I am shocked by the lack of participation in this program in my own unit. It works hand in hand with each boy's Church duties and is so simple. Without sounding boastful but showing how completely easy it is, my son has almost completed his Deacon portion of the program in 4 months. I only have him every 1st, 3rd and 5th Sunday. Each Sunday I have him, I remind him that I want him to work on the program before Church and he goes to work. After family prayers are done on Sunday night and the other kids go to bed, he stays up for a few minutes with my wife and I and we review exactly what he has done. We correlate when he will be teaching Family Home Evening on the things he learned. We discuss what he has learned as he has studied the scriptures and we discuss application to his personal life. We discuss how he can magnify his Church duties in addition to his family duties and Scout duties. We also discuss how things are going at his other home and how he can better deal with issues and set a better example.
My wife is also completing the Young Women version of the Duty to God program called Personal Progress. I now have two daughters in the Young Women program and my wife was just recently called into the YW program as a leader. So they have devised a "Personal Progress Meeting" with a Personal Progress "jar" where they pull requirements out of the jar and the three of them work together passing off the requirements. My wife even has me sign off the requirements in her book.
Does helping your kids learn their Duty to God take time? Yes.
Does it take up some of your own personal time? Yes.
Sometimes does it feel like you are pulling your kids by the ear to get it done? Yes.
Is it worth it? Heavens YES!
4 comments:
This is great! My oldest has his big One-Two next week, and these suggestions are just what I needed.
I think I'll get my own DTG book and do it with him. Thanks!
Congratulation on having a new Deacon!! Doing it with him is a great idea! Remember the Church has a GREAT resource to keep track of requirements passed off ONLINE at: https://www.lds.org/young-men/duty-to-god?lang=eng This is useful if your boy likes to loose his book.
For the Personal Progress book, I get to pass off my daughters requirements online!
Not having any sons (yet) I look at it from a different perspective.
As an adult YM leader, I have had a really hard time incorporating the new Duty to God into quorum meetings and activities because it is so personal--the boys have to make their own plans. I've tried to get them to work on it. I've pushed the "learn" part with some success, I've tried to get them to "share" but since they aren't developing their plans for action, it hasn't worked.
From my experience, if Duty to God is going to be helpful to the young men, the main push has to come from home. Period.
Tory - I couldn't agree more that the push should come from the home BUT there should be some part of Quorum time dedicated to sharing on what the boys are learning. I also have a hard time incorporating it into our one Wednesday a month that is dedicated to DtG. We study but then there is no follow through at home. So home needs to be the main push. The primary organization of the Church is the home and it is the same primary organization with the YM program (DTG and Scouting). We support the parents. They don't support us.
One of the examples I use when making an analogy with parents about the small amount of time I get with their son involves a really long rope that is about 20 long. I ask them how much time they think I get to spend with their son. Out of their 19 years before their mission I get to spend about only about 1-2 +/- inches of that 20 foot rope with them. Their parents spend much more time with then and hence the push to do DTG should come from them!
Tory, trying studying something that they would from the DTG and then ask to share each week. Keep doing it every week. Encourage them. It took 11 weeks of my assistant and I talking about getting to Church early to prepare the Sacrament before they finally got there. Don't give up.
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