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.