FAQs

Confused about where to start?

— Watch the video: About Using SFP: Finding Home! —

— Or, read the basics: —

1) If you are acting as the Family Lead for this e-learning game, begin by enrolling all the other family members into the Finding Home system.

2) Each week, each family member needs to do that week’s lesson, individually, at their own pace. We call the lessons Learn & Earns. There is a Youth track and a Parent track. Have family members begin their lessons at the first of the week. Discuss lesson goals during dinner or another meal, so you have time to practice the skills together during the week.

3) Each Learn & Earn lesson consists of several parts:

• Reflections 
• Refresh & Remember appears at the beginning of each lesson. It helps you to reflect on and remember what you learned previously.
• Lesson Sections are gamified learning activities. They teach SFP skills that help families increase love and happiness at home and decrease conflict. There are three sections in each lesson. They take about 15 minutes per section. It’s best to start each section when you know you have time to do it. If stopped in the middle, you have to go back and start that section again.
• Family Activities are included in each lesson. Usually there are two per lesson. These are forms you fill in online. Your responses appear in the Agenda used in your Family Meeting. For example, you will be asked to list what rules you think are important for your family. Then in the Family Meeting you will discuss these.

And, then what?

Game: Each time you complete a Lesson, you earn a key that unlocks the next video game!

Family Meeting: Every week, your entire family needs to attend a Family Meeting using the Agenda. Pick a day/time that works for everyone and hold the meeting the same time each week, if possible. The Family Lead is to print (or digitally bring up) the Week’s Agenda. The Agenda has instructions on what skills to practice, what activities to do, and ideas for family discussions.

Fun Activities:  Every person will also be expected to complete other fun individual activities. These include Mindfulness practice, filling out tracking forms (to keep track of your skill practice), and Love Notes you send as loving messages to others in your family.

MORE: Have fun learning about the skill icons you’ll discover in the Learn & Earn lessons – and use in the video game to defeat the monsters that attack families!

This fun, gamified version of our Strengthening Families Program is designed to help reduce family conflict, and help you create a stronger bond, as well as live a more fulfilling life as an individual.

In Strengthening Families Finding Home, there are several important tasks:

Weekly:

• You will work through three Learn & Earn lessons–learning important techniques–while earning fun rewards that you can use in the Finding Home game.
• Your family will hold weekly meetings to help strengthen your bond and reduce conflict.
• You’ll have the option to play our fun Finding Home game, using the rewards you earn during your Learn & Earn lessons to battle monsters–earning even more fun rewards! 

Daily:

• Practice Mindfulness to help build your brain! 
• Send Love Notes to your family to remind them that you care about them. 
• Track your family’s progress in our program, using our interactive family tracking. 

Each of the interactive lesson sections is designed to be done from start to finish, and should take about 10 to 15 minutes to complete.  If must leave in the middle of a section, click on the X (top, upper right side of the screen above the lesson window) to close the lesson. However, be aware, when you return you will be starting again at the beginning of that section. For this reason, we suggest not starting any lesson section unless you have set aside the time to complete it.

Any time you exit the system, it will allow you to resume your lesson and take you to the beginning page of the topic you were last viewing.

The book is where you’ll find all your Family Activities. As you progress through the Learn & Earn lessons, you will work on Family Activities as an individual. These get recorded in your Family Book. 

Each week (or more often!), your Primary person will hold a Family Meeting, where you will go through your responses to Individual Family Activities and make decisions as a family. 

This is your Love notes. Use it to send sincere compliments to your family!

When a family member receives a sincere compliment, it triggers the brain’s Pleasure Motivation System to release a neuro-chemical called dopamine.

Giving sincere compliments helps parents and siblings feel happier and more loved.

And, in the Finding Home game, it also sends extra stamina to the player you send it to!

Sincere compliments are nice to receive, and even better to give! (And they don’t cost you a thing!) ☺

The Mindfulness trophy represents your brain! It grows as your brain grows through practicing Mindfulness Activities. The more often you practice, the more your brain–and your trophy–grow! While your brain doesn’t actually get bigger, it does get stronger as you build new neural pathways, and build your current neurons into stronger connections with more dendrites. This allows you to not only handle difficult situations better and make better decisions, but also helps you learn other things faster, too! 

Throughout the Learn & Earn you’ll find a lot of excerpts from articles and references to research that you may want to read more about. This is where you’ll find those resources, if you want to learn more.

We also have some great ideas for fun family activities!  

This is where you’ll find your Learn & Earn activities! Click on the map if it’s active (stars are coming out of it), to continue to the next Learn & Earn. 

There are 10 Learn & Earn lessons, each with three main sections. Between each section, there are other activities as well! You can earn upgrades for the game, tickets to personalize your tent, and keys for the next game level in each activity. 

The SFP Finding Home learning system used a planned set of activities that are done in a specific order, based on years of research. The course is broken into 10 “Learn & Earn” Lessons, with specific materials for Adults and Youth. Each Learn & Earn starts with a Refresh & Remember section, followed by three interactive “gamified” lesson sections interwoven with Family Activities.

• Refresh & Remember sections are designed to remind you of what your learned in previous Learn & Earn lessons. You will earn Tickets by answering questions correctly. (Tickets are used to upgrade/decorate your Home-Base.)
• The gamified learning sections (three to each lesson) are each designed to be completed in 10 to 15 minutes and each in one sitting. If you get interrupted in the middle of the section, next time you return you will start at the beginning of that section.
• You earn Gold Coins and Diamonds in each lesson section (used in the Finding Home! game.)
• Family Activities within the lesson ask the family members to fill in information related to an activity the family will do. For example, it might be kids listing ideas for their “My Time” play sessions with parents, or all family members listing rules they think are important for the family. Then, during the Family Meeting activity, the responses entered by individuals are combined to be reviewed together. Family Activities earn more tickets for upgrading your Home Base.
• Each Family Activity is also available to individual family members in the Family Activities section of the system (from your Home Base, select the open book under the Family banner.) There are many activities that require the adults or kids to track their activities. Tracking is required, as most skills require practice to become wired into the brain as a good habit!

If you haven’t earned the key to the next land, you will need to complete your weekly activities in Learn & Earn to earn keys and rewards! All the rewards you earn in Learn & Earn will help you learn new ways to defeat the monsters, and earn rewards to help strengthen your characters to more easily handle these new threats! 

On each full lesson of your Learn & Earn, you earn 300 gold coins and 12 diamonds. These can be spent in the next level of the game. 

You can’t play the next level until you finish that lesson, and obtain the key to the next land! 

As you earn gold, you can go into the game and spend 300 coins, and 12 diamonds per level/land. 

These are skills, or tools! Practicing these skills creates new neurons that increase your brain-power!

You become more capable, with skills to help create more love in your home.

In the Finding Home game, these tools are also used to build more abilities to help defeat the monsters. 

In life, skill practice also gives you power to say “no” to toxic things you’ll be invited to try. This gives you, or your children, power to protect yourselves from ugly negative consequences.

Each time you practice the SFP skills, it’s like adding new links in your chain-mail “mental armor!”

Yes. Go to the “To Do” list in your homebase (bottom right corner) and click it. Then, in the To Do list, select “My Lesson List.”

Once there, click the “Expand” link for the lesson you are interested in reviewing. Click on the title of the item you want to view again.