We actually began by not talking about electronics. The kids had asked to learn time management so for 2 Family Home Evenings we studied time management from the Self-Reliance My Foundations Manuel. This helped them get into their minds the ideas of priorities, that there is a certain amount of time in our lives and we have to decide how to use that time.
I was particularly touched by a chapter in President Eyring's book: Because He First Loved Us. In the chapter titled Child of Promise Pres. Eyring quotes Pres. Brigham Young:
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| Don't they look so excited as they watch television? |
With regard to our property, as I have told you many times, the property which we inherit from our Heavenly Father is our time, and the power to choose in the disposition of the same. This is the real capital that is bequeathed unto us by our Heavenly Father; all the rest is what he may be pleased to add unto us. To direct, to counsel and to advise in the disposition of our time, pertains to our calling as God’s servants, according to the wisdom which he has given and will continue to give unto us as we seek it. [JD 18:354]
I love this idea that TIME is our inheritance from the Lord. When I think of it this way it is so much more precious. Elder Eyring continues:
There is more than one
way to spend time foolishly, as you know. You may sleep it away or play it
away. But the real bankruptcy, the bankruptcy that will cheat all those who
come after you, comes after the idleness and the thoughtless seeking for
thrills. When you choose to see or hear filth portrayed, for instance, you may
at first feel you have just spent some time. But if you persist, you will find
that beyond time wasted you have allowed Satan to draw you toward sin and then
into it. And then you will have incurred debts far beyond the time spent, debts
that will burden and diminish every minute of existence that follows, unless
and until you find the healing balm of the atonement of Jesus Christ through
repentance, which takes pain, and time—sometimes a great deal of time and sometimes
a great deal of pain.
Oh, what Brigham Young
would want for you, and what I pray you may have, is a heart that wants to
invest your inheritance—time. There is a spiritual reality that, if you can see
and know it is real, will not only lift your heart to invest your time wisely,
but will lead you to do it well.
I began to see more clearly how much of our time we were giving away to mindlessness. How much more my children have to offer than another episode on the Disney Channel. How much more I want them to be. But to do that I would need to give them more time and take away their idleness.
Now we just needed to figure out how to do that.
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