Parenting

This past week in class, we discussed parenting. Something we focused on a lot was disciplining children. While discussing this topic a memory that came to mind was when my sister was about five years old. Mckenna was out riding her bike and my dad told her it was time to bring her bike in the garage and come inside because it was getting dark. Mckenna ignored my father and kept riding her bike around our street. My father, starting to get frustrated then said, "If you don't bring your bike in right now then you won't be able to ride it tomorrow." Mckenna then said, "Thats okay, I wasn't planning on riding my bike anyways." That made my father a little angry so he then said she wouldn't be able to ride it for a week. Mckenna went on to say how she wasn't planning on riding it for the next week anyways. Me and my sister and my mom were all laughing while my father and Mckenna went back and forth giving a punishment and then saying it was okay because she didn't have any plans anyways. That's just a funny little story that I thought of this week. Something that we talked about in class is how when parents are disciplining their children, they should give them short consequences and allow their children to try again when the consequence is over. In the story I shared before it would have worked better if my dad already had discussed with Mckenna what the consequences of not bringing her bike in and coming inside would be before this ordeal happened. Then he could have taken her bike away for a couple of days and given it back to her and see if she had learned her lesson. I learned a lot of valuable things last week about parenting and I plan on using them when I become a parent myself.

Stay-At-Home Moms and Education

I guess I never realized there were people out there that thought it was a waste of an education to be a stay at home mom. I feel like when people say that it is demeaning to home makers. It is like saying what they do basically the average Joe with no education could do. I strongly disagree with that. There has been so much I have learned from my Mother and I know if she didn’t have an education, there would be things that I haven’t learned or didn’t know. I like the point that Jenet Jacob Erickson made in her article “A Woman’s Education is not Wasted in the Home” that a home is the best place an educated woman could be because they are teaching and raising the next generation. Children can learn so much from their parents and if they are well-educated, it gives the chance for parents to teach children what they know.

                There are many things that homemakers can do to grow and develop education-wise. Something that my mother does is read. She goes through books like crazy, and she learns from them. It was through her example that I gained a love for reading and learning. Something else mothers can do is learn new skills and teach them to their children. My mother learned how to sew and then she taught me. She gained a new skill, and through teaching me, I was able to learn and she was able to practice more. 

Communication

Last week in class we discussed communication. My teacher pointed out that communication comes from three different things: words, non verbals and tones. 14% of communication comes from words, 35% of communication comes from non-verbals (body language) and 51% of communication comes from tone. Now we live in a world with advance technology. Technology can be a really great tool. It can connect us to friends that live far away. But looking at communication how my teacher pointed out, there is so much communication lost when we send a text rather than have a conversation face to face. Through a text, all we are communicating by is words. The receiver of our texts can't hear the tone we would say it in, or our body language to go along with it. I think that is why texts can be so misinterpreted. After learning about this, I decided that I should spend less time texting and more time either talking face to face or speaking on the phone. I challenge everyone to try to do the same and see how your conversations improve.

Stress in the Family

The definition of crisis that my teacher gave in class was "Crisis- danger together with opportunity". I personally think that is a great definition of the word, because yes crisis can inflict stress and danger to a family but there are also opportunities that can come out of it. Say for example a father loses his job. This puts the family in a situation of crisis, but from that crisis, the father could be able to spend more time with his children, or find a better fitting job. Those are just a couple of examples of opportunities that can come out of a crisis like that. I think in a situation of crisis in the family, it is important to stay positive and focus on those opportunities instead of letting the stress overtake you.

Marriage

Being faithful to a spouse means way more than just not committing adultery. There are many ways that a spouse could be unfaithful. Those ways are fantasy, visual, romantic, and sexual. Fantasy is having an emotional affair with someone who doesn't know that is taking place. It is all in the mind or on the internet. Visual affair can be compared to looking at porn. A romantic affair is when someone becomes emotionally involved with someone other than their spouse. It can be compared to as a "Second Life". I think it is pretty clear as to what a sexual affair is. Something a spouse can do to prevent infidelity in the marriage is by being "fiercely loyal". One must remain loyal and truthful to their spouse at all times in order to have a faithful marriage.

Marriage

Today, more and more people are questioning if they need to get married in order to receive the same benefits a married couple would. The highest rates of people getting married are well-educated Caucasian or Asian people with a good income. We learned that the more educated someone is, they are more likely to get married because they have a higher confidence that a marriage will work. We also learned the importance of a couple planning their wedding together because it is really the first major decisions that the couple will have to make as a couple. Before getting married, it is important to discuss boundaries and how you as a couple plan on living your life together. A good marriage needs good communication.

Dating

In class, we talked about dating and how it has changed dramatically over the years. Now a days, a lot of people are fine with the concept of "hang out, make out, drop out". In class we went over the "P's" of a date. A date is planned, paid for, and paired off. Something we also went over was The "Know-Quo" by J. Van Epp. It takes combines three aspects when added together you can consider "knowing" the person you are dating. Those three things are: Talk (mutual self-disclosure), Togetherness (sharing a wide range of activities) and Time. I really like that model because when you are able to talk to someone and share personal things with them and trust them, it can really build a relationship. Also doing stuff together is big. There are so many things that a couple can do together like walks, going to the store, even homework. Finally it is important that you get to know each other over a period of time. A good relationship can't just happen overnight. It takes work.

Differences Between Men and Women

This past week in class we have talked about the many differences between men and women. In, general, females are able to observe emotions better than males. They are also like to empathize with people and are better at listening and responding to situations. Males for the most part communicate non-verbally. They are more action focused and tend to be more protective and aggressive. Talking about the many differences between men and women, it was interesting to see how well those differences complement each other. Children should be able to be raised in an environment with both a mother and a father because they each have individual traits to offer that the other parent cannot.

Family Systems

This week in class we learned to look at our own families and figure out how it works. We were asked to compare our family to some sort of model and the model I decided to compare my family to is chocolate chip cookies. It was a cool experience take a step back and see what each member of my family contributes to make us a whole. I encourage everyone to think about what each individual of their family does to make their family work. It made me a lot more aware of everything my family does and it made me appreciate each member more. I also realized things that I could be working on to improve relationships with my sisters and parents.  After realizing these things, I decided to set myself goals to better the relationships with my family members.

Family Boundaries

This week in class we learned about all the different types of boundaries there can be within a family unit. There are three types. There is the rigid boundary, where its pretty much like a wall between two people. There is little known about each other's life and they don't really communicate with each other. Then there is the permeable or clear boundaries. That means there is an equal amount of exchange and they have a healthy relationship. Then there is the poor or diffuse boundary, where two people are either very open or overly open with each other.

After learning about these boundaries, I made connections with the relationships in my family. Something I have always noticed is the great relationship my parents have with each other. They definitely have a clear boundary. Whenever they are in an argument, they don't ignore each other, or yell at each other. They have clear communication and work out what they need to and move on. They don't shut each other out. They are truly each other's best friends. The relationship my parents have has been an example to me and that is something I strive to have with my future husband.

Changes in the Family

This week in class, we discussed how the family unite has changes so much over the years. There are so many family trends that have increased more and more.
 Some of those trends are:

• More people are living alone. This trend has increased dramatically over the years. According to our text book, Marriage & Family: The Quest for Intimacy by Lauer and Lauer, The number of people living alone in the US in 1970 was about 11 million. In 2009, the number of people living alone was about 32 million. The numbers almost tripled. This is important because more and more people are choosing not to get married or have families. They would rather live on their own and do their own thing.
• More people are delaying marriage and children. In class it was brought up how the average ages to get married now are 26 for woman and 28 for men. I think part of this reason could be that people want to experience being on their own and enjoy being single before they have to be tied down to a spouse and a family. It has also been noticed that people are delaying having children, some women well into their 30's. I think the reason for this is because people want to be financially ready and so they put it off until they think they could afford having children. The problem with this is that when women start having children in their mid 30's, they won't be able to have as many children as they could have had, because they started so late. President Spencer W. Kimball once said, "Have your family as the Lord intended. Of course it is expensive, but you will find a way, and besides, it is often those children who grow up with responsibility and hardships who carry on the world’s work." I like this quote because it really if we wait for the perfect time to have children, we might be waiting all of our lives. Families will be blessed.
• Another trend that has increased over the years is cohabitation. Couples are choosing to live together before marriage to either, test it out, or because they don't want to make the commitment of marriage, but they want to be together. Studies have shown that couples who live together before marriage have a higher chance of divorce than those who don't. Which leads me to my last point.
• Over the years, divorce has begun to be more common. In the 70's a law was passed that people no longer had to have the reason of abuse, infidelity or neglect to divorce their spouse. People could now divorce if they wanted to for no reason. This raised the divorce rate dramatically. 

I haven't seen any of these trends in my family. My family is pretty traditional in the way that my parents were married in their early 20's and began to have children about a year after. I come from a family of four girls, me being the second oldest. This week's lesson has made me more thankful for the traditional family that I have. I'm glad I had the opportunity to grow up with a loving father and mother in the same home and have my three sisters to grow up with. 

Hello!

Hello everyone! This is a blog I will be writing as I go through my Family Relations class. It will include what is discussed in class as well as my thoughts, observations and discoveries throughout the semester.