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brothers in field

Brotherly Love Part 1 -Service

An important part of the vision I had for my family was brotherly love.  That my boys, and later on, my girls, would play happily, keep teasing and wrestling to a non painful level, be happy for each other's success and stick up for each other.  
The brotherly love campaign is a month's worth of stories, lessons, games and teaching the children that strong vision.


Increase Service
Eliminate contention
Teach loyalty
Competition


So, part 1 is service and the key to the whole thing. 


"Ye shall not suffer your children that they...fight and quarrel one with another, but ye will teach them to love one another and to serve one another."  Mosiah 4:14,15 

What do we teach them?  
To love one another and to serve one another. 

If you love someone, you serve them, and if you serve them, you love them.  That nice cycle again.

If the scriptures  tell you something, it always works.  Funny how that is.  So this works for children.  Yeah, even boys.  Yeah, even your boys.


Some service games-

Secret Service- This can be as simple as giving a child a jelly bean to put on his brother's pillow so he finds it at bedtime.  Or help the child do his brother's job for him as a surprise. 
(Then you sternly tell the brother - "Go do your job!" And the little one giggles and giggles and tries to pretend it wasn't him.)
 
Sammy the squirrel
Can't remember where I got this but it's fun.  We change it to "Peter Possum"  and put gum nuts in the tree just to give it that Australian touch. 
On a big cardboard both of you paint a tree and a possum.  The tree is wide enough to cut a 10cm hole in the trunk.  To the back of this hole tape a plastic bag so the children can reach their hand in and  take out a gumnut.  They leave the gumnut to mark the spot of where they did the service, 
eg on sister's bed- they made it for her while she was having breakfast!  The children love the conspiracy aspect of all this, so play it up- 
'Certainly you can go brush your teeth in the middle of breakfast" -wink, wink.

Late Date
Let each child stay up late with you, one on one, and plan and make a service for their brother or sister.  Examples:  A homemade toy, a pizza-sized cookie with the name on it in lollies, set up a treasure hunt for their brother with a small toy for a prize.
Let the child do the work and make sure you both have a wonderful time.

Treasure hunt 
Make up a treasure hunt for the children where the questions fit the things that are happening in your family.

"The baby grabs your toy.  Do you yell and grab it back or trade him another toy?  Right!  Go look in the fridge for the next clue."  (If they give the  "yell" answer, tell them to look under the mat- surprise, surprise there's nothing there.  Try again.)

"Your sister is feeling sad.  What should you do? Look on the piano."

"You accidentally break a glass.  Do you blame it on the baby or tell the truth. Look on the front door."

About 10 is a good number and the clues lead to the next clue and finally to a treat.


Progress with the service thing from taking a small boy to a $2.00 shop to buy a treat for his brother...and NOT for himself...to secretly earning enough money to buy his brother something he really wants, leave it as a knock and run surprise on your own doorstep, and NEVER telling that it was really from him. (Matthew6:1-4)

Along with the fun, do happy, brief teaching on "Jesus said love one another" - Matthew 5:43-48, Matthew7:12, John 13:34, so they know there is a higher purpose to all this.  Teach the stories of service that Jesus did, starting Matthew chapter 8, so they know them well.  It creates in a child a strong feeling of, "I want to be like that" - "I want to be like Him."
You will be surprised at what a child FEELS is right, given the opportunity.  And teach them to memorise that Mosiah scripture so the words are in their precious little heads.

I'd love you to send me in stories of what your little ones do as service.  One of my favourites is a 4 year old who went birthday shopping with Granma and instead, came home with a present for each of his brothers and sisters.

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-Lisa

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