About a month ago my son wanted to read the Book of Mormon before bed. I thought awesome he gets it, he came around. Pathetic on my part that it wasn't a given we were going to read, and that he had to ask. Every night after that I asked if he wanted to read it again, he said, "no I'm fine". But would often be thankful in prayers that his mom read scriptures to him. I didn't know what to make of this. It was gratifying, worrisome, and pathetic all at the same time on my part. Scriptures are not something we read once and put back on the shelf.
I've been waiting around for him to want it again. Then it hit me, he is a child. He is not going to chose to be a scriptorian on his own. Here are my internal musings:
I'm sure I'm not the only religious mother who struggles knowing what to do to read the good book(s) to my child. From time to time we read straight from the scriptures. So he can be expose to the peculiar sentence structure. From time to time we read the illustrated readers. Then from time to time we read nothing, because I'm a loser like that. I never know if its more important for him to have the real stuff, or to get the overall stories. When we go with the straight text we do try to explain to him what is going on, we usually pick three or so verses and discuss it. But then we stop because I feel overwhelmed, he doesn't know the stories. (Sometimes I'm pretty sure I forget he is four.) Then I stop for a long time. Then I decided he needs the stories. But then we stop for a long time because the stories, become over is head, there is not rhyming, the pictures are weird and from the 70s. For whatever reason we both lose interest and stop. Then tonight I thought duh, when I stop one I need to pick up the other immediately not months later, both stories and text are important. Who knows how long I'll keep it up. I'm not quite sure why I struggle so much with daily scriptures with my kids. I have unrealistic expectations. I know teach to your audience, I don't to do any long, let me assure you I don't.
One last thought, since my son turned four he thinks he gets four books before bed, I have been unhappy about this since February but I have no idea how to solve it. Tonight I did, three books, and scriptures. Hopefully it sticks. We have done three books since he was his sister's age, it has nothing to do with age. We'll do four books when his sister goes to bed the same time he does, two for him, two for her. I don't want four now. Four books, is a bane.
For the first 18 years of my life I had scripture study with my family EVERY morning, without fail. Even so, when I got to the MTC, I didn't know anything about the scriptures. I didn't know the stories, I didn't know the people, I didn't know how to read them, I literally knew nothing. Seriously, nothing. For example, I remember the day in the MTC that I discovered there was more than one Nehpi. I also remember the day that I was assigned to teach the plan of salvation and I had no clue what that was. My point is, I think no matter what you do there is a chance your kids will learn nothing.
ReplyDelete(In defense of my parents, all my siblings benefited greatly from our morning ritual, I'm just apparently less-bright than they are.)