Moving Forward: FHE - Physical Purity

This week, the goal is making my children a priority.  Because of some recent events, we felt it was important to prepare our children for a/the time when they are faced with the decision to remain physically pure, and to know when another person may be touching them inappropriately.

We decided to broach the subject during a Family Home Evening lesson.  I found a great lesson online that was exactly what I felt was right for our family.  It was so perfect.

The lesson started out by talking about how our bodies are temples.  We read about the dedicatory prayer of the Kirtland temple as found in the Doctrine and Covenants.  The specific verse we read was this:

"Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing, and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;"

We talked about how we are supposed to treat our bodies like the temples are treated.  Then, I passed out a part of each picture for the children to color while I talked more in depth about certain things.  First, it was the arms and prayer.  I taught the children that we cannot have a prayer in our hearts all the time if we are using bad language, or if we are using words that degrade our bodies (including complaining about our bodies).

Next I passed out the shirts.  The children started coloring, and I talked about fasting and our appetites.  Not just our "hungry tummies," but also the other things that we may desire (like drugs, alcohol, smoking, sexuality, etc.).  I mentioned that our Heavenly Father has given us special body parts to help us to make babies.  It was great when I started asking the children if they were ready to have babies.  They all looked at me with embarrassment and shook their heads.  I told them that we should never touch our special body parts, and we should never let anyone touch them either until we are married.  Jon and I felt it was important that our children understand that they can come to us if someone does try to touch them inappropriately, so we spent quite a bit of time on this topic.

Then, I passed out the legs and feet and we talked about faith and how Satan can make good things look bad, but that we should never give in to his temptations.  Within this topic we discussed pornography: what it is, why we shouldn't engage in it, and what we should do if we come across it unexpectedly.

When I handed out the heads we talked about learning and filling our minds with good images, not bad.  (Again, pornography.)  Then, I passed out the CTR shields and we talked about having glory, and dressing modestly.  I didn't have something for the children to color while we talked about a house of order, but they were able to glue all their pieces together.  I talked about how God has a plan and everything should be done in order, including sexual relations after marriage.

Finally, they were able to draw on their faces and we talked about a house of God and having God's image in our countenances.

It was an excellent lesson, and I am so pleased with how it turned out.  I could tell that Eliza was a little bit embarrassed (because she at the age in which topics like that are embarrassing), but everyone was engaged in the lesson ... which took probably about 45 minutes!  It was a long one, but so worth it.

I feel that educating my children on the right ways to combat the wily attempts of the adversary really is making them a priority, and I'll move forward with that every single day.