Preparing for the Empty Nest While Children are Young
Filed under: Being a Stay at Home Mom, Families, Parenting Skills, Strengthening Families & Marriages
I remember the day I realized the parenting stage of my life was nearly over. I was at my computer, writing when I became aware I had been working for several hours without having been needed by anyone. My oldest was at work,
Wherever He Leads Me
my middle child was taking some college classes, and my youngest, the only one I was still homeschooling, was teaching himself something I didn’t know. I realized my children were what I had intended them to be—on their own, even though they were all living at home for the moment.
I sat quietly and wondered what I was going to do with myself when homeschooling was completely over and my children were out of the house. I didn’t have to wonder for very long. A few weeks later I was offered a book contract. This contract was the fulfillment of instructions given to me by my pediatrician soon after the birth of my first child.
He said that although it would seem like the children would be young forever, they would soon grow up and not want my full attention. He cautioned me to keep up with hobbies and interests, even if I only had fifteen minutes a day to spend on them. I needed something in place for the day they became teenagers or adults and I was on my own. To this end, I continued to write. I discontinued my freelance career when I began homeschooling, due to time constraints, but I learned how to build websites and wrote about homeschooling. I also wrote a column for an online magazine. These were what led to the offer of a writing contract at the critical moment.
We all had hobbies and interests before we became so busy with children. Often, as we are busy with little ones, a longing flits across our minds of something we wish we could do, but are too busy to tackle. The problem is that after a while, those longings and hobbies become so far in the past we forget them. Mothers get so busy, they sometimes lose who they are beyond the role of a parent.
Motherhood is a wonderful career, and deserves priority in our schedule. Mormon beliefs teach that it is the most critical of all careers for women. M. Russell Ballard, an apostle for the Mormons, taught:
“I am impressed by countless mothers who have learned how important it is to focus on the things that can only be done in a particular season of life. If a child lives with parents for 18 or 19 years, that span is only one-fourth of a parent’s life. And the most formative time of all, the early years in a child’s life, represents less than one-tenth of a parent’s normal life. It is crucial to focus on our children for the short time we have them with us and to seek, with the help of the Lord, to teach them all we can before they leave our homes.” (See M. Russell Ballard, “Daughters of God,” Ensign, May 2008, 108–10.)
Motherhood is seldom, as I learned eventually, the best time to launch a demanding career or to devote countless hours to our hobbies. It is a brief and extraordinary season in a woman’s life and should always have priority on our time without resentment or impatience, because it’s a joyful time.
However, there will come a time when motherhood as a full-time job ends, and we need to be ready for that so we aren’t following our teenagers around every moment and even our grown and out of the nest children. Every mother can find fifteen minutes to maintain contact with a hobby or potential career without neglecting her children.
One way to do this is to continue reading and studying in our chosen areas. While we rock a sleeping baby, we can read a book on history or writing or whatever our passion might be. We can read while we oversee homework that doesn’t need much attention. We can create a reading time each day at home where everyone reads. This encourages your children to read while allowing you time to do so yourself.
When I first launched my professional writing career, I did so by getting up at four AM each day to write until my family arose at six AM. For a night person, this was not easy, but it allowed me to write when I was fresh and without taking time from anyone else. I stopped when I began needing that time to prepare lesson plans.
Another way to stay in touch with your grown-up interests is to use them in your parenting. Do you love gardening? Teach your children to garden. If you love to write or paint, teach it to your children. All of you can do these things together. Mothers who love science can enhance their child’s education by doing science experiments at home and parents who are passionate about history can take their children to historical sites and tell them exciting stories about the places they are visiting. You aren’t taking any time at all away from your children, and in fact, are making your family time more valuable.
I had someone point out to me once that if I wrote a single page each day, I’d have written a book at the end of one year. While I didn’t want the stress of freelancing while I was homeschooling, I wrote books for the fun of it. It was good practice and I learned to write my single page very quickly. Since I wasn’t going to publish them, I experimented with new techniques and tried things I wouldn’t have tried were I writing to please a potential publisher. In the same way, you can practice your passion a few minutes each day so you’re ready when the time comes to give it a priority.
Keep a list of the someday dreams that flit through your head. When the children are grown and you ask yourself what is next, pull out the list and choose something from it. If you can keep the dreams on your list without resenting the time it takes to get started, they can give you a way to enjoy the next stage of your life.
Finally, keep your relationship with your spouse alive. There will be a time when every conversation won’t need to be about parenting. Make sure you still have topics to discuss and traditions you enjoy as a couple. The Mormons teach couples to have a weekly date night, which keeps the marriage strong and gives it a foundation for the empty nest years.
Make a point of preparing for and enjoying each stage of life. Each one has blessings attached. The empty nest is neither better or worse than any other stage: it’s simply another stop on life’s adventure.
Learning Without Going to School
Filed under: Being a Stay at Home Mom, Furthering our Education
There are times and seasons for everything, and sometimes it’s not our time to go back to school. This is especially true for mothers of young children. This doesn’t, however, mean we have to turn off our brain until we have the time and money to continue our formal education.
One thing I learned from homeschooling my children was that education doesn’t have to happen in a classroom. If you have young children, you can use the principles of homeschooling to educate yourself. Children don’t just learn from workbooks and textbooks. Their best learning comes out of their own passions, and happens in a variety of ways.
While educating my children, I learned the subjects I taught them myself. If they were interested in dinosaurs, we read books on the subject and watched videos. We traveled to museums to look at bones, and had pretend digs in the sandbox. We decorated bedrooms with dinosaur pictures and quizzed each other on their identities. We even pretended to be dinosaurs. In order to answer their questions, I often found myself reading more grown-up material on the subject.
As your children develop passions, learn right alongside them. Learning with your children is fun. You’ll share a common knowledge that can be talked about over dinner or in the car and the time you spend together on activities related to the new hobby will bring you closer together and create memories. While they subjects they’re passionate about may not be what you’d choose, you’ll find it easier to justify the time when it’s for the children.
When you have time to study something on your own, choose a subject you’re passionate about. Whether it’s something practical, like French cooking, or something strictly academic, you’ll be refreshed by your personal learning time and find yourself looking forward to each day. If you go back to school someday, you may find you’re able to test out of some classes because of your personal studies.
Right now, I’m learning Portuguese. There are Brazilians in my congregation who help me out and answer my questions. I started by tracking down free lessons on the Internet and now have an actual college textbook to study. In addition, I’m reading the Book of Mormon in Portuguese. I only have a few minutes each day to put into the project, but little by little, my knowledge is growing. Because languages are very hard for me, I’d be too afraid to take a class, but working at home with the help of friends makes me feel safe about tackling something that has always seemed impossible. I can work at my own pace each day.
To begin your personal university, decide what to study. Choose something you think you’ll stick to and have the resources to learn. Next, find out what help is available. Search for books, websites, field trips, and knowledgeable friends. Make a list to use when you lay out your plan.
Next, decide how you like to learn. I prefer to learn most subjects by reading and writing about them. However, with the Portuguese, I soon learned I needed a formal curriculum, with actual grammar. The trend today is to learn naturally from context, and this is how the courses I tried worked. It didn’t work for me. I tried several courses before choosing a textbook instead. If you find you aren’t learning fast enough, it probably isn’t the subject, but the method you’ve chosen. Experiment until you know how you learn best.
Schedule your study time. If you don’t schedule it, it probably won’t get done. I study for an hour before I go to bed at night and carry flashcards in my purse for those moments when I find myself waiting in the car or a doctor’s office for someone.
Know where to go for help when you are stuck. Today, you can find someone who knows almost anything on the Internet. Your church or clubs may also have resources. When my children were homeschooling, they contacted Ask-a-Scientist websites for their questions that were over my head. Having experts to turn to give you confidence and make the study more fun.
Don’t wait until your children are grown to start learning something new. If you have just fifteen minutes a day, you can start to learn new skills. You can write a novel by writing just one page every single day. You can learn a new subject by reading about it for fifteen minutes a day.
Make a plan and get started!
Measuring Motherhood
Filed under: Being a Stay at Home Mom, Mother-Daughter Relationships
I remember years ago when my girls were younger. Two or ten children, a mother’s life is full.
I recall a particular day. When evening came, I was pretty exhausted. I began to write a quick synopsis of the day in my journal, and as I did, I seemed to reduce my activities to a list: early morning study, caring for my girls, about 21 phone calls, six loads of wash, several meals prepared, grocery shopping with Talia, service, reading scriptures, and retiring. While I loved being a mother and inherently knew the value of being with and directing my children, I didn’t have a way to measure the increase, the effect of the day and see its impact in the grand ledger of life. Having love in my heart didn’t seem to make its way onto the list.
As the girls and I cuddled in the bed for scripture time together, I opened the Book of Mormon to Alma 26 and began to read to them. Kira and Talia each repeated the lines of the text, or their favorite words, as they typically did then. As always with repetition, I had extra time to consider the meaning of the verses we read aloud:
1 And now, these are the words of Ammon to his brethren, which say thus: My brothers and my brethren, behold I say unto you, how great reason have we to rejoice; for could we have supposed when we started from the land Zarahemla that God would have granted unto us such great blessings?
2 And now, I ask, what great blessings has he bestowed upon us? Can ye tell?
3 Behold, I answer for you; for our brethren, the Lamanites, were in darkness, yea, even in the darkest abyss, but behold, how many of them are brought to behold the marvelous light of God. And this is the blessing which hath been bestowed upon us, that we have been made instruments in the hands of God to bring about this great work.
4 Behold, thousands of them do rejoice, and have been brought into the fold of God.
5 Behold, the field was ripe, and blessed are ye, for ye did thrust in the sickle and did reap with your might, yea, all they day long did ye labor; and behold the number of your sheaves! And they shall be gathered into the garners, that they are not wasted.
6 Yea, they shall not be beaten down by the storm at the last day; yea; neither shall they be harrowed up by the whirlwinds; but when the storm cometh they shall be gathered together in their place, that the storm cannot penetrate to them, yea, neither shall they be driven with fierce winds whithersoever the enemy listeth to carry them;
7 But behold they are in the hands of the Lord of the harvest and they are his and he will raise them up at the last day.
8 Blessed be the name of our God; let us sing to his praise, yea, let us give thanks to his holy name, for he doth work righteousness forever. Alma 26:1-8
As I listened to Ammon, I noticed that he suggested what I already knew to be true– that the greatest blessing we can receive lies in being “made instruments in the hands of God” to bring others to Christ (vs 3). In reading those words, I felt the Lord trying to tell me something. He seemed to be saying that what I was attempting to do that very day– in purifying my heart so that my children would be able to see the Savior more clearly through me–was part and parcel of “this great work” of bringing others to Christ (vs 3). Not only did He let me know He was aware of my efforts, He indicated that through them I was involved– though in a different arena and with fewer numbers–in the same great work as Ammon. The Lord felt a need to remind me of what I already knew: that the work and efforts of all mothers is noticed and that it never could really be reduced to a list.
And then, as I read on, I was struck again by the Lord’s words in verse 5: “Behold, the field was ripe, and ye did thrust in the sickle and reap with your might, yea, all the day long did ye labor.” It was as if this were His rendition of my day–in contrast with my own– as if He had watched me all day in my own invisible realm and stood before me to give His account of it. His loving words pierced the unspoken feelings tugging at my heart. The field was ripe,” I acknowledged silently as my thoughts turned immediately to my children’s tender, prepared hearts–ripe for learning as I was ripe that day in wanting to teach them. And I didn’t need a particular parenting skill or blanket formula for interacting with them; nor did I mistake their behavioral slips for mine.
I read on: “ye did thrust in the sickle and did reap with your might” (vs 5). It seemed that I had underestimated the offering of serving with a heart desiring to do right; the Lord saw my efforts as “thrusting” and “reaping” with my might. I was amazed as I read the next phrase, His exclamation, “and behold the number of your sheaves!” (vs 5)–a clear indication to me that His accounting was different than mine and that were quantity and quality fruits born in a simple way that day. And, again, what he said to me, he seems to be saying to all mothers who serve in love within the walls of their own homes.
I continued to ponder these verses, and I began to see my day differently. As I discovered that a sheaf is a bundle of grain wrapped together, and that each stalk contains about forty grains each, I knew there was so small sum gathered. Where was it tucked away? Suddenly, the experiences with my daughters seemed to divide themselves up into little packages or bundles, as if they themselves were the wrapped sheaves of grain–Talia’s cutting short her early-morning tantrum and hugging me; her tender expressions throughout the day; her change in demeanor in the middle of a demanding moment while brushing her teeth; the profound feelings of warmth in our home…. Then I unwrapped another fruit-bearing sheaf–marked by discovering Kira’s real need for help to know on what to do when provoked by her sister. Perhaps that sheaf alone, if “garnered” by the Lord, would accelerate her progress in learning to love like the Savior and forbear under injury (vs 5).
I imagined, then, the bundles of sheaves. As I envisioned the gathered sheaves, the words in Alma 26:3 came back to me in slightly different form: “Know, Karen, that ‘[thy time] was not wasted.’” In one way, it seemed that this little change of heart had occurred overnight, and in yet another way, that it had occurred slowly, without my even noticing it, over time. The Lord had seen the harvest; I had seen only the shells of the seeds I was sowing.
I thought more about the fruits of the harvest–they are also born into the seeds that develop within the growing grain. In that sense, the sheaves also represented the girls. As I pondered the Lord’s special promises, in this same passage of scripture, to protect the sheaves from physical storm, it seemed that He was likewise promising to protect Kira and Talia against spiritual storms–from being “driven by fierce winds whithersoever the enemy listeth.” I counted his promise as part of this bounteous reaping. The Lord, it seemed, was assuring me–and, likewise, all mothers– that as long as I would continue to wholly yield my heart to Him and to Kira and Talia–though imperfectly still–my children would” not be beaten down by the storm at the last day nor be harrowed up by the whirlwinds” (vs 6). What greater promise can we reap from the Lord? I felt to rejoice as did Alma : “Blessed be the name of our God;…for he doth work righteousness forever” (vs 8).
The girls were hugging and squirming in their beds as I finished our reading and marked the corner of the page. I kissed them goodnight, turned out the lights and slowly began to close the Book of Mormon, but I couldn’t. Instead, I carried it gently downstairs, laid it on the kitchen table–still open to those savored passages in Alma.
What’s a Mother to Do?
Filed under: Being a Stay at Home Mom, Home and Family, Teaching Children the Gospel
Go on, admit it. Every mother’s been there. It’s what we do every single day of our lives. We are faced with this huge task of taking a totally dependent little bundle of joy from point A to point B (where they are a happy, productive adult member of society). Subconsciously, we just know we are failing. Subliminally, we recognize that we’re just making things more difficult for ourselves. Yet, we can’t seem to force ourselves to do things differently. We cling to the silliest things, and let go of some of the most practical. We secretly idolize our own mothers (whether we hate them or not) because they did manage to make it to point B, but we have no real idea how they did it. We openly fear exposure of our inadequacies and keep on going as if we know exactly where we are headed and what we are doing.
There is so much information available to us as mothers. Information that tells us: just what to expect, when to expect it, where to take our children on vacation, why we shouldn’t feed them red dyes, reasons to co-sleep and reasons not to co-sleep. We are completely informed, and completely helpless. Surely, we can’t be considered good mothers if we aren’t reading to our children for at least 30 minutes every day, or let our 1-year-old watch television while we take a shower. Shall I continue?
For my own part, I think I have figured out at least one thing. It’s all about love. I love my children so much that I’m almost desperate to make sure I don’t inadvertently mess up their entire lives. The key is that love. I need to remember that love, stuff, activities and bedtime stories are different. Maybe all I really need to get to point B is simply love. Love the way my child understands it, rather than the way I think they should understand it.
Perhaps the places we need to look are really simplistic in nature.
James E. Faust gives some beautiful advice for mothers. His advice?
“May I suggest that you take your challenges one day at a time. Do the best you can. Look at everything through the lens of eternity. If you will do this, life will take on a different perspective.”
James E. Faust, “Instruments in the Hands of God,” Ensign, Nov 2005, 114
Then, we can get a little more specific.
“It is my prayer that the Spirit will burn within you, that you will have a greater desire to strengthen your family now and prepare for your future family. The scriptures are filled with ways to teach us how to strengthen our families. There is no greater teacher than the Savior. As you study His teachings and follow His example, you can make your family life better. Let’s talk about three principles that will help you strengthen your home and family:
• Nurturing
• Sacrifice
• PrayerTo nurture means to support each other, to encourage each other, to nourish and love each other. Are we doing this in our families?
The Savior Himself taught us to nurture. Many times He said, “How oft have I gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and have nourished you” (3 Ne. 10:4).
The Savior is so proud of you. He knows what you’re going through. He understands how hard it is for you to make sacrifices. The Savior taught us to sacrifice. He sacrificed His life for all mankind.
As you help strengthen your family, prayer must be a consistent, daily part of your life. Prayer will protect you from the adversary, give you peace, and help your families love each other more.
How can you use prayer to strengthen your family? Because Heavenly Father loves you so, He wants you to talk to Him. Whatever struggles you may have, you can pray about anything. . .
Pray over problems that worry you! Don’t give up. Heavenly Father can and will answer your prayers. I have had many prayers that have been answered. I also have prayers that have not been answered yet. Our prayers will be answered in the Lord’s time when we are ready.”
Carol B. Thomas, “Strengthen Home and Family,” Ensign, May 2002, 94
A mother’s love is desperate and eternal. We face such a great challenge trying to raise our children up to their full potential. It’s often overwhelming and sometimes discouraging, but you are not left alone. Look to the simplest part of your love, the core at the very center of your heart that mirror’s God’s own love for you. Draw from the strength that can give and focus on the basics.
Take it one day at a time, with:
Faith
Nurturing
Sacrifice, and
Prayer
A Leap of Love – Becoming a Stay Home Mom
I didn’t always aspire to be a stay at home mom.
I aspired to be many things and not one of those things was being a housewife (does anyone else hate that word as much as I do?). I’ve always enjoyed the challenge of a professional career. I worked hard for it, even went on to graduate school so that I can pursue the career that I’ve always wanted. Being a stay home mom was the furthest thing from my mind. I will even go further and say that being a stay home mom didn’t come naturally to me.
Now in case you’re wondering, I do enjoy being a mom. I love being a mother. I do indeed believe that being a mother is the most important job that I can ever have in this life. For me, it wasn’t a question of one of the other, but both. I firmly believed that I can have it all – a career and a family. Well, I was right in some ways but I was also wrong in so many others.
Like many professional women, a lot of my identity was tied up in what I do, my career and my professional interests. Having a career validated who I was in many ways. I was someone who had accomplished something in her own right. I wasn’t just someone’s wife, or just someone’s daughter, or just someone’s mother.
I don’t know exactly when the big realization came for me. Perhaps, it was gradual and it crept up on me a little bit at a time. It really doesn’t matter how it happened, what matters is that it did. I came to really understand that the greatest accomplishment that I can ever hope to lay claim to is to raise my children to be honorable in all their dealings with their fellowmen and with their Heavenly Father.
President Gordon B. Hinckley (15th President and Prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) spoke lovingly of our sacred duty as mothers:
You have nothing in this world more precious than your children. When you grow old, when your hair turns white and your body grows weary, when you are prone to sit in a rocker and meditate on the things of your life, nothing will be so important as the question of how your children have turned out. It will not be the money you have made. It will not be the cars you have owned. It will not be the large house in which you live. The searing question that will cross your mind again and again will be, How well have my children done?
If the answer is that they have done very well, then your happiness will be complete. If they have done less than well, then no other satisfaction can compensate for your loss.
And so I plead with you tonight, my dear sisters. Sit down and quietly count the debits and the credits in your role as a mother. It is not too late. When all else fails, there is prayer and the promised help of the Lord to assist you in your trials. But do not delay. Start now, whether your child be six or 16…
God bless you, dear friends. Do not trade your birthright as a mother for some bauble of passing value. Let your first interest be in your home. The baby you hold in your arms will grow quickly as the sunrise and the sunset of the rushing days. I hope that when that occurs you will not be led to exclaim as did King Lear, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!” (King Lear, I, iv, 312). Rather, I hope that you will have every reason to be proud concerning your children, to have love for them, to have faith in them, to see them grow in righteousness and virtue before the Lord, to see them become useful and productive members of society. If with all you have done there is an occasional failure, you can still say, “At least I did the very best of which I was capable. I tried as hard as I knew how. I let nothing stand in the way of my role as a mother.” Failures will be few under such circumstances.
For me, it came down to this – I had to be there for my children when it mattered. This meant being home full time. I needed to be there when they come home after a particularly bad day. I needed to be home when they come home bursting with news from school or from a friend. My children didn’t just need me to be home when they were newborns or toddlers, they need me home as preteens and teenagers. In fact, they need me home during these trying years even more than ever before. This realization enabled me to take a leap of love – embracing and loving my status as a stay at home mom and not with reluctance and regret as I did before.
Of course, I realize that there are many mothers who work outside the home out of necessity. I applaud those moms for they are doing what they need to do to take care of their families. If my situation were to change tomorrow and I had to support my family, I would gladly work full time again but today I’m grateful that I can stay home. For me, it was a leap of love that has blessed my family in countless ways. Being a stay home mom might not have been what I’d envisioned as my “dream career” but today I can’t imagine doing anything else.
To the Mothers in Zion
Shortly after we were married, my husband and I discussed starting our family. We both wanted a large family we had talked about this before we even decided to marry. But suddenly, everything that had been theoretical before now had practical applications. I had grown up an only child raised by a single mother. I was a “latchkey kid” and was the only member in my family, having only been baptized into the Mormon church 4 years earlier. I really didn’t feel like I knew what I was doing or that I was ready for it.
One day in our Celestial Marriage class at the Institute, I was introduced to a talk given by President Ezra Taft Benson, “To the Mothers in Zion.” He talked about the importance of not postponing children unnecessarily and how mothers needed to stay home with the children except in unusual circumstances. All these things I knew before I got married. But somehow this day, it really hit home what that meant to me personally. I freaked out.
I was on the verge of tears all day. I argued with my husband. I was upset because I felt like I was being told to stay home barefoot and pregnant which meant that all the effort I had put into my college education thus far was a waste and it was just obvious I should drop out now because it was costing us money for me to go to school and since I wasn’t going to have a career, we should save that money for something else and I should go home and wash my husband’s laundry and start making his dinner! I was definitely not at peace.
That feeling of rebelliousness lasted all day. I was so angry and unhappy. I’m sure that my new groom was wondering what on earth happened to his glowing bride. It must have been very distressing for him to see me like that—ranting and raving all day long. Finally, it was bedtime, but my anger was not spent yet. He offered to give me a priesthood blessing. With my emotional state being what it was, I’m surprised that I allowed it.
I don’t remember what was said to me in my blessing. But I do know that I was able to fall asleep quickly afterwards. And in the morning, I woke up refreshed. A change had happened in my heart overnight—a gift from God. Instead of being offended and upset at what I had read the day before, I felt a desire to have children and to stay home with them. The stumbling blocks of school and money that had seemed insurmountable the day before, I suddenly had a good plan for that would make it all work out. Soon we were pregnant.
Now I am pregnant again with my eighth child. Even during our darkest times of financial distress I have stayed at home with my children knowing that especially during those times of stress and struggle that it would cause more anxiety and be more disruptive to their lives to have me out of the home and away from them—even if it did bring in a little more money.
I have a five year old now who comes home from Kindergarten each day. As soon as he opens the door, he calls out and says, “Mom, I’m home!” And if I don’t reply immediately, he comes looking for me. I understand what President Benson meant when he said:
First, take time to always be at the crossroads when your children are either coming or going–when they leave and return from school–when they leave and return from dates–when they bring friends home. Be there at the crossroads whether your children are six or sixteen. In Proverbs we read: “A child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame” (Proverbs 29:15). Among the greatest concerns in our society are the millions of latchkey children who come home daily to empty houses unsupervised by working parents.
I was one of those latchkey children and I know what it felt like to come home to an empty house or to someone who wasn’t my mother. It is my privilege to be able to be there at the crossroads for my children, to be able to do their laundry and make their meals. Yes, I stay home with them and deny myself–during this season of life–some of the other pursuits I might have liked to have followed.
But the truth is that it gives me the greatest joy in my life to be able to answer my kindergartener with “Here I am! How was your day? Are you hungry for lunch?” I love giving him a big hug when he comes home and looking at the things he made in school. I love knowing that he knows where to find me. Right at home. Staying at home with my children has been one of the greatest blessings of my life.
Today I was re-reading President Benson’s talk. I don’t think I’ve read it again since that first time that it made me so angry. Today I found it so beautiful that it brought me to tears.
Family Scripture Study and Prayer
LDS families are counseled to study the scriptures daily as a family. I’ve found that it’s a great foundation for gospel instruction and a starting point for gospel discussion. Beyond that, it has been a personal anchor to me in the tempests of life. When I have been struggling personally, our family scripture study has kept me grounded and strengthened my weak faith. It strengthens our family and shows the children how much we value the word of God.
In the beginning, we had a hard time with family scripture study. When our first child was too young to understand, it was often difficult to set aside the time for it. And, frankly, I felt a little foolish. I didn’t grow up in a home where we studied the scriptures and I felt awkward doing it with just my husband and a small baby who was unaware.
As she grew older, we bought her some scripture reader books published by the church. We all enjoyed going through and showing her the pictures and telling scripture stories and identifying characters in the picture. And although it wasn’t formal scripture study, it was something we did together as a small family and it was perfect for her level of understanding.
A few years later, though, we knew we needed to do more. But we hadn’t quite made the adjustment yet. One summer, my husband left for an internship in Belgium, leaving me alone with our three small children. I felt completely overwhelmed and utterly alone and inadequate to the task. I knew that I needed more divine help than I was currently receiving and that if I wanted that assistance and those blessings, I would need to do the best I could at what I had been asked to do.
So I started studying the scriptures with our three children– ages 4, 2, and 1. When my husband returned it became a natural part of our family culture. In the evenings before bed we would sit down for scripture study. We would usually start with a prayer and follow that with a song. Then we would read. At first, we could only read one or two verses. That was all the time we had before their attention wavered. It was very hard to follow the story line, but we did it. And just over two years later our little family finished the 531 pages of the Book of Mormon. I had a wonderful feeling of accomplishment and felt I had fulfilled an obligation to the Lord to teach our little ones.
As the years went by, we were able to lengthen our scripture study to ten verses at a time and sometimes as much as a chapter a day. We continued to have little ones whose attention spans are short. Some days we could do more than others. We continued to study in the evenings before bed, with Mom or Dad reading. I admit that I was a “scripture hog.” I loved to be the voice and read the scriptures in what I felt was a meaningful way that the children could easily understand. I liked to put in facial expressions and emphasize certain words depending on whether the person was behaving well or poorly. And I found that as I read that way, I personally got much more out of scripture study than I had before. And although over time we have omitted the song, we still always ended with a family prayer.
On occasion, we stop from our regularly scheduled scripture study to memorize certain scriptures that teach important doctrine. On those nights, we read and discuss the scripture and then over the next several nights we practice reciting it and see who can get the farthest without making a mistake.
Recently, we have had to make another change in our family scripture study. Because of the increasing activities taking place at night, finding a time when we were all home in the evenings for scripture study became very difficult. So we made the big switch to morning scripture study. I admit that I was skeptical and not very supportive of the change at first. I thought it would be too difficult and cause too many problems. But I have been pleasantly surprised as the Lord has blessed and helped our family.
It has been remarkable to start the day out together as a family and not just frantically taking care of our own personal morning needs. I feel like I am sending my children out into the world prepared to fight the good fight and wearing the armor of God. We gather at 7:15 in our living room. I purchased some inexpensive copies of the Bible, since we are currently reading in the Old Testament, so that we could all have a copy that was to be kept in the living room (as opposed to everyone scouring the house for their personal, leather-bound copies). In the past, Mom or Dad usually did all the reading. But now that we each have a set handy, it’s easy and it helps everyone pay better attention if we each take turns reading a few verses. I also like having everyone read because then each of the kids gets to hear their siblings reading the word of God, not just Mom and Dad. Plus, there’s the added benefit of providing an auditory as well as a visual learning experience for our many different types of learners. After we finish a chapter, we kneel down together as a family and Dad usually picks someone to say the family prayer for us.
I do miss having the together time as a family in the evenings that we used to have when did our family scripture study then. And since it’s easier to do the rest of our morning routine without little ones, we don’t bother to wake our 18 month old or our 3 year old for family scripture study. Although, if they wake up on their own they are welcomed and loved, of course! There’s nothing better than morning cuddles from the little ones while you study scriptures. But I think it’s rather sad that our little ones are so often left out of our morning family scripture study. And so I’m thinking that I’d like to add something back into the evening routine for whoever’s schedule allows them to be there for it. I just want to make sure we aren’t missing anyone.
But this is the beauty I think of families. Each one is different with different needs and different strengths and talents and resources to take care of those needs. So that when we are counseled that we should study the scriptures and pray daily as a family, each family will find their own way to go about doing it. What is your family scripture study like?