Friendship

My daughter is just getting into that age where I will find her speaking not-so-nice to her friends sometimes. I know from here, it only gets worse (especially with girls!). So, I thought it would be good to have a lesson on friends and how important and special they are but also how we should treat them.


Make a heart (perfect for Valentine’s Day!) with either the word FRIENDSHIP or a picture of friends on it. Underneath write the scripture: “A friend loveth at all times.” Proverbs 17:17. Attach 4 or 5 strings around the heart. On a corkboard (or something similar) use thumbtacks or tape to attach the strings and hang the heart up (don’t attach the heart itself).

Sing “Love one Another”

Ask the children who some of their friends are. Tell who some of yours are too. Ask them questions like what fun things do they do together, why they like them, ect. Ask them how they feel if their friends are mean to them. Explain that friendship is a great blessing Heavenly Father has given us and we need to treat it that way. Just like we don’t like when our friends are mean to us, we need to remember to act nice to them as well.

Activity: draw attention to the heart and strings. Explain that you are going to tell them some stories about different friends. (I have a few, but come up with some of your own that may be specific to your child)

1. Susan and Anna are playing together. Anna starts making fun of Susan. They start calling each other names and their friendship is broken. (Cut one of the strings)

2. Jimmy pushed Alan because he wanted to go first. The first push led to another and soon Alan and Jimmy were hitting and hurting each other. Another friendship is broken. (cut another string)

3. Milly had a bad of candy but wouldn’t share with Justin at all. After a bug argument over sharing and selfishness, Justin went home. Their friendship is hurt. (cut another string)

Continue sharing stories till only one string is left. Tell the kids that when we do mean and selfish things, we can lose or ruin friendships.
Discuss what things we can do to strengthen friendships and make them stronger. I wanted to teach my kids that they need to try and always be the person that will stand up for other people and be nice to everyone. Read the scripture on the heart and remind them that how we act towards others shows them how we feel about them.

Friendship

Favorite Scripture Story

A couple of Sundays ago, I was teaching the twelve year olds in Sunday school. I was explaining to them how much more you learn when you are the teacher instead of the student because you spend time in preparation and think about it a lot more. I pointed out that as 12 year olds, they likely really only got this opportunity to teach a lesson in Family Home Evening. I encouraged them to really take the time to study when preparing a lesson for Family Home Evening. I promised them it would help them build their own testimonies on the subject.

This comment got me thinking about my own children.

We like to have them take a turn sharing the lesson every so often. We have really had some learning curves along the way.

The first time we did this and Brayden was old enough to have real opinion on the direction of the lesson, we ended up with him "teaching" us for an hour. Not kidding. We have it on video. It really was funny and one of those priceless moments, but the whole thing wasn't really the direction we thought was appropriate :)

After that, we guided the study and the lesson, but it really ended up being more of me teaching while Brayden parroted what I said. This isn't necessarily bad, but I also felt like it wasn't best.

Especially after I got thinking about what I had taught the 12 year olds.

I spent some time pondering the matter and I was finally struck with some inspiration. I decided to have Brayden share his favorite scripture story.

So I told Brayden what he would do. I then asked him what his favorite scripture story is (even though I already knew...unless he had changed his mind of course :) ). He told me Daniel and the Lion's Den. So we went to the scriptures and read the story in the scriptures. Then we went to the children's scripture stories they sell at Distribution and read about Daniel and the Lion's Den in there. We then found a picture for him to use during his lesson.

I explained to him that for his lesson, he would tell us the story of Daniel and the Lion's Den.

That night, he was able to hold the picture up and share the story of Daniel all by himself. Not only was he able to learn the story well, he was able to actually give a lesson on his own, which is very exciting for a child.

Favorite Scripture Story