AY Honors/Family Life

Family Life
Spiritual Growth, Outreach and Heritage
Skill Level 123
Approval authority North American Division	Year of Introduction 1975
See also Family, Origins and Heritage Master Award

• Overview
• Requirements
• Answer Key
• Lesson Plans

AY Honors/Family Life/Overview

The most challenging requirement of this honor is probably this:

4. Care for the younger members of your family or a neighbor's family for at least a couple of hours.

1. Explain the roles of the father, mother, sister, and brother as given in the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy.

2. What is the difference between self-respect and pride? Write a paragraph about some of the things that make you feel good about your family. Include the things you are proud of and your family's good qualities and accomplishments.

3. Do one of the following in your home for one week:

a. Dust and keep the floors clean

b. Wash the clothes

c. Wash the dishes

d. Properly dispose of garbage

4. Care for the younger members of your family or a neighbor's family for at least a couple of hours.

5. Make a list of some of the things your family spends money on. Explain your responsibility to the finances of your family.

6. Make a list of family activities that you think your family would enjoy.

7. How would you make a family worship meaningful for preschoolers, juniors, and teens? Plan and conduct a family worship for one of these age groups.

8. Know what to do in the following circumstances in your home:

a. Accident

b. Bad storm

c. Financial crisis

d. Fire

e. Loss of a relative

9. Plan and conduct a fire drill in your home.

10. List five ways you can show concern for or interest in your neighbors.

11. Study the recreational activities of your family. What improvements, if any, can be made?

Edit Answer Key

1

Explain the roles of the father, mother, sister, and brother as given in the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy.

Bible

Ephesians 5:22-6:4, Colosians 3:18-21, and 1 Peter 3:1-7 have instruction for the family members:

Wife

Submit to your husband.

Husband

Love your wife.

Children

Obey your parents.

Parents

Do not exasperate your children. Train them in the ways of the Lord.

Titus 2 counsels older men and women to be temperate and self-controlled so that they may teach the younger generation to do the same and to love one another.

Spirit of Prophecy

• Study Guide for Child Guidance from the White Estate Site.

• Study Guide for Adventist Home from the White Estate Site.

Look through these study guides for relevant questions. Look up the references to read the passage. There are short answers at the end of the study guides.

Another way to do this is to search words like mother, father, son, daughter and child on the online E G White Estate site or the printed Index to Ellen White's writings.

2

What is the difference between self-respect and pride? Write a paragraph about some of the things that make you feel good about your family. Include the things you are proud of and your family's good qualities and accomplishments.

Self-respect

Self-respect is the recognition of worth in oneself. Remember that God sent His Son to save you, so He must think you are worth it! A person who has self-respect will take care of his/her body and will not go around feeling ashamed or inadequate. A person with self-respect will be able to make a realistic estimation of whether or not he/she possesses the skill necessary to accomplish a given task. He/She will not be afraid to ask for help if it is needed, nor will he/she be afraid to try something new due to a fear of failure. A person with self-respect may say "I don't know if I can do that or not, but I know I can try!" A person with self-respect is happy to share skills with others, to teach them, and to serve them. He/She recognizes that his/her gifts come from God.

Note: Stories from Daniel's life or Joseph's life show young men who had healthy self-respect. Jesus is the ultimate example of someone who "knew who he was" and who was confident in the direction he was headed. Because of his healthy self-respect he was capable of confidently sharing about a relationship with God and with others that he had experienced personally.

Pride

Pride is the misplaced trust in one's own ability. It leads to arrogance, and to an unrealistic assessment of one's abilities. Pride clouds the judgement and often leads to the most spectacular failures. Pride may cause a person to put others down or to assume that no one else is capable of doing things as well as he can. He may refuse to "stoop" down to the level of someone he feels is inferior. He is neither willing to serve nor to teach, out of fear that doing so will bring an inferior up to his level. He does not recognize that his gifts come from God and thinks rather, that they belong to him because he is such a great person. The Bible says "Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall (Proverbs 16:18 NIV).

When you are a confident person you know it. When you are a prideful person you show it, and you become arrogant.

3

Do one of the following in your home for one week:

a. Dust and keep the floors clean

b. Wash the clothes

c. Wash the dishes

d. Properly dispose of garbage

Consult the answers to the Housekeeping and Laundering honors as found in the Household Arts chapter of this Wikibook for instruction.

4

Care for the younger members of your family or a neighbor's family for at least a couple of hours.

Consult the answers to the Child Care (Babysitting) honor in the Spiritual Growth, Outreach, & Heritage section of this Wikibook for detailed instruction.

5

Make a list of some of the things your family spends money on. Explain your responsibility to the finances of your family.

Living with your parents

If you are not living on your own, you will need to talk to your parents about this. Before you do though, see how much of the list you can make up yourself. Then talk to them and see if they can add (or subtract) anything from it.

Your responsibilities will vary with your situation, but you almost certainly have some influence on how much your family spends. If you are in the habit of wasting food, or overeating, you can address that yourself. Turn out lights when you leave a room. Close the door when you enter or leave your home so that your family does not pay to heat or air condition the front yard.

Living on your own

If you are living on your own, you should already have a pretty good idea of what you spend money on. Think about this and write it down. If you have never done it before, it can be an enlightening experience. Go through your checkbook and any credit card statements.

Your responsibility to the family finances is nearly total, though it may be shared with a spouse. Make out a budget and stick to it. Do not spend more money than you make, and if you find yourself doing this, look for areas where you can cut back (adjust your thermostat, avoid restaurants, and do not make impulse purchases).

6

Make a list of family activities that you think your family would enjoy.

Think of the times you can remember each family member laughing or smiling. What was going on then? Ask your family members what they enjoy the most and write that down too. You can also ask them what three things they would like to have if they were stranded on a desert island (supposing it already had everything on it they'd need for survival). Do not accept answers like "a boat and two oars." You're looking for the things they like to do.

7

How would you make a family worship meaningful for preschoolers, juniors, and teens? Plan and conduct a family worship for one of these age groups.

Preschoolers

Preschoolers love to sing songs and to do things. They like to move around. They understand things that are concrete and have difficulty understanding abstractions. Preschoolers tend to believe whatever anyone tells them, so you must be careful to present only the facts. It's OK to simplify them, but whatever you tell them must be true. Their worship should therefore include lots of songs, action, and concrete lessons that are easy to understand. The length of the worship should be short and have many components.

Juniors

Juniors are the ages from 10 to 12. Juniors have sharp minds and can quickly memorize things. Juniors tend to believe whatever they are told by trusted adults. They often do not attempt to apply the lessons to their own lives on their own - the application should be presented as well as the lesson. Going through scenarios works well for this age group.

Teens

Teens are at an age where they begin to understand abstractions and internalize spiritual lessons. They look for ways to apply the things they learn to their own lives. Teens tend to not believe anything anyone tells them unless it holds up to their own scrutiny. Though this may sound like a bad thing, the opposite is true. It is a necessary step for them in taking control of their own spiritual lives. They begin to rely on their own relationship with God instead of on their parents relationship with Him. Since they are beginning to discover how Jesus/Christianity makes sense to them any family worships that allow them to express that expanding self-awareness will likely be seen as relevant and applicable or real. Their worship can include the abstract, and they should be encouraged to personalize the lesson. Family worship for teens should respect their time commitments to school, sports, and other activities that fill their lives.

8

Know what to do in the following circumstances in your home:

8a

Accident

If the accident has caused a serious injury requiring emergency medical assistance, call 911. If an injury is serious but not immediately life threatening, it is better to go to the hospital emergency room. Bear in mind, however, that the emergency room staff are trained to treat people according to the severity of their problem rather than in the order they arrive. If the injury is minor but still requires medical attention, call your family doctor - if the doctor believes the situation is serious enough, he will recommend that you go to the emergency room, come to the office, or self-treat.

8b

Bad storm

Get inside the house during a storm. Close the door and windows, and contact family members as soon as possible. If a tornado seems possible, seek shelter in the basement beneath a heavy item of furniture, or in a doorway. Stay away from the windows. Pray.

8c

Financial crisis

Cut out unnecessary expenses, and be mindful of waste. Take only as much food as you will eat, and save leftovers for another meal (and eat them!) Turn off lights when leaving a room and lower the thermostat. If the family is in heavy debt, seek credit counseling. Eat at home instead of at a restaurant. To save gasoline, consolidate trips rather than driving to town every day to run errands.

8d

Fire

If possible, and only if you can do it safely-locate the fire. Remember to stay calm. Alert any other people that are in the building, preferably by pulling the nearest fire alarm (when in a public building). If the fire is small and a fire extinguisher is handy, an attempt to put the fire out should be made. If the fire is already large, or you fail to extinguish it, you must evacuate the building as safely and as quickly as possible. Keep in mind that fires can spread very quickly so it is better to err on the side of caution by getting the fire department started before the fire is out of control.

Feel any door before opening it, and if it is hot, do not open it. Try to exit the building without going through an area that is in flames, then stop, drop, and crawl. Call the fire department.

8e

Loss of a relative

When a loved one dies, it is important that the family grieve. Remember that it is not God's will that people die. His original plan did not include death. Take hope in the resurrection, comfort other family members and take time to cry yourself.

9

Plan and conduct a fire drill in your home.

Arrange this with your family ahead of time. Choose a meeting place well away from the house so that if a real fire occurs, everyone will know to go there, and if anyone is missing, it can be assumed that they are still in the house. Go over the escape routes with everyone.

10

List five ways you can show concern for or interest in your neighbors.

A possible list might include:

• Talk to them!
• Bring them cookies.
• Take their dog for a walk.
• Invite them to our home for a visit.
• Cut their grass without being asked (but ask them first out of respect).
• Rake their leaves.
• Do not park in their assigned parking spaces.
• Keep your own place looking nice.
• In snowy weather:
  • Shovel their sidewalk or driveway (or help them do this).
  • Dig out their car.
• When they are away from home:
  • Offer to care for their pets.
  • Offer to get their mail and newspapers.
  • Keep an eye on their place.

11

Study the recreational activities of your family. What improvements, if any, can be made?

Specific areas to consider are sedentary activities versus physical activities. You cannot replace all sedentary activities with physical ones, but most families can improve in this area.

Another area to consider is television viewing. Watching TV does not require any interaction between family members. Instead, everyone's eyes are glued to the tube, and no one is talking to another. If someone does talk during the program, it is often met with glares or a "be quiet!" It is far better to engage in activities that require interaction among family members, such as board games.

Do your family's activities require a lot of driving to and fro from one place to another? This is often the case in a large family where one child has ballet, another has soccer practice, and another has piano lessons. Shuttling people from one event to another can be stressful! Why not suggest activities that everyone can enjoy instead of activities that only one person does? It's OK to have personal interests, but be careful that your family activities don't reduce the parents to little more than chauffeurs and taxi drivers.

What other improvements can you think of?

References

Content on this wiki is generated by people like you, and no one has created a lesson plan for this honor yet. You could do that and make the world a better place.

See AY Honors/Model Lesson Plan if you need ideas for creating one.