Family Home Evening: Discerning Right from Wrong

By Chase Wheatley

Church Magazines

Image

mother and daughter sitting in hammock

Activity

Before family home evening, prepare a treat. Place the treat in a plain or simple container like a brown paper bag. Then find something unappealing, like a rock or a stick, and place it in a fancier container—you might consider wrapping it up like a present.

Show the two containers to your children and explain that the winner of a game will get to pick a container and have whatever is inside as a prize. The game you play doesn’t really matter; it could be a board game or something as simple as tic-tac-toe. Hopefully, the winning child will assume that the better-looking container holds the delicious treat, and will pick their prize accordingly.

Open the other container and allow the family to share the treat (before the winning child gets too upset about winning a rock as a prize).

Message

Explain that the world will often try to trick us and convince us that good things are bad and bad things are good. Like Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles says in his article “When Evil Appears Good and Good Appears Evil,” the adversary’s “basic effort is to make that which is good, righteous, and joyful seem miserable.”

Take time to discuss a few examples of this in the real world—possible topics include the Word of Wisdom, tithing, hard work, chastity, and honesty. Encourage your children to seek to gain a testimony of Heavenly Father’s commandments and how to discern right from wrong through prayer, scripture study, and obedience.