Instead, we are the family with the screaming infant and a rambunctious toddler that sneaks three Zu Zu Pets into the church bag and lets them loose during the opening prayer!
I also have glorious dreams of my children sitting reverently during family home evening, listening to the lesson and taking it all in.
Wouldn’t that be nice?
Because the truth is, family home evenings with our family are crazy. Typically our three year old is bouncing off the walls and not listening to a word we are saying. It's really hard to get him to sit still. Did I mention he’s three? We make our lessons short (about ten minutes) in hopes that he can pay attention for that long. So far this year we have been focusing our lessons on kindness, love, good manners and anything else we think might help our little man navigate through the terrible threes.
So naturally, one topic that has been high on our list is a lesson on "Reverence". We finally decided we couldn’t wait any longer...it was time to prepare our most powerful FHE lesson yet.
And this time we were armed with a secret weapon.
Thanks to a comment made in Relief Society one Sunday, I was given a fabulous idea. One of the sisters mentioned that she once made a "Reverence badge" for the Primary kids to help them settle down quickly and be quieter. She would pick a child that was being reverent to be her "Reverence Helper" and that child would get to wear the "Reverence badge" during Primary and show by example, what it meant to be reverent. She said that she saw a remarkable change in the children as they all tried their best to be reverent.
The morning of our highly anticipated "Reverence" lesson, I made the first official "Harwood Family Reverence Badge." My hubby took it out at the beginning of the lesson and he immediately had our son...hook, line and sinker. What three year old wouldn’t want the very important task of being the "Reverence Helper" at family home evening? We had a fabulous lesson on reverence while our little guy sat on the couch with his arms folded the entire time! He was so proud and excited to wear the badge and took his role as "Reverence Helper" very seriously. He even participated in the lesson and answered all of his dad’s questions and we could see that he was actually listening!
We have now been using the Reverence Badge at every family night since then and even brought it along to church to help keep our pew a little less crazy during sacrament!
Want to make your own Reverence Badge?
Here is everything you will need :
Rope, yarn or ribbon
Heavy card stock
Image of child or animal folding his/her arms
Marker
Alphabet stickers (optional)
Scrap booking glue or tape
Tip: Laminate your badge to make it last even longer!
Angie is passionate about adoption. She has been married to her best friend for almost 11 years and is the SAHM of two beautiful boys. She loves photography, digital scrap booking, cooking and sunny days. When she is not cleaning up after her incredibly messy 3 year old or wiping slobber off her incredibly slobbery 5 month old she can be found writing on her blog The Blessings of Adoption.
