Grand-parenting

      Grand-parenting to me seems like it would be the best time of life. It's great because both the husband and wife can spend some quality time together again. They can also love their grandchildren and send them back to the parents when the children do something wrong. Some grandparents do struggle with boundaries though. They can take responsibilities away from the parents sometimes because they feel like it is a second chance for them. Grandparents have lot of pressure weighing on them. They kind of need to set the example for the family because they have been around the longest and should have a lot of wisdom. I love my grandparents. They are the sweetest people. They have been really good at letting my parents do the parenting, but they will give us little words of wisdom every once in awhile. I hope when I am a grandparent I don't cause stress within the family because I am trying to be my grandchild's second mom.

       In this blog post I also wanted to give a few ending notes because this semester is ending. I have really enjoyed this class. I am glad that I understand family systems more. I am a visual learner so it really helped when we talked about the different boundaries within a family and we were able to draw it on the board. Things become clearer when you are able to draw out what boundaries are being created between you and your spouse or if you are letting other people into your little circle when it should only be you and your spouse. I am glad I have had the opportunity to learn and grow from this class and now I can go and teach others what I have learned.

Divorce

     There are many reasons for divorce but what many people don't realize is that they probably could have saved their marriage. Some of the reason's for divorce include money, communication, lack of emotional support, boredom, incompatibility, fall out of love, constant conflict, and emotional and physical abuse. To me, some of these things don't seem like a good reason to get a divorce. Most of these if you get help the problem can be worked out. Sometimes we get in a rut and it feels like there is no way out and we make decisions that we may regret later. I think the exception is physical and emotional abuse. There is no reason at all why someone should be abused. If the abuser doesn't back off then I think the best thing to do would be to get out of the marriage. As for the problem of incompatibility, I think if the couple would have dated wisely ad carefully they would have found out if they were compatible or not. I am not married yet so when I date guys I want to date in a way that I really get to know the guy. This will include, discussing important matters before we get married, and go on dates where I will be able to see him react to different situations and circumstances. I will try to do this because I believe that it will strengthen are future marriage.

Parenting

     A polite request should always be given to your children before a firm request. Children are much more likely to listen to their parents if they first ask politely. If your children do not do the task that was asked to them, then sit down with them and explain how it makes you feel. Use "I" and not "you". It is important that parents don't sound like they are accusing the child because that can cause the child to become defensive. If the child still does not do what was asked, then use a firm request. This does not mean yelling to your child. Simply restate the task that needs to be accomplished in a firmer voice and leave it at that. Yelling at your child might get them to do the task or chore but it will be more detrimental to the child. My parents have definitely been a good example of this. They have never yelled or screamed at me and because of this I feel their respect for me and in return I can give them the respect that they deserve.

Work and Home

     We communicate better while we are working rather than playing. When we are playing our minds are preoccupied with the activity that we are involved in. Sometimes it may be more fun to play but it is actually more rewarding to work. I know for me it is easier to open up and share while I am working. There is something about working with family that really creates a bond. I think it is because you are with people you feel familiar and comfortable with and you are trying to accomplish a common goal. While working, people are more likely to engage in conversation and get to know each other. Now that I know this I will be more aware of communication while I am working with family members. 
      This is kind of a switch in topics but a girl in class brought up the topic of paying your kids for work. I personally don't think it is a good idea to pay your kids for everyday chores. Those types of jobs just need to be done. I think if you pay children to do the everyday chores, when they get older they just expect to continue to be payed. When they get married though, no one will be paying them to keep a clean home or yard. Some people say that it helped them learn how to save money and keep a budget. I personally believe that there are better was to do this. Now maybe if the child is trying to save up for something special I would allow them to do certain jobs around the house for a little bit of money. It would have to be something that really needs to be done though, such as cleaning the windows, or cleaning out a file cabinet. It is really important to teach your children how to work because it will help them in their future life.

Marriage and Family Counsels

Following the counsel structure of the first counsel and the twelve apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ can bring about great success to any marriage or family. Everyone can learn from the brethren of the church. In these counsels, there is a lot accomplished. First the first counselors will express love and appreciation to everyone and help them feel welcome. Second, someone will offer a prayer and seek to know God's will during the meeting. Starting with the prophet, they then, after the first presidency, go from seniority and ask if they have any concerns, comments, or suggestions. This leads into the third step which is discussing until a consensus is formed. They always keep the Lord present in the meeting by trying to do what he would do. After they have made a consensus they end with a closing prayer, seeking to follow thorough with God's will. At the very end they often share refreshments together. Now, how can that help in a marriage or a family. Expressing love and appreciation to either your spouse and your children is very important. This will help them feel your love and know that you care about what they have to say. It also helps them be more willing to share. Starting with an opening prayer is very important. Invite the Spirit to be there because the Spirit is the best teacher. Seeking to know God's will is something that can often be skipped over. God knows each member of the family and is there to help and strengthen the family, not to tear it apart. Once you have done that, allow each person in the family time to share what they need to. Keep in mind what the Lord would do. Once you have made a consensus on why you held the counsel, go ahead and end with a prayer seeking to follow God's will. Now each member of the family should go out seeking to follow God's will and acting on promptings. If they don't act on those promptings then nothing will have come from that counsel. Having refreshments at the end is a great way to relax and just have fun with each other. It can really be a bonding time. Counsel's can be pretty serious sometimes so lightening up is a good thing. This counsel structure kind of reminds me of Family Home Evening. It really brought my family closer together and even though I had five other siblings, we were always all involved. I could always feel the love my parents had for me when they sat down with us. They really payed attention to us when we gave a comment and would comment back to us instead of just moving on. I really believe that by following this counsel structure that the Brethren of the Church of Jesus Christ use, we can really accomplish more than we could have other ways.

Stress and Coping

Each family will have different crises which , depending on how they respond to the crises, will either improve or create more problems within the family. Every family will have some sort of trial or crises. There really is no way of going around it. A crisis is something that causes stress within the family and makes it so a change has to take place. Some crises such as a death, can be very hard on a family. For some, it will bring the family closer while for others it will tear them apart. Usually if you have all of the answers it is easier to bare because you don't have any doubts or misunderstandings. You also don't have to worry because you know why it happened. For example, with an illness, if there is an answer, or a cure for the disease then you can work together to get rid of it. If there is no cure yet for a certain disease then you have a constant worry in the back of your head about how to get through it. I am definitely not saying that there won't be stress because there will be. It is just how you deal with it that makes the difference. I believe that talking about your worries will help lessen stress because you are sharing it with another person and it is not all crashing on you. Being able to lift each others burden's are what families are for.  My mom and dad have told me that they have never been depressed at the same time. One will always be able to lift the other and keep them going. I think that is a great trait that I hope my future husband and I will be able to have.

Lesson 7

     After we had our class discussion on infidelity I was actually pretty scared. I never realized how easy it could be to be unfaithful to your spouse. People do it without even knowing they are doing it. We talked about the dangers in talking and sharing concerns with other people other than  spouses. Once you start to share your feelings, your likes and dislikes, you start to feel connected to that person. I am not married yet but it just seems like it could happen to anyone no matter how good of a person they are. In one of the things we had to read it talked about how we need to be careful even if it is a business trip or a church trip. Avoid being in the same vehicle with the opposite gender even if it is a business partner or a ward relief society president. We discussed things to avoid in order to be completely faithful to your spouse. Some of those things included avoid comparing your spouse's faults to other people and especially to "fantasy" people, like novels and movies. Facebook could also be put under that category. You shouldn't "chat" with other people on Facebook unless your spouse is with you. Especially if the person you are chatting with is all ready married. There are many little things that can eventually lead to a big slip. Being completely faithful to your spouse is very important. Even though this lesson scared me, I am glad we talked about it because now I am more aware and can avoid these subtle but destructive actions.
     

Avoiding Depression After The Birth of a Child

      It was really nice to talk about this because I have never really thought about being less happy in my marriage after I have had a child. I want my future marriage to be one that keeps increasing in happiness even after children are added. We talked about quite a few things that can be done to avoid this depression. One of the ways was having the wife AND the husband go to the doctor appointments. This shows that the husband cares and is willing to support his wife. It also helps because the husband will know how to best help his wife because he will understand more what his wife is going through by hearing the doctor and asking questions. Another thing that wife can do is to involve the husband in what she is feeling and experiencing.  Such as having the husband feel the baby kick or explain what it feels like to have another living thing inside you. One important aspect is to keep the relationship husband and wife not wife and her mom. Sometimes when a woman is pregnant she will turn more to her mom then to her husband. The truth is that your husband would probably love to help and support you if you will let him. One last thing that I will mention is good communication. If a husband and wife share with each other their concerns about not loving each other as much after the baby comes then they will both be able to create a plan how to keep their love strong even if it is just setting a day out of the week that the two of you can be alone.

Dating

      Elder Oaks defines dating as : planned for, paired off, and payed for. This is a great definition because when you do these three points ,you should be taking care of and protecting your date. Dating is a good preparation for marriage. I know that dating a variety of people is the best way to know who you should marry. Going on a variety of dates with the same person is good to see the person you are dating in different situations. They might be a certain way in one situation but completely different in another situation. These three points will also help in marriage. "The Family, A Proclamation to the World" gives three points that fathers are to Preside, Provide, and Protect. These go along well with the three points of dating. As guys plan for dates they learn to take responsibility, and use leadership skills which will help them in their marriage. As guys pay for dates they will learn to provide for another person besides themselves. Pairing off helps guys prepare to protect another person, especially their wife. Dating is good and I think can really help a marriage.

Same - Sex Attractions

    It was very interesting to learn about same - sex attractions. I always thought that when people were attracted to the same sex that it was a biological thing. It makes sense that it usually their experiences that lead them to be attracted to the same gender. We talked a lot about how men can become attracted to other men. They usually don't fit in with the other guys at school and feel more comfortable around the girls. Guys may start to make fun of them and they start to perceive that they really are different. Sometimes they don't have a connection with a parent and they don't feel that love and affection. A lot of these men when they were younger were sexually molested. That is usually the time when they think of themselves as gay. They are attracted to that because someone cares about them and they like the physical affection that they receive because they may not be getting it at home. It was also really interesting to learn that there are counselors that can help a person recognize what they are doing and help them change. I think it is a wonderful thing because they can truly be happy when they have gone through this change and start to like girls instead of guys. Some people may say it is impossible to change this behavior but I don't believe so. It may be harder for one more then another. I guess it really depends on how much they want to change. I really enjoyed talking about this because before this class I really didn't understand what went on and how people became attracted to the same - sex.

Social Class and Cultural Diversity

      This week we have dived into class and culture. First, to understand and learn about class and culture, we need to know what those terms mean. The definition of social class is: "people having the same social, economic or educational status." The definition of culture is: "the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place, or time." It was really interesting to watch videos on different social classes. I think with social classes it is a type of mindset. Once you get comfortable in one of the areas on the social scale, you don't want to leave and sometimes you start to perceive the other social classes as a certain way. With culture I really think it is something that you believe and live. With culture I feel that it is something that someone feels and lives. While with class I feel it is more in the mind. That it is just a role that has to be played in order to fit in.

General Coference

I loved listening to General Conference last weekend. I was quite surprised that they focused on the family so much. Many of the talks that were given mentioned family at least once. It makes sense though because family is central to this gospel. Elder Dallin H. Oaks gave a great talk. He mentioned many of the trends that were talked about in my class. You are welcome to listen or to watch it here: Dallin H. Oaks.

Alma 43:47

   I was reading in the Book of Mormon about family and I really like this verse. It is in Alma 43:47:   
   "And again, the Lord has said that: Ye shall defend your families even unto bloodshed. Therefore for this cause were the Nephites contending with the Lamanites, to defend themselves, and their families, and their lands, their country, and their rights, and their religion."
    I think it is great to look back and see that thousands of years ago the people were told by the Lord to defend their families. I don't think it is any different today. Now a days we don't have to necessarily defend our families "even unto bloodshed". Satan has found other ways to weaken our families. We need to stand strong and not be afraid to stand up for our beliefs. There is a good talk by Elder Nelson from the quorum of the twelve apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints, he talks about the importance of marriage and children. Elder Nelson's talk. Well, that's it... I just wanted to say I know that families are important in the grand scheme of things and if we can't see it now, maybe we should take a step back before we make a decision that affects the family.

Family Theories

   This week we focused more on family theories. Family theories are made to explain and help others to better understand what can happen within the family. The four theories that we focused on were Systems theory, Exchange theory, Symbolic Interaction theory, and Conflict theory.
   With Systems theory each person plays a role. If one person is acting up, it affects the whole family. Subsystems can happen in this theory if there are three or more people. Sometimes a child is closer with either their mom or the dad. Those two create a subsystem and support each other while the other that is not part of that system feels like they do not belong and sometimes they do not know what to do in order to belong.  
   The Exchange theory is easy to explain. It is where the costs need to equal the benefits. Costs are things like time, energy, or money. In a relationship if someone is giving, say, a lot of there energy and time to clean the home, make dinner, and other time consuming things and the other person does not give back anything, then it can lead to stress in the relationship. Sometimes if the person is giving so much but is not receiving anything in return the relationship can break. I think there should be a balance. Some people love to give and serve other people, but I think it is emotionally exhausting if they don't get at least a little in return.
   The third system that was talked about was the Symbolic Interaction theory. In this theory, every behavior has a meaning. In some relationships one person can see someones behavior as offending whereas the other person is trying hard to help them. Sometimes it takes a third person to help them understand these behaviors.
   The last theory is the Conflict theory. In this theory there are limited resources. There are two types of groups; social class and gender. With social class, the higher your class the more resources are available. With gender men can seem like they have more resources because they have and sometimes make more money. Sometimes men will feel like they have to have the last say in a discussion because they are the ones that are making and bringing home the money. This can definitely create conflict in the home.
   Usually,  I think, there is a combination of these theories in most of our homes. Some are just more extreme then others.

Family Trends

This week has been great! We have focused on societal trends and the family. Some of the things we have learned have been really surprising to me. We watched a video called The New Economic Reality: Demographic Winter from BYU TV. It was interesting to learn that while the population may be increasing, it is not because women are having more children. The actual reason is because people are living longer. Medical advances have played a role in this. Parents having less children is just one of the many trends. A few of the others include; an increase in delayed marriage, employed moms, and cohabitation. I am excited to gain a greater understanding about the family dynamics and theories.

Family Relations

Hi! My name is Taushalyn Steiner and I am currently going to school at BYU-Idaho. I am creating this blog for my Family Relations Class. I will be posting weekly about my insights from the class.