FHE: Kid Contracts

The night before Mike and I stood up way too late talking about the kids. On fasting Sunday we do a few things. Of course fast! Duh? After church instead of running to change into PJ's we come together and we share our testimonies with eachother. This has been great since some of us (mostly me) get stage fright just thinking about the stage. But it gives me the oppurtunity to share my testimony with my children as well as hear theirs. 

After all is said and done, break our fast, eat dinner super fast, then usually play around until an early bed. 

This gives Mike and I time to check-in on our kids. We talk about how they are doing mentally, emotionally, spiritually, socially, and physically. We express any struggles or problem areas. We talk about accomplishments that we might have over looked. We talk about EVERYTHING!

This usually takes a while since we're not only talking about how each child is doing but Mike and I are also making monthly goals/plans on ways we can help each child excel on whatever topic. For example Hailey was needing some sort of sport for her  since she wasn't getting that much physical activity into her schedule. So we made the goal to look around for some after school activities which lead us to signing her up for tumbling. 

With our kid check-in's last night this idea came about. We want our children to make the choice NOW on who they want to be and where they want to go. Because honestly if they make the choice now when the situation comes up they will already have in their minds what choice they decided to me. Plus each child has different goals for themselves so if they wrote our their contracts then Mike and I could help guide/remind/encourage/ or praise them as they are keeping their promises.

But we also wanted to add alittle something special to their contracts. Our kids come home with so many papers from church. Pictures they colored, crafts they made, etc and honestly I'll keep them until the next week. Then the previous weeks creation goes into the recycle bin. So during the day the girls and I went to the D.I. (thrift store) and picked up some 50 cent binders for each kiddo.

During Family Home Evening we sang our song, read our scripture, ate candy corn since Lily thought just picking the recipe for her treat was enough ( I love that girl!) and Mike passed out the binders.  

We explained to our kids about the contracts and they all thought it was a good idea.

Here's our night:

Ducati eating Lily's candy corn.

 I helped her write out her contract.
" I, Ducati
will say happy words
be a nice friend
will go to the temple"

She signed her name and told me "That's all. Put it away now." I'm glad she only made promises that she knows she can keep.

Lily's list was alittle longer. She promised  *to only dress modestly * get married in the temple * be a nice friend *never smoke or drink * read her scriptures......etc. Her list was pretty long. But that's fine- it'll keep her motivated.

Mason really took this to heart. He wrote only a few but that's fine- he can add more later. He made the promise to be a good friend and to only find friends who are kind to him. He's so awesome! 

Hailey- she wasn't in a very happy mode since she was feeling bad about a choice she made earlier. But she did allow me to take a photo of her binder.
Here's her contract with all her promises.....

 And her papers she got from church the day before.

My goal was to have the kids look through their binders weekly but Mike's striving for every day. Either way weekly, daily, or hourly I pray our kids will be able to understand the value of making a promise to yourself. It'll be a great for later down the road when they start preparing to make more sacred covenants with Heavenly Father. Tonight's FHE was really awesome and very memorable.