Family Home Night

People of different faiths—especially those belonging to other Christian denominations—love to poke fun at the Mormons for their beliefs, which are, to say the least, interesting, unless you happen to be a Mormon. However, the beliefs held by the Church of Latter Day Saints is another topic for another time. What I would like to discuss (or rather present a soliloquy upon, as this is by necessity a one-sided discourse) is a long-held tradition of the LDS, that being the Family Home Night.

Mormons devote one evening a week to Family Home Night, where the whole family stays home, puts aside any books they are reading, turns off the TV, radio and CD players and spends the evening entertaining one another and playing games. This encourages dialogue, strengthens familial bonds and can be a very good time for all involved.

Why doesn’t every family do this? You don’t have to be a Mormon to adopt this tradition; the church of LDS won’t sue any family that decides to spend one evening a week having fun together at home. Many people know of this Mormon custom yet avoid adopting the practice. Is this out of spite? Is it because they think that Mormons are crazy or creepy and therefore any tradition of the church can’t be a good thing? My guess is that many don’t participate in Family Home Night purely out of prejudice. They disagree with Mormon beliefs and therefore refuse to acknowledge anything the practitioners do as worthwhile. That’s a shame, because they are missing out on an opportunity to make their family happier and more unified.

Of course, the Filipino culture is extremely family-oriented, far more than is American culture. (For those who don’t know yet, I married a Filipina, so Filipino culture comes up quite often in my articles.) Multi-generational homes are common in the Philippines, where in the United States such living arrangements are frowned upon, to the detriment of our culture. But even most Filipino families don’t practice Family Home Night when it would be so easy for them to adopt this simple and effective strategy for increased family bonding.

So I encourage every family to try this custom, just for a month or two, and see how much it enriches your family. And it’s very simple: All you do is designate a specific evening of the week—any night will do—as Family Home Night. Be sure to have dinner together at a set time, preferably early, when everyone can be there. After dinner, clean up as a unit; the job will get done much faster. Then sit down and decide how to spend the evening (it may be best if the parents and kids get together ahead of time and make a long list of things they would like to do for Family Home Night; then you can draw suggestions from the list when the night arrives). You can take turns telling stories, or playing/singing music for one another (a karaoke machine can come in handy), or trading amusing anecdotes of the past week. If all else fails, pull out the Monopoly game—or any other board game—and spend the evening playing together. Just be sure it’s a game that everyone in the family can play simultaneously; or if you have a large family, you can split into two groups to play different games, as long as both are played in the same room and the players from each game interact with one another.

This simple practice works extremely effectively for Mormon families; it can work for yours, too.