This seems to work well for kids >= 7 years.
M-Saturday:
- First thing in the morning, kids spend 30 minutes reading in the scriptures on their own, and 30 minutes reading as a family.
Sundays:
- For the first 5.5 hours of the day, kids eat two meals and spend about an hour doing chores, and spend the rest of the time sitting in the living room studying the scriptures with a parent watching them to make sure they aren't fooling around.
- They are meant to focus on a question they are trying to find the answer to. For example: "what is meekness?" or "why did Jesus have to die?" They should answer the question in the form of an essay written for someone else. They should not only explain the answer, but attempt to persuade others to believe it.
- After dinner on Sunday, as a family, review each child's question, read their answer, and discuss it as a family. You will be surprised to see how quickly the children chime in with scriptures and ideas that add to the discussion.
I will leave it to you to imagine what spiritual knowledge and capacity a child raised on this regimen would possess after 11 years of this. Additionally, consider how much practice they are getting in reading, writing, and thinking.
Note 1: It might seem far-fetched that kids can spend this much time in the scriptures, or that they could come up with anything worth reading in researching answers to questions at such a young age. It is a rocky go for the first few weeks, but I promise you, you'll be shocked at what they gain the ability to learn and do if you give them the opportunity. The limitations of children are more often than not a result of the limitations their parents impose upon them in what they do or don't do, and have nothing to do with the actual child.
In the case of gospel study, the supposed limitations of children have much more to do with the laziness of parents than the capacity of the child.
Note 2: For those who retort with "where can I find 5.5 hours on a Sunday?": Try skipping church. Parents and children will learn a heck of a lot more by using this time to actually read scripture than they willÂ
Note 3: In some cases, it can help to divide these duties between parents instead of having both parents present. Example split: One parent handles the daily 30 minute group session, another handles the after-dinner Sunday discussion, etc.