Jurassic Family Home Evening

This event can be described simply by the two questions Melissa asked me following the event.

"Soooo, how do you think that went?"

"Do you think it is a good idea to have the children laughing at death?"

On Monday, after our regular family home evening finished, I thought it would be a good idea to address another challenge in the family. Lately the children have been choosing to become "afraid" of a lot of different things. Things like heat, rain, ants, sweating, trying new sports, watching their sister for two minutes, etc. "Afraid" has been the cop-out buzz word. In an effort to help them clarify their emotions, I thought it would be good to help them understand the difference between discomfort, dislike and fear.

I also wanted to help the children recognize the difference between pretend and reality in the media.

So, I TIVOed Jurassic Park last weekend.

Some of you are wondering what I was thinking at this point. You are not alone.

Ami, Tim, Maggie and I gathered in the theater for a little movie time to understand fear. I told the children we were going to watch people get eaten by dinosaurs, and that it was not real.

Yee-haw.

During the opening scene with the rapter, Ami asked, "Why is he bouncing up and down?" Tim stared with a mix of glee and absolute terror. Maggie sat whimpering, I laughed.

So, I figured we needed to lighten the mood a bit. After the movie introduced the main characters, we pause it to play a childhood favorite with my dad, "Guess who is going to die next!"

Maggie bet on the computer programmer, Tim on the scientists. After each death we would place our bets on the next dino snack.

Maggie laugh-cried as she moved further and further into my ribcage as we watched from this part on.

Tim caught the attitude and idea quite well, unfortunately he combined his superhero voice with a maniacal laugh so he sounded like an evil scientist as he cheered for the dinosaurs to eat the rest of them.

Ami lost interest and played with Legos.

We concluded with a discussion of recognizing the difference between fear and the things we do not like. We talked about how being afraid comes from not understanding something or danger, and then discussed how to address those feelings through thought, dialogue, scriptures and prayer.

Interestingly, neither Maggie or Tim have been "afraid" of anything this week since then.

Roar!

To make up for it I took them to "How to train your dragon." I enjoyed my penance.