Last night before bed we had scripture time from
The Book of Mormon
(we use the "BOM stories" book with pictures, for Tanner).
We read about Ammon and how he fought off the lamanite robbers with the power of God single handedly, and cut off their arms and took them to show King Lamoni!!!!
Amazing.
(but the slaying of arms and lives was kind of a sticky subject for a 3 year old)
How do you guys deal with the scripture stories when it talks about the wars and killings? And in the BOM readers for kids it shows pictures (nothing gruesome though).
Do you buffer them or tell them straight up,
that is how it was.
It just comes at a crazy time because lately Tanner plays with his sword and sometimes says he is going to kill me, or kill his Teddy...YIKES...and he's into zombies and pirates.
He likes to kill bad guys though.
Now if we read to him in the scriptures about killing, I'm afraid he just might!!! lol
I'm just curious to hear how you adapt, or teach, the scripture's to your family...
11 comments:
Hey Jilly. This is an interesting topic! I personally don't "adapt" the scriptures. We read STRAIGHT from the BOM and I let Trevor watch the movies. It is funny because we are at the exact same spot with Ammon! In the movie it doesn't show the arms or anything. We do talk about it but I FOCUS on how he was protected had Faith, etc. etc.
Hmm, I wonder about this exact same thing? I have yet to determine a good way to address it because my boy is into all things pirates and killing too... Still thinking.. Can't wait to her more responses.
Give it to them straight, gore and all. You'd be shocked to see how much he'll truly understand and can also handle.
Isn't that what makes the scriptures EXCITING? Especially for little boy types. It can't be ALL prayer and fasting. Right?
I agree with Rachel. We read straight, and make sure he understands that life was different then...
I heard once that you should always read the straight scriptures to your kids. They learn the vocabulary and "language" of the scriptures like a second language that way!
(But we like the illustrations, too!)
We don't buffer when we read with our kids. In fact, I swear my 4 year old son likes the scriptures more when there's blood and fights! Hey, whatever works, right?
I never really thought about it before, but I guess I do, however, buffer them when I'm teaching the primary kids during sharing time. Maybe I shouldn't, but I feel kinda weird about it. Like maybe a parent would get mad at me if they choose to adapt the stories at home...
I laughed when I read this post. Logan is the same as Tanner. He is always wanting to fight or has been saying he is going to kill someone or that they are dead. I am like what the....you are way to young to be talking like that.
So, if you come up with any ideas let me know.
I agree that you shouldn't try to sugar coat them in any way. Levi sometimes asks a lot of questions, but sometimes he doesn't. I was grateful he didn't ask us what a 'whore' was when we read that word. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Okay, we've always done a little hard board book of mormon stories with the girls, so last year i thought it would be good to switch to that one you have pictured there. I TOO was like 'WHOA' about the violence. My girls LOVED it, but i wasn't ready for that. We switched back to our little book of mormon 'watered-down' version. When Maci said, "Let's tie that guy up and burn him like Abinidi", then yeah, I knew i wasn't exactly teaching what I wanted too! yikes! We'll tell them the full story when they are older.
While we have been diligent in reading since our girls were born, we are still only reading a verse or 2 at a time when we do family scripture study. So, maybe we need to change that.
I know that I don't like to sugar coat it, I like to tell it how it is and try to teach them the tools to deal with it. Like if they feel sad or worried then we talk about it, pray about it etc. My girls are very girly so we probably won't have to worry too much about the war and killing type stuff.
Hmmmmm...
(Lisa's sister, Becca)
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