My home teacher came over yesterday, bringing an object lesson for my children on obedience.
The lesson involved several popsicle sticks with different commandments written on each stick. My home teacher handed my son and daughter individual popsicle sticks and asked them if they could break the sticks. Naturally, my son and daughter easily broke the popsicle sticks. Our home teacher explained that it was easy for Satan to get us to break individual commandments, but that it would be difficult for him to get us to break several commandments at one time.
Our home teacher handed my son several popsicle sticks and asked him to try and break them all at once. He could not.
Next, he challenged me to break all of the popsicle sticks at one time. After a little time and effort—crack! I broke all of the commandments, er, popsicle sticks at one time.
I’m afraid this was not the most effective object lesson for my kids, especially when they see how easy it is for their dad to break several commandments at one time.
What are some of your favorite home teaching object lessons for kids? Do you prepare a lesson specifically for the children of the families you home teach? Or, as a parent, do you like it when your home teacher brings a lesson for your children?
This is a great lesson.. I may use it for FHE one night!
I do love it when the HT caters to my kids… It keeps them from getting wild, and also helps a good relationship develop between the home teacher and them. It also shows that the HT actually cares about us enough to plan ahead and figure out something to engage the kids.
The best object lesson from my home teachers is when the semi-active priest who is the companion of our home teacher actually shows up to home teach, which happens about once every five months. He gives a great lesson — too bad he can’t do it every month.
My wife had a great FHE once where we had a string across the house and then the children had to “hold onto the rod” while avoiding temptations like candy and cookies and video games, etc. That seemed to work pretty well.
I don’t get the popsicle stick lesson at all. What I get from it is that if I am inclined to break all of the commandments, I must be patient and just break one at a time. I could totally do that. Thanks for the hint.
@Last Lemming
I was left scratching my head as well. I think you are taking a smart approach to breaking the commandments. Perhaps a Kaizen event would help speed up the process.