Sometimes with the upheaval of the summer months it is easy to let things like family home evening and scripture study fall to the wayside. In the summer the children may stay out later and want to sleep in later. In the summer teenagers may be working or out with friends during meal times. It is still essential to have family home evening each week and family scripture study each day. Here are five tips to help you get back on track.
1) Sit down and discuss the situation with your children. You can often find a compromise once they have some input. It may be that they all agree to be home for dinner each night, so they can stay out later. Or they may decide to wake up early and then go back to sleep to have scripture study in the morning.
2) You may need to compromise and have staggered family prayer times. This simply means that you pray with the children who are home, before they go to bed. Then when the older children come home you have another prayer with them. This helps your children to realize the importance of family prayer and it includes everyone in the family.
3) If your Monday nights are too hectic in the summer, you may consider having a lesson on Sundays. You can still have a family home evening lesson when you are on vacation as well. This may take a little extra planning, but it will be worth the extra effort.
4) Take advantage of the variety of family activities that you can complete in the summer and plan your lessons around them. If it is something they want to do, your children will come with a positive attitude. You can still have a spiritual thought or short lesson before you complete the activity.
5) Remember that family home evening, family scripture time, and family prayer are all things that should bring a feeling of love and respect into your family. If you are having trouble with this you may need to talk to the children who are resisting the most and resolve any issues that you can with them.
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