It is a good idea to have a family home evening devoted to family preparedness and safety at least once year. This week’s lesson is based on the theme of safety and preparedness. You can easily adapt the activities to fit the needs of your family. It is important to cover the basics whether you have toddlers or teenagers.
You can open the lesson by reading Doctrine and Covenants 109:8. Then you can talk about the different things that your family might want to prepare for. You can talk about the importance of spiritual preparedness as well as temporal preparedness. You may want to talk about how you save money each month to help in case there is an emergency. You may want to talk about insurance if you have older children, and the importance of carrying it. Once you have discussed this you may want to pull out your emergency kits, and sort through them as a family. You may want to have items ready to replace the food and clothes, or you may simply want to make a list of items that you need to get in the next week. Make sure that you throw out any old or expired food, and dented cans. You should also discuss where the emergency kits are stored, so that your children know where to get them.
After you have done this activity, you may want to review safety procedures for your natural disasters. This will vary depending on where you live. You may talk about safety during a winter storm, earthquake safety, and tornado safety. Everyone should talk about fire safety and hold at least one fire drill during family home evening. You may want to hold a few more drills over the next few weeks, so that your family is comfortable responding to the smoke detector. You can time the family and set an improvement goal.
After you have done this you can still have a family activity, and refreshments. You can pick your favorite songs for the opening and closing hymns. Providentliving.org is an excellent resource if you need additional information on emergency kits. If you are teaching primarily adults, you can focus on the emergency kits, and you may want to add items such as the importance of having a living will, and contact information for your family readily available.
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