Shared
by Grandma Johnson: Our Wonderful Amazing Youth! Our
son
e-mailed us that he and his wife had been discussing various resources
for more effective Family Home Evenings and even the possibility of
using PowerPoint presentations and showing them on their home theater
screen. Their son
and daughter (ages 9 and 11) overheard and took it to heart and
surprised them for FHE with a PowerPoint
lesson on Forgiveness that they created themselves on the computer with
no help. They wrote a story about a brother and sister, added a
few
graphics, and taught a beautiful lesson to their parents and 4 younger
siblings. Our son attached a copy of the PowerPoint. The
grammar and
spelling weren't perfect, but what talented and faithful children are
being raised. The future is in good hands!
My grandmotherly advice: Often it is only the parents who present
all the FHE
lessons. I found when our children were young they gave wonderful
lessons---making flannel board pictures and visual aids far more often
than we parents did. They put a lot of work into the
lessons. They often learn more in preparing and presenting a
lesson than in just listening to a parent's lesson. When you hand
a child a FHE manual, she/he probably reads 6 lessons while deciding
which one to present. So try giving everyone, who is old enough,
a turn
to present the lesson. With a younger child, a parent can assign
an older child to help--thus benefiting both of them.
And of course it benefits the parents, who don't have to prepare a
lesson!
It also helps the children gain experience in teaching and story
telling, which can carry over to their giving talks in Primary, etc.
There is so much wisdom behind the Family Home Evening program and
benefit from it. It is truly an inspired program.
"We cannot impress
too
much the importance of having family home evenings once a week.
"...that
you
may be rewarded by a fulfillment of the promise
that if fathers and mothers will discharge this responsibility, not one
in a hundred of your family, as has been said by the leaders who have
preceded
us, would ever go astray."
Forward from the
1974 Family Home Evening
Manual by President Spencer W. Kimball