of this! This picture was not taken tonight, it is a few days old but you get the gist, right?!! :)
We talked about all kinds of things relating to our family, our extended family and how we can improve our purpose, the snacks had great timing when they came out to soften the blows to the facts of life that sometimes we just have to accept! Come Charley's bedtime we gathered for our family prayer, this is one that lately I have gotten to say and lasts for quite a while because I have to make sure we thank, ask and set forward our plans, intentions etc and also allow the children to have their say. Charley loves reading and so we picked up the kids version of the Book of Mormon and read about Jesus blessing the children one by one. For the first time Charley realised that Jesus actually knows his name!! Sweet!! Charley hosted his own personal prayer then settled down watching a movie, very happy but very tired. Ten minutes was spent with Kirsten because she was itching to get back on msn with her friends! So we covered some feelings about the time she's been back home with me. It's all good stuff and we are just so blessed.
Result: Three happy people, the spirit was strong in our home and the kids were hugging and laughing again. Me, I just look on with total mummy pride. Job well done!
I am so inspired after a FHE that I have to go read some more on whatever subject we have talked about, so for the next two hours I scoured book after book to feed my desire, ok so I chatted to a couple of friends on yahoo im and skype too but hey, its all good stuff, right?!
~*~Debs~*~
