One of the most difficult things to teach your children is reverence during Sacrament meeting. As your child grows older your expectations of reverence will change. When you have a younger child you may be focused on teaching them to be quiet. As they grow older you may want to help them learn to listen and appreciate the talks in Sacrament meeting. Here are five ideas to help your older children to pay attention during Sacrament meeting.
1) One easy place to begin is the Sacrament. You can begin by having them pay attention while the Sacrament is being passed. You may encourage them to read hymns or their scriptures in order to keep the focus on the Atonement and the Savior.
2) You should begin slowly eliminating the activities that you allow your children to do during Sacrament meeting. This means slowly eliminating the quiet time toys. You may want to allow your children to take notes during Sacrament meeting.
3) At dinner on Sunday nights you may want to have each child share his favorite story from a Sacrament talk. You can make this more fun by having a mini quiz game. You will want to keep it fairly simple, just have your children share what each talk was about. Then if they answer correctly they can have dessert or another small prize.
4) As your children grow older you may want to stop allowing them to use the restroom or get drinks during Sacrament meeting. They can learn to plan to go before the meeting starts. This will help to eliminate disruptions.
5) Finally you may not want to allow your older children to take out the younger ones when they are misbehaving. I have talked to several people who would pinch or otherwise upset their younger siblings so they could go out in the foyer.
Related Articles:
Primary Time: Five Tips to Encourage Reverence in Sacrament Meeting
General Conference: “As Now We Take the Sacrament”