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Teach My Gospel Worksheets: Success Stories

As I mentioned in my last post, we have been experimenting with and implementing a new parenting strategy over the past couple months. I wanted to write a post about some of the success that we have been having with this new method.

As you already know, I am passionate about record keeping.  So of course, we have a "completed" folder where I keep our completed worksheets.  :) I don't think that I will keep all of these forever, but I'm keeping them for now and later I'll sort through them and pick which ones to keep permanently.  I just love how they are a record of our learning and growing and understanding.  Our folder already has quite a few completed worksheets in it.  Most of these are from L and P, but a good chunk are from me as well.  

 

The kids' Caught Being Good charts are filling up as well.  There are times when I am in a grumpy mood and I'm not very good at vocalizing their good behavior, but I have definitely noticed that the good grows when I water it.  Our days go so much smoother when I am being intentional about pointing out the good.  Those are the days that we end up not needing to do very many (or any at all) worksheets as well.  

Also, there are times when I will point out the good things, but the kids are busy and don't get around to actually marking it on their charts.  E isn't really interested in marking her chart.  Haha.  I will point things out to her often, but she will just say "I'll put it on my chart later" and then she never does.  Haha.    

*I'm going to preface this by saying that I know that it looks like I am just bragging about my kids in this post.  And I guess, partially that's true.  I am proud of all that they have been learning and the improvements that they have been making, which have been heavily influenced (I feel) by this new method that we are implementing in our family.  I'm not trying to take all the credit here and say "oh hey!  look at me!  I am just such a good mom and look at how amazing my kids are."  Because as I've written about before, this idea didn't come from me.  I am not the source.  God is the source.  He put this idea into my mind and I'm just doing my best to figure out how to implement it and use it to help my family.  I am sharing these success moments in the hopes that it will be a help to anyone else that is interested in trying out this method.  It's working for us.  It might work for your family as well. 

Ok, now that we have that out of the way. :) ...  

Most of the success stories are about P, our 5 year old. L is at school all day, so he's not at home for very many hours during the day, (P is in half-day kindergarten), E is only 3, and R is 1, so that is why I think we have been seeing the most success with P. Although, the longer we carry out this new method, the more we successes we have been seeing with L, and E as well.

Remember the quote that this method was inspired by...

"True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior. The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior. Preoccupation with unworthy behavior can lead to unworthy behavior. That is why we stress so forcefully the study of the doctrines of the gospel." (Boyd K. Packer)

Attitudes and behaviors mix together, but I am going to separate them out a bit for this post. To me, they are kind of like faith and works.  Attitudes (or mindsets) would be the faith part, and behavior would be the works part.  First, I'll give some success stories that we have been having with changes in attitude...   

I have been noticing an increase in P's testimony of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  He just seems to be even more drawn to God lately.  For some reason, this scripture comes to my mind...

For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart? (Mosiah 5:13)

I feel like P has been coming to know God more closely through learning, practicing, and understanding the doctrines of the gospel and God is becoming an even bigger part of the thoughts and intents of P's heart.

I am seeing evidence of this in P's artwork, and things that he writes.  Here are some examples of things that he has drawn and written lately, all on his own, without any promptings from me.      

1. He made this book one Sunday morning before church and he asked if he could bring it with him to church so it would help him to think about Jesus.

 Jesus eating cheese with his apostles

 P going to church

 Right page is of some people sitting at church, listening to the talks

2. He randomly wrote this the other day and gave it to me.

Children's 8 reasons God loves us and we love Him

1. God loves us

2. God cares for us

3. God's hand will always be stretched out

4. God will always be with us

5. God will always be our Savior

6. We are God's children

7. We are always going to love God

(apparently he miscounted and there are only 7.  haha) 

3.  He wrote this before church the other day, so that he would be prepared to be reverent at church.

List of Reverence

Step 1: Sit quietly

Step 2: Sing the Songs

Step 3: Listen to the speakers

Step 4: Kneel down close your eyes and fold your arms in the prayers

4. He helped me to see where I could improve.

Out of the mouth of babes. :)

L and I had a little tiff one morning a couple weeks ago (one of many) and weren't very nice to each other. A little while later, P handed me this worksheet that he made for me about forgiveness. 

"Therefore forgive your little ones even if they never obey for ye shall always obey." 

He completely made this scripture up off the top of his head (we don't have a forgiveness worksheet, yet at least.) 

When I read the scripture that he made up, it humbled me. And I was pretty impressed by how right his made up scripture is. It reminds me a lot of Doctrine and Covenants 64:10 "I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men." (As far as I know, he doesn't know that particular scripture verse). 

He told me that I needed to write the scripture 6 times and then he would write what I needed to do next. So after writing it 6 times I gave the paper back to him and then he wrote "step 3: what does this scripture mean?", "step 4: put what you are learning into action. Go do something to practice this gospel principle then write about what you did.", "step 5: report to your kids from memory as best as possible then teach them how you applied it to your life then check off the box." He copied those steps (from memory) from our teach my gospel worksheets.

5. Another one of P's spontaneous drawings that he did one morning

6.  During General Conference this past weekend, he really tried to listen to the talks and learn from them.  He drew pictures of the members of the First Presidency, he made his own bingo card (and listened for the words on his card during the next session), and he made this conference book for his notes and this is what he wrote down all on his own.

1. You should follow Jesus

2. Jesus's hand is always stretched out

3. Satan will try to tempt you 

4. The spirit will guide you to make good choices 

5. If you make a bad choice, repent 

6. You should have faith

7. Jesus heals you 

8. Book of Mormon 

9. Jesus will light the world 

10. You should work hard  

Porter drew these during General Conference

He copied these gospel principles down from a book that we have been reading to prepare L for baptism, and also from our teach my gospel worksheets

These are the notes that he wrote down during the General Conference talks (spread out over all 4 sessions)

7. P (and L and E as well, though to a bit lesser degree) has been saying more sincere and thoughtful prayers.  He really thinks about the things that he could pray about instead of just saying the same few things over and over again for every prayer.

Now I'll share some success stories with changes in behavior...

1. Both boys have improved a lot with being reverent during Sacrament meeting and being reverent and respectful during the lesson portion of Family Home Evening.

2.  The other night, L had some obedience issues.  He was asked to get something for J and L started offering all the excuses "I don't know where it is. ... it's going to be too hard... no, it isn't  downstairs... etc." I had to ask him several times. I told him that he needed to go do an obedience worksheet (for not obeying the first time) and a Work worksheet (for delaying the obedience because he felt like it was too hard and too much work.)

Normally, in this type of situation, he would have gotten mad at me, stormed out of the room, etc. But this time he didn't. He took the worksheets from me (not super happily, but not with too much attitude either,) and went upstairs to his room. 

I came up about 10 minutes later to put P and E to bed and when I came in his room, I found him sitting on his bed, doing his worksheets. I felt a tug at my heart from the spirit. Yes, he hadn't obeyed, and had been unwilling to put in the little bit of work to go find the thing when asked (which is a recurring issue for him, something that we're working on), and yes, I knew that he needed to do the worksheets so he could better understand obedience and work, but I also recognized that I had been stressed, and hadn't asked him very nicely. I was also humbled to see that here he was, sitting on his bed, obeying and doing his worksheets... with minimal complaining (especially compared to other times.) 

I told him that I was proud of him for not complaining about the worksheets and just coming upstairs and working on them. I said that because of that good choice, he would only have to write each of the scriptures (on the worksheets) 2 times, instead of the normal 3-5.

 

It makes me happy to see him learning and making progress. He may not have made perfect choices that night (who does?), but he did make a good choice when he decided to go work on the worksheets right away, without complaining. Slowly, but surly, he is learning the importance of work and obedience.

I feel like this was a success story for me as well because I have been working on being more humble and admitting to my kids when I am in the wrong (in this case, not asking L respectfully to go get the thing for J), and this new method is helping me to be more humble and do that more consistently. 

3. P has been on a major service kick these past few weeks.  This has been partially influenced by our back to school theme, which is service.  We go around the table each night during dinner and tell each other about what we each did for someone that day.  This has also been influenced by our focus on kindness and respect (with our worksheets and caught being good charts).  

He has been surprising me a lot lately with making breakfast for everyone, making L's lunch (and writing notes to put in his lunch box,) cleaning up the house without being asked, etc.

     

I came downstairs one morning and the first thing P said to me was "never mind making breakfast. I'll make it." I asked him what he was going to make and he said "toast!" He then worked hard for the next 30+ minutes making breakfast for us. He was thoughtful and gave L some cereal all to himself since he knew he wasn't thrilled about the toast idea. He got pears and water for all of us and showed me that he put some ice in mine, just like I like it. He also got R some applesauce and insisted on feeding her. 

 

 

Came into the kitchen another morning to find P making breakfast for us again! This time he said that he was going to put something different on the toast. He got out the Nutella. I suggested that we could put bananas on top so he cut them up and then decided to put 3 on top of each piece to make the toast into "brown bears" :)

Dropped L off at school another morning and as we were getting out of the van and coming into the house P said "I wanna make lunch and dinner too." He came inside and started looking in the fridge for what he wants to make for lunch. I had to tell him that we just barely ate breakfast but he could make lunch for us in a few hours. Haha. He said "I wanna make lunch and dinner all by myself" 

He sat down and made a menu for lunch all by himself. Complete with a "no standing on the table" rule. Haha.

And he made the menu for dinner as well. (He looked in the cold storage to see what his options were.)

Lunch complete. He needed a bit of assistance but did most of it himself. And I'm happy to report that no one stood on the table. :)

Dinner. Spaghettios, Vienna sausage, peaches, and bananas. You know you're jealous of our gourmet dinner made with love by P. :)

 P came downstairs early one morning and said "can I make L's lunch today?" Then he found random things from the pantry, threw them into L's lunch box and wrote a little note. :)

Unloading the dishwasher

Loading the dishwasher

P's self made and self-imposed service chart. He said he wants to get all the way to the stars at the end.

P made my bed voluntarily one Sunday morning. :)

3. E has been watching P and learning from his good example.  She has been helping out around the house and has even set the table and "made breakfast" for us a few times.

E's following P's example and set the table and got breakfast (cereal and bananas) out for us all by herself on Sunday morning. :)

E drew this for P

This post definitely doesn't represent all of the success stories that we have been having with our kids, especially with L and E. 

I also don't want all of these success stories to make it look like our family life is perfect now.  We aren't perfect.  We still have grumpy and frustrating moments.  But I have been seeing the good moments increasing and the bad moments decreasing.  And I'm happy about that.  I feel like we're moving in the right direction. :)