Meaningful Teaching at Home

The other day, I was reading an article about parenting in the Ensign. It was called “Meaningful Teaching at Home.” I want to write down a few things I learned so that I can look back at them and apply them to my own life.


Taking advantage of teaching moments with our 3 children ages 3 and under has been both challenging and rewarding. But knowing that “the home is the first and most effective place for children to learn the lessons of life,” we’ve tried to do all we can to help our children learn those lessons.

Elder Dallin H.Oaks has reminded is that “just because something is good is not a sufficient reason for doing it… Some things are better than good, and these are the things that should command priority attention in our lives.” Then he went on to say, ”Parents should act to preserve time for family prayer, family scripture study, family home evening, and the other precious togetherness and individual one-on-one time that binds a family together and fixes children’s values on things of eternal worth. Parents should teach gospel priorities through what they do with their children.”

Over the years, I have learned that when we allow our children (although still young) to be involved and help make some of the family decisions, they are more likely to be active participants. They also develop a sense of ownership and accountability and learn to do many things of their own free will. Some things we can do right now and in the years to come include:

• For FHE, help them prepare a lesson, scripture, or talent of their choice.
• Allow them to choose a hymn to sing together during family scripture study and then invite a child to say the prayer.
• Let them help plan and be responsible for a portion of a family trip.
• Teach them how to do a particular job and put them in charge of that job for a week.
• Let them take turns picking someone to visit on a given Sunday.
• Do a monthly service project and let them decide whom the family will help.
• Allow them to pick a family activity for a particular evening during the month

Elder Richard L. Evans taught, “One of our urgent opportunities is to respond to a child when he earnestly asks, remembering that they don’t always ask, that they aren’t always teachable, and that they won’t always listen. Often we have to take them on their terms, at their times, and not always on our terms, and at our times… If they find they can trust us with their trivial questions, they may later trust us with the more weighty ones.”

I hope that I can establish trust in my children, so that they always feel comfortable coming to me with concerns that are weighing on their minds and hearts. I want them to always feel close to me, but most importantly to Our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.