Monday, February 26, 2018

Friendship FHE


Some nights for FHE, I literally do not have a plan.  I usually have some doctrine I want to teach, but not always a plan.

And that is why this week's FHE started with a lipsync battle to songs about friendship...because it was what came to me in the moment.

In particular, we watched and laughed at and sang along to the following music videos that I found on the spot: TLC's "What About Your Friends", James Taylor "You've Got a Friend", "You've Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story, and by special request "He's My Friend to the Bitter End" from the musical/movie "The Unsinkable Molly Brown".  

We have a projector on our phones so projecting the videos on the wall made FHE larger than life tonight and caused things to get real crazy, real fast.  

After each video, we called out what we learned about friendship in each song...We learned that friends are loyal, friends like you even if you're not the smartest, richest, coolest, etc.  Friends don't talk about you behind your back.  Friends defend you.  Friends are there for you, etc.



Last week, we talked about Language as taught in For the Strength of Youth, so my thought was to continue to teach out of that manual using the section on Friends.

Like last week, I projected the section in FTSOY that teaches about Friends and we took turns reading what it said.

Here are some main points we focused on:

1.  Choose friends who share your values so you can encourage each other to live high standards. (This goes for friends of all faiths.)

2. To have a good friend, be a good friend.  What does it mean to be a good friend?

3.  Treat others with kindness and make a special effort to include those who are shy, feel left out, or have special needs.

4.  Don't lower your standards to fit in with or gain a friend.

We talked about the difference between an acquaintance/friend and a close friend and why we need good friends in life.  

Steve and I shared stories of friends in our lives who have had a good influence on us and why and we gave examples of what a true friend might do in different situations.  The kids also shared examples from their own lives and Scarlett gave us a report about her experience last week when she encouraged her friend not to use bad language.

We talked about how to make friends and include others and encouraged our children to work hard to make good friends.  This is especially important for us as we left all of our friends behind when we moved last year and my older kids are getting ready to move on to our very large middle school starting next year and need good friends now more than ever.

We rounded the discussion out by mentioning how our siblings are some of our very best friends and that parents and children and siblings can all become each others best friends too if we treat each other with love and respect and kindness.

With adolescence knocking at our door, many of my Mommy-friends and I find ourselves reading every book we can get our hands on to help us navigate this new rhelm of parenting.

So far, I've found For the Strength of Youth to be one of the most useful tools for helping us all in this area.  And I'm grateful for it.

5 comments:

  1. Amazing post and example of a Christ-centered home. High five! Lyndon from Canada.

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  2. great ideas especially using the strength of youth pamphlet...

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  3. Love this idea! I will share it with my kids (and thus my grandkids!) Such a great use of FSOY. I've always felt FHE was important and that it shouldn't be hard, but so many seem to feel that it is. Thanks for this simple suggestion that sounds like LOTS of fun! Maybe I'll save it for our FHE during our family reunion this summer. Hmmm.

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