Faith in Family Life

Faith is an important part of the family.  In "The Family: A Proclamation to the World", faith is listed as the first principle that successful marriages and families should be built upon. Faith and religion play a major part in family life.  

Being active in a religious community gives us a whole new family, and many opportunities.  People who are actively involved in their religious communities, have been shown to have a lower use of pornography, and lower rates of domestic violence in their homes.  Women who are involved in a religious community are more likely to have children, while men who are actively involved in their religious communities are more likely to remain faithful to their spouse, and are highly involved in their children's lives.  

Religious communities can provide love, support, service, and friendship to each other.  My son had a major spine surgery this summer.  My son and I were required to spend six weeks in a hospital that was in a different state from the rest of our family.  Our families helped as much as possible, but our ward family was wonderful.  They arranged meals for our family, had our kids over for play dates, and over 20 different families traveled the three hours to the hospital to check on us during that time.  There were also many families in the ward that included us in their prayers and fasting.  This support made a huge difference in our lives.  We knew we were loved, and that those members of our ward really cared for us.

There are many ways that we can help our children to increase their faith.  In our family we try to do the basics such as family prayer, family scripture study, Family Home Evening, and regular church attendance.  We have also tried to teach our children faith by involving them in our fasts, especially when we are fasting for a particular reason.  

One thing that we have really enjoyed doing is taking our boys, that are old enough, to the temple to perform baptisms for the dead.  We have a goal as a family to visit as many different temples as we can.  Involving our children in finding names, picking the temple, and doing the temple work has been a great way to help build their testimonies of the temple, family history, and service.

Helping our children to build their testimonies, and their faith in Christ, is one of the most important things that we can do as parents.  

There is a beautiful lesson that is taught in the book Daughters in My Kingdom.  It talks about women, but it can also apply to faithful men too.

"Whenever a woman strengthens the faith of a child, she contributes to the strength of a family-now and in the future."

--Daughters in My Kingdom

Wholesome Recreation

"Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, comapssion, work, and wholesome recreational activities."

-The Family: A Proclamation to the World

We are counselled that our free time should be used to create the best life possible.  We should choose activities that promote individual growth, and strengthen our families.  There are many activities that we can choose from.  What we choose will depend on our families, their interests, the ages of your family members, and the amount of time you have.  Wholesome recreation can be something small, like playing a quick board game, or it can be elaborate, like going on a family vacation.

Wholesome recreation can be a teaching/learning experience.  We should spend some of our free time teaching our children.  We can teach them to read, ride a bike, play a sport, bake, or garden.  When we take our time to do these things, we can help them build their knowledge, make memories, and we can also build our relationships with them. 

Our every day lives are becoming more hectic all of the time.  We have work and church responsibilities.  Our children have homework, and they are involved in extra activities.  One way that our family has tried to spend time together, even when we are busy, is to attend the activities of each member of our family.  We have enjoyed cheering each other on at soccer games or dance recitals.  My husband has also volunteered to coach some of our kids' teams in order to spend more time with them.

We also love to spend time together at home.  We try to make sure that we eat dinner together each night.  We also enjoy playing board games, playing sports together in our yard, and eating treats.

Creating fun family traditions has also helped us to spend time together.  When we have traditions, it is easier to carve out time with each other.  Some of our favorite traditions are carving pumpkins at Halloween, decorating the Christmas tree together, and watching fireworks on the 4th of July.

Our family has also been blessed to be able to take a vacation together once a year.  Sometimes these vacations are more elaborate than others, but getting time together, away from the hectic pace and responsibilities of life has been a great thing for our family.  We have made many great memories together.

"One of the main problems in families today is that we spend less and less time together.  Time together is precious time--time needed to talk, to listen, to encourage, and to show how to do things."

--President James E. Faust

The Meaning and Blessings of Work

In The Family: A Proclamation to the World, it tells us that work is a solemn responsibility, and a sacred duty.  Our family should be built on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, compassion, and work.  

Teaching our children to work can seem overwhelming.  Most of the time, it seems easier to just do things ourselves, but if we do this, our children will never learn to do things for themselves.  Teaching our children takes time and effort. 

Elder Neal A. Maxwell said, "The divine attributes of love, mercy, patience, submissiveness, meekness, purity...cannot be developed in the abstract.  These require the clinical experiences....Nor can these attributes be developed in a hurry."

One important way that we can teach our children to work, is by our own example.  We can encourage them to help around the house.  Children can be given simple chores such as helping with a meal, cleaning their room, sorting laundry, dusting, or helping to take care of a family pet.  These jobs can get more detailed as our children get older.  We should try not to complain about the work that we have to do.  If we seem happy about working, our children will be less likely to try to avoid working.

We can also teach our children to work hard in school.  We can encourage them to do their best, and give their best efforts in their classes.  We can encourage them to work hard at being good friends, and good people.  When they work hard, they will be able to take pride in their efforts.

We can also teach our children to work hard at their extra curricular activities.  We can encourage them to try their best in their activities, and to be good team members.  We can teach them to work hard at having good sportsmanship, and being dependable.

One of the most important areas that we can be an example to our children in is service.  We should teach our children to work hard in the service of others.  We shouldn't complain about our church callings, or our service opportunities.  We should teach children to have joy in doing temple work.  We should take them to the temple, and help them to gain a testimony of working to serve our Heavenly Father.

"Children devoid of responsibilities risk never learning that every individual can be of service and that life has meaning beyond their own happiness." 

-Bishop H. David Burton

Supporting Families Across Generations

The role of grandparent can be one of the most rewarding roles in life.  Grandparents can have many different roles in their children and grandchildren's lives.  Some grandparents take an active role.  They are there to offer support by attending school events, sporting events, and important church milestones.

Sometimes, grandparents need to take an even more active role by taking over care of their grandchildren when a parent is unable.  Other times, a grandparent can provide emotional support, advice, or more direct help in times of need.
My children have been blessed to be close to both sets of their grandparents.  When my husband and I were a young married couple, we had some challenges that required us to lean on his parents for help.  My husband was a student, and working full time, we had a son that was 17 months old, and I had just given birth to a sweet baby that was 7 weeks early.  We needed help both physically and emotionally.  We moved into my in-laws basement for a couple of years.  I will never be able to pay back the love and help that I received from my in-laws, especially my mother-in-law, as I learned to care for 2 small children, one of whom had several special needs.  I am so grateful for the time that we spent, and for the close relationship that my boys developed with their grandparents during this time.

Studies have shown that a strong relationship with grandparents has a positive effect on a child's acting out behaviors.  I was blessed to live only a few blocks away from my dad's parents while I was growing up.  I don't have a lot of memories from my childhood, that they are not a part of.  There were many vacations, backyard BBQ's, birthday celebrations, Sunday dinners, and Christmas Eves that were made possible because of them.  I remember as a young teenager, going through the struggle of not liking my parents, and feeling that they didn't understand me.  I spent a lot of time talking to my grandma.  She always listened to me, and made me feel like what I was saying was important.  I felt like she was on my side.  This relationship helped me to get through those tough teenage years.

Grandchildren can learn many things from their grandparents.  One thing that they can learn is how to serve.  Some grandparents may be older, and may need help from their extended family.  Children can learn how to serve by helping them with chores, and taking care of them.  I learned how to serve by watching the example of my grandparents.  My grandpa could always be found helping someone in their yard, shoveling snow, mowing a lawn, or hanging Christmas lights.  My grandma is still constantly serving.  For many years, she made a birthday cake for every person in her ward on their birthday.  She has a wonderful way of making people feel special.

Grandparents can do many other things.  They can support children and grandchildren in their church accomplishments, such as baptisms or ordinations.  They can also just spend time with their grandchildren, and have fun.  My family has been very blessed to have wonderful grandparents, and even great-grandparents, in our lives.