A Successful Family Home Evening

I contribute to a Family Home Evening blog which focuses on kids under 5. We have been struggling with Baby Dragon speaking kindly to Handsome Husband and I. She talks back and uses a mean tone and often puts her hands on her hips to show her displeasure. She tries to boss us around and we try to tell her that she shouldn't talk to us like that. So, when I decided to make a lesson about speaking kindly, I couldn't find much on the internet that would do what I wanted. So I believe inspiration hit because I came up with an idea.

I pulled out empty mason jars, a cup of marbles and some rocks. I told the girls that they each had their own jar and that the marbles were good and the rocks were bad. I explained that every time we say or do something nice to someone we are putting a marble in their jar. Every time we say or do something mean to someone we are putting a rock in their jar. We practiced some nice phrases and put marbles in the appropriate jars and we gave examples of mean phrases (things that had been said recently) or situtations (like hitting or making mean faces) and put rocks in the appropriate jars. We pointed out that it makes us feel good to get marbles in our jar and sad to get rocks in our jar. We also talked about the way that tone and body language effect what we say and do and can contribute to whether we are putting rocks or marbles in one another's jars. We talked about how Jesus wants us to speak kindly and that He would treat us kindly. Then the girls had a great time decorating their jars with foam stickers and ribbon. (You can see the whole lesson here)

I did not realize how effective this lesson was going to be for Baby Dragon. She spent the rest of the evening pointing out when she was putting marbles in someone's jar or if she got a rock in hers. She didn't even need the visual of actually putting the marbles and rocks in the jar, she had the concept down! She continues to recognize whether she's giving rocks or marbles and it's been almost 2 weeks since we had the lesson.

One night Sweetie was having a hard time going to bed. She was throwing a fit because she didn't want to go to sleep. Baby Dragon was trying to talk to her and calm her down, but Sweetie wasn't responding. So Baby Dragon blew raspberries at her. When I came in the room to calm Sweetie, Baby Dragon told me that she was trying to help, but that she that she ended up blowing raspberries at her instead. Then Baby Dragon told me in a very remorseful voice that she had put a rock in Sweetie's jar and that she should not have done that. I was so surprised and proud that she was able to recognize her bad behavior and realize that she shouldn't have done it. I asked her if she was sorry and she said yes. I explained that it was good that she was sorry and that Jesus made it so that we can say sorry.

It gave me a lot of hope that maybe she understands when I lose it and then later come and tell her I'm sorry. Maybe she can see that I have weaknesses, but that I'm trying to overcome them. It also reminded me that I can't expect her to have perfect behavior all the time and that I need to be willing to forgive her when she doesn't behave because I definitely don't "behave" all the time either!