Divorce

Every family has it's conflicts, but do blended families (one partner being divorced once and has kids) have more conflicts?  I don't know the answer for sure, but some conflicts they deal with that other couples might not are: culture/traditions, trust, old spouse, and building new relationships (parent - child).  Statistics show that it takes two years for everyone to feel that this new life is the norm.  The best way for parents and possibly even children to deal with this new change is to allow for time for adjustment.  It is also very important for parents and children to keep a good connection and a good line of communication.  It is very important for the spouse that has married into the family to not be strict on the kids and discipline for a while.  They need to spend time with the kids to bond with them.  The role of discipline should be placed upon the birth parent, for they have had the time to bond with the kids.

Parenting

In my class we have been talking about parenting.  There are many reasons to why we parent. Such things as raise our kids so they can survive in the world, teach, love, and so many more possible reasons.  We all have different reasons, but it should be because we want to and we want the best for our kids.  When we discussed behavior it was brought up that if the needs of a child are met bad behavior will decrease.  Our teacher told a story of a kids who kept chewing and sucking on his shirt.  His mom tried everything to get him out of this habit.  Finally it turned out the kids was suffering from a lack of potassium and sucking on his shirt helped fulfill that need in a way.  Other few thoughts that have come up in class that I liked was that we need to focus on where we want to go as a parent. We need to prepare and plan to be good parents.  Also parents who are confident are consistent with their parenting.

Work

Many couples today have to deal with many decisions that deal with work and the family.  Such things as where to work (should the family move), should the wife work, what type of work should the husband and/or wife have, and there could be many more questions to deal with.  How should a couple go about deciding what they should do? Why not counsel together like the Brethren of the church do?  This means we need to discuss together as husband and wife (kids can be involved too if they are old enough to know what's going on), pray and converse with the Lord individually and together and husband, wife and family. 

Family Counsels

In my class we discussed how the Brethren counsel.  It was so awesome to discuss they way they make decision.  They all gather together and don't come to a conclusion until everyone feels comfortable and all agree the same.   I really like this in families because we should always be on the same page.  We should always counsel together and not make decisions until we call can agree and feel that we have all had our say.  Some great talks we read were "Strength in Counsel" by M. Russell Ballard, and "Counseling with Our Councils" by M. Russell Ballard. We also watched a great video on YouTube "Elder Henry Eyering and Elder Cleon Skousen - Inspired Unity".  I really like how the Brethren are always on the same page as the Lord, as families we should strive for this also.

Family Crisis

We are taught that trials are a way to help strengthen us and help us to become better stronger people.  How often do we think of trials/crises in our family as a way to bring us together and strengthen us?  We have to option as a family to pull together and become closer when a crisis happens.  I like the saying that "The structure of a family will determine how a crisis will be handled, while a crisis will determine the structure of the family."  Just like how individuals handle trials differently families handle crises differently.  I think it is good that we try to make sure that we draw closer together when such things happen.  Maybe it's a good idea when small crises happen on the family to practice drawing closer together so when a larger, more potentially detrimental, crisis happens it will be easier as a family to draw closer together.  We need to keep in mind how important families are.

Sexual Education

It seems like lately sexual education has become a big deal in schools.  But are they really becoming better for our children?  In class we discussed how the sex education is going about it's ways of teaching.  I am scared out of my mind to have children and to have them deal with these things.  What is going to happen to our kids if they way they are taught is in a horrible (pornographic) way? What can we do as parents to prevent this from happening?  I sure I hope I knew this answer, but I plan to be as ready as I can when that times comes around.  I hope there are ways and I hope as parents we want to protect our kids from these horrible ways that sex is being taught to our children. 

Marriage/Children

It's so funny to see how people view marriage. They will make their wedding plans and the whole wedding day to be so stressful, but then they think that after that day everything will be great. What they don't know is all the adjustments that need to be made in the first little while of marriage.  The four R's of adjustments in the first month of marriage are:
-Routines
-Resources
-Rules
-Roles
We all need to be open to change and need to make sure that both you and your partner are happy with what has been decided.

Another big adjustment that needs to be made in marriage is when the first child comes along. Some stresses that come along with a child are such things as:
-feeling like they carry most of the load
-women think their husbands don't care about the baby
-the husband feels neglected or that there might be a loss of effection
I think a great way to avoid this is a good communication.  Communication is a great way to avoid many complications in a marriage. The wife should always express her love and affection to her husband. The husband should express his love and affection to both his wife and their new baby. The wife should let the husband know if she would like help with anything around the house, so then she wont feel like she's doing everything. Communication is key!

Marriage

Marriage is such a wonderful thing.  For my Family Relations class I had to read a chapter about getting married.  I was reading some of it in the car as my husband and I were on our way to Idaho Falls.  There was one part I read talking about things that suffer in the first year of marriage. 
-approving and complimenting the partner
-making the partner laugh
-telling them "I love you"
-doing something nice for the partner
-showing physical affection
-discussing their feelings and problems
-talking over things that happened during the day
I brought these up to my husband and we had a wonderful talk about these points.  I was surprised how we were still doing well with some of those points, but the ones we were struggling with we talk about ways we could do better with them.  I love my husband and how well we can talk about things and figure out ways to make our marriage better. We are so blessed to have the opportunity to get married. I hope that everyone can have a happy marriage!

Gender Differences

Are gender differences as bad as some people make them seem? Should we all be equal in every way? Personally I feel it is good to have differences. How boring would it be if everyone (males and females) were all the same? Differences are good, they make life interesting.  It even says in the family proclamation that, "Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal and eternal identity and purpose". I think this also refers to our role differences in society and in our families.  I feel that these differences is what makes and keeps the family together.
I am glad that there are some jobs that are more populated with male workers and others are populated with female workers. I don't see this as a bad thing. I don't think this is being sexist. Males are better at somethings than females just because they are male, and I don't think we should try to change that.

Parenting

Why do some parents only prepare for new borne babies, but not for toddlers, teenagers, or young adults? Why do we worry so much about the babies? Shouldn't we want to be the best parents all throughout our child's development? I think we should constantly be preparing for every stage of our child's lives. We should never think that our parenting doesn't have to change as our kids develop. We need to change along with them. We can't parent our kids like toddlers when they are almost 18. It just wouldn't work. We need to constantly be preparing for every situation that could occur in our parenting. According to Laurence Steinberg, the author of The Ten Basic Principles of Good Parenting, there are three situations that parents can come across with their children. There are situations where we have time to think before we react, so that we can make good decisions. There are situations where we have a little bit of time to think, but our decision is more on the spot. The last situation is on the spot decision making. We need to make sure that we are prepared for when those situations occur that we will always make correct decisions and not regret anything we say or do. Parenting is very important to a family's happiness.

Roles and Rules

A few insights from my Family Relations class:
When a new member is born into a family, that family shouldn't just think of it as a new member. That family has become a new entity. This means the family needs to reorganize. They need to reorganize each members role and make sure those roles meet everyone's needs.

We all have or have had rules in our family growing up. What were these rules? How did we know they were rules? Were they written down or said out loud, or were they never really stated? There are unstated rules almost every family has. These could be things such as:
-seating arrangements at the dinner table
-who controls the volume while watching tv or a movie
These unstated rules can be good or sometimes they can be bad. We should look at our lives and find these unstated rules and make sure they are improving everyone.

Where has the family gone?

Why have we lost sight of what the definition of a family is?  In today's literature different experts are defining the family differently, or not at all.  This really makes me sad.  We are told that our family is the main thing that will get us back to heaven with our Heavenly Father.  We will be able to make it to the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom.  I think Satan knows how important families are and he doesn't want us to make it to that greatest glory. When there is a crises families tend to hold on to each other, but when we are doing okay we let go of our families and cling more to those things of the world. 

One thing that could be hurting the family is all the research that is being published.  We need to be savvy consumers when we are looking into research dealing with the family.  We can't always base out thinking on those results.  We need to know what we are looking at and understand when there could be potential errors that could make the results invalid.

I love the family unit and feel so blessed to know the truth about families.  I hope that someday the trends will go the opposite way and people will start getting married before they live together, and that parents will decide to bring wonderful children into their family and into this world.

Testing Testing 1, 2, 3...

Just testing out my blog. First day in the works.