Family Nights
Steve and I made the decision to start having family night when our children were preschoolers and it has been one of the best parental decisions we’ve ever made. Making time to intentionally engage our children in fun activities that, not only instruct them in their responsibilities toward us as their parents, but more importantly, point them toward a personal relationship with God, has paid dividends far beyond our expectations. After planning and successfully pulling off fun family nights for over 15 years now, I feel confident enough in their value to share some of the key points that make them such a great experience for the whole family.
Family night should be enjoyable for everyone. Good old fun is such a vital part of family night because the activities shared are not only about imparting spiritual truth, but also about building memories and relationships with your children, and between your children. We used the laughter scale to evaluate whether family night was a success. Did the events of the evening produce some chuckles and smiles? How about a few belly laughs? Did everyone have a good time? Mom and Dad? Big kids as well as the little ones? We were careful to choose activities that we knew everyone in the family would enjoy. For example, our oldest son loved trains and one of our favorite activities when he was very small was to take him to the old abandoned train depot to watch the big engines roar through town. We went so often that the engineers on the trains knew exactly where we would be waiting and expected to see us there. But when little brother came along, we soon learned that the big trains frightened him and hurt his little ears. So we suspended train track visits on family night until little brother grew out of his fear.
Fun does not mean expensive. Since our family was on such a tight budget, we rarely did any activities that involved an outlay of a significant amount of cash. A trip to Burger King was truly a treat in our case. Most family night activities were spent at home and cost only a very small amount. I remember the time we encouraged our children to act out the story of the resurrection of Lazarus. It cost us the price of an extra package of toilet paper and the material of choice for wrapping a corpse, of course! What a wonderful evening we enjoyed together as each family member in turn got sick and died (a dramatically painful event), was embalmed (wrapped up with TP), and after four days (count 1, 2, 3, 4) was raised from the dead (the resurrected burst out from behind the couch, trailing strands of TP). Although not as fun as being dead, the living members of the cast “wept” (John 11:35) between suppressed laughs!
Family nights are given a place of importance and priority. We schedule family nights in advance and try to stick to the schedule. Because of time pressures, we choose to have family nights for only a portion of each year. We generally start on one of those balmy late spring evenings when the weather is perfect and end when the summer evenings are at their hottest in August. On average, we have about 12 –13 family nights each year during this time period. Wednesday evening is family night at our house because that is the only night that we know with a fair amount of confidence will not be interrupted by other activities. (And yes, for those of you who have already wondered, we do miss our church’s Wednesday evening worship time during that portion of the year that we schedule family night.) But your family’s schedule does not need to look like ours. Any night of the week that can be set aside for this purpose will work. And while we only have family night for a small part of each year, your family may be able to schedule it year round. If time pressures come rushing in and cause you to have to cancel family night one week, don’t feel discouraged, just be sure and move family night to the top of the “To Do” list for the next week.
Carefully consider what your children need to be taught, and how to teach them. This is definitely the hardest part of planning a family night. Thankfully, there are several books written on the subject with ideas to help any family get started. Early on, we used the books published by Heritage Builders to help us come up with ideas (www.heritagebuilders.com). But increasingly over the years, Steve and I planned activities by just sitting down together and discussing the strengths and weaknesses of our children and prayerfully choosing an overall focus to guide us in each week’s activities. For example, since two of our sons are now teenagers, quickly approaching manhood, last year our theme was “A real man …” Each week, we filled in the blank with a different attribute that characterizes a godly man. As an example, one week we wanted to emphasize that a mature, Godly man should study his Bible with devotion – “A Real Man Eats Meat.” That family night consisted of giving our sons some money along with instructions to choose the best cut of steak they could get for the money. They spent plenty of time on the internet researching which kind of steak was the best value for what they had to spend. After a trip to the grocery store, they prepared a nice dinner (with Mom’s guidance) complete with candles, flowers, and music, and we all sat down to a delightful meal. While we sampled the delicious steak, Steve led a conversation about the differences between spiritual milk and spiritual meat. It was a memorable evening. Their father reinforced the need to dig deeply into the Word during quiet times. The boys also learned how to prepare a nice evening meal that could be a treat for a special lady in the future, a skill every man needs to know.
The “A Real Man . . . “ theme was a big hit last summer. It met the current needs of our teenage sons. Some of the other themes we have used over the years have been, The Beatitudes, The Ten Commandments, Money Matters, and Parables of Jesus. This year we are prayerfully considering making Love the theme and focusing on friendship, dating, courtship and marriage. We have come a long way since those family nights when they were preschoolers!
Preschoolers enjoy reenacting basic Bible stories. Just a little imagination is all that’s needed here. We built sandcastles and destroyed them with water from squirt guns to illustrate the Wise Man and the Foolish Man. A cardboard box became a boat on a rather stormy summer night. As we read aloud about how Jesus calmed the storm, He calmed our fears. And my personal favorite was the night we videotaped “The Good Samaritan” (Luke 10, Hardwick version). The poor man that went down to Jericho was played by a big, white, overstuffed teddy bear. Our boys beat the stuffing right out of that poor bear! Steve and I still giggle whenever we watch that video.
As the boys grew into the grade-school years, many times, our family nights involved a challenge or game of some sort. Once, while trying to teach the value of money, we played a game of Monopoly where we substituted different colored M & M’s for the colored paper money. Talk about a dilemma! That night they learned that you can’t eat your cake (or candy) and have it too!
There is absolutely nothing wrong with using a book to get ideas for family night but you as a parent know your children better than anyone else, so you are the best person in the world to plan a fun night for your family. If you seek the leadership of the Lord, He will reveal to you how to take advantage of every opportunity to guide your children in their spiritual development.
Even though it’s been years since we first started, our boys still get excited when springtime rolls around and we mention the date of the first family night. The activities have changed as the boys have grown, but the spirit remains. It is a spirit of joy. It is a spirit of love. It is the spirit of Deuteronomy 6.
Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (Deuteronomy 6:5-7)
Carla Hardwick
