Week 10

This is the final blog entry that we have to do for Family Relations. We'll see if I continue to use this blog for everyday...
This week we have been talking about divorce and what all goes into that. There are several predictors that go into why people get divorced:
religious differences
less education
parents divorced or never married
married very young
dual earner household
previous divorce(s)
culture
money decreased

Divorce is very sad. My dad's parents are divorced, but my parents are still together. It looks like it can be a very messy thing and no one wants to get divorced. Having my grandparents divorced has not only influenced their relationship (which is that they can't even be in the same room), it has affected everyone in the family. I'm affected by them being divorced because I don't have my grandparents as a couple which greatly influences holiday times. All of my family lives in Texas on my dad's side except for my granddad who lives in the DC area. My granddad goes to Texas for Christmas, but they have to have separate Christmas' which is hard. Last Christmas all of the family went to DC to have Christmas with my granddad. It was a sad time for my grandma because she didn't see any of the family at Christmas. That is a big example of divorce has influenced me in my life. I'm sure that it would be hard to have my own parents divorced, but it's hard enough with having my grandparent's divorced.
After learning about divorce has opened my eyes to how to stop divorce from happening. We learned that there always needs to be communication and you have to try at the relationship. Having a good marriage just doesn't happen- action is involved.

Week 9

This week we have been learning about parenting and all of the aspects that go with being a good parent. The purpose of parenting is to prepare children. We discussed the trends that are happening now with children. Parents are waiting longer, choosing to have fewer children, choosing to have no kids, replacing kids with animals, and more using the permissive parenting style. The permissive (door-mat) parent: tries to be more of a friend than a parent, lets the child do whatever they want, and parent's focusing more on themselves than the child.The outcomes of the child are that they will be uncontrollable, selfish, used to getting their way, have no responsibilities, and have no boundaries. In autocratic (authoritarian) parenting, the parent: directs, pressures, "my way or the highway", gives fewer choices, "because I said so", controls through either punishment, manipulation, or rewards, and has too high of expectations. The outcomes of the child are that they either become too dependent or rebellious and have no responsibilities.  The style of parenting that is most effective is the active parenting style. I do agree with this because the statistics are reliable which show that children raised on active parenting benefit in every aspect.In the active parenting style when helping the child make an important decision the parent listens, recognizing emotions, checks understanding, and letting their child know that they are worth something.The parent should also should know the difference between dealing with problems and if the parent should own them or the teenager. If the parent owns the problem, he should provide discipline and either use the less structured discipline approach or the more structured discipline approach. In the less structured the parent should use polite requests, "I" messages, or firm directions. In the more structured the parent should, use logical consequences or the FLAC method. If the teenager owns the problem, the parent should provide support, if appropriate allow natural consequences to teach, and let the teen handle the problem, but offer support through active communication. The parent shouldn't allow the natural consequences to happen is there's danger, the lesson is too far off in the future, or it's affecting other people. We learned that discipline is about teaching respect, life lessons, trust, and love.
I really liked this week because it was very informative and I want to implement the active parenting style to my future children. I think that they will most benefit from having parents who understand how to get the most results by the active parenting style.

Week 10

On Monday we learned about how manage the family finances. It was very informational. There are several steps to managing. The first is to pay an honest tithing because the blessings are exponential. The second is to learn to manage money before it manages you, learn self-discipline and self-restraint in money matters, use a budget, teach family members early the important of working and earning, teach children to make money decisions in keeping with their capacities to comprehend, teach each family member to contribute to the total family welfare, make education a continuing process, work toward home ownership, appropriately involve yourself in an insurance program, understand the influence of external forces on family finances and investments, and appropriately invoke yourself in a food storage and emergency preparedness program. These techniques really do help when couples first get married so they can not have hardly any financial disagreements. 

Week 9

This week we have been talking about whether or not mothers should stay home or work outside the home. This is a topic that is very touchy and is unique for every family and frankly every mother. I personally think that if it's necessary for a women to work then she has to and there's no other way around it. I know it's important for the mother to be home and to raise her children, but for myself I know that I wouldn't be able to just stay home and not be doing something. I'd get very bored and unfilled with my life. For some other women they would be too overwhelmed with just raising the kids. It's different for every women and family. It's important to realize that you can't generalize for an entire population. Even the study that we discussed in class that only looked at a small population of women- that isn't enough to go off to make a general conclusion. There needs to be a study that's statistically sound so we can believe the evidence.

Week 8

This week we have been talking about Crises and how we can cope with them individually and as a family. We had to list 10 crises that either we've had or other people that we know. I had a hard time trying to think of 10 crises and how they affected my family or the other families. What constitutes as a crisis and how did it change the family? One that I could like of is that my youngest brother has epilepsy and this has changed my family considerably since he was born. My family has learned how to take care of him, to defend him, and be there for him. At first it was very hard to understand that we had a "handicap" in our family because of how epilepsy affects his learning. My family had to pull together to be able to help him and to support him. Also we're more understanding of disabilities because no one else in my immediate family has one. We love him and we had to learn that there's just some things that he can't comprehend at this time in his life and how rough it is for him. What's affected him most is his medication and how it affects his moods which has been very difficult. My family has been better off because of this continuing trial in our lives- it's not going to go away and we hope that it's going to get better as time goes on.

Week 7

This week we've been talking about developing your couple relationship early on in marriage. It's very important to develop a strong bond early on and develop patterns so that later on there won't be as many problems. The main focus was to warn about fidelity and how it can happen. I had never really thought about the ways how people get themselves into those types of situations where they might cheat or get a divorce. People who look outside their marriages for bonding have problems arise because they're not supporting each other. This can be done in innocent contexts where the last thing on the person's mind is something inappropriate. The problem with this is that sharing feelings and bonding with someone who isn't your spouse early on in marriage can be harmful because that bond isn't there with your spouse- it's with another. I also learned that fidelity is tied very closely with emotions. Emotions are the number one cause of fidelity. When we start to get more casual with our relationships outside the marriage, the problems arise. What I didn't agree in class was that we shouldn't ever develop close relationships with other people other than our spouse. I think that this is true in early marriage, but not your whole life. It's also different for every single couple- you can't generalize for everyone in the whole world. These are guidelines. I personally think that it's healthy to have friendships with other people. Like parents, siblings, other couples, and family friends. You can't drop the people you love just because you get married. There has to be a balance between your bond between your spouse and the others in your life. You can't be paranoid your whole life wondering if your spouse is cheating. I personally think that when you have these thoughts it just makes the marriage fall apart. I grew up with having family friends and having them come over all of the time. My parents have a great relationship with each other, but they also have friends and spend time with them. My parents also have close relationships with their families are talk to them often. I have grown up this way and also have close relationships with my immediate family as well as my extended family.

Week 6

This week we have been talking about marriage, specifically early marriage. It's important that the base of the marriage is made strong early in the marriage. If the base of the marriage is weak then it can and probably will fall sooner or later. We talked in class about the pattern of the husband and wife's relationship and where the most common spots are when couples get divorced. The spots are after the after the first child is born, right before the first child leaves home and after the last child leaves home. It's good to know this information so that I can prevent this with my relationship with my future husband. Brother Williams said that we can prevent this by involving the husband in everything, so that you're working together as a team. This requires good communication skills between the couple so that they can talk about their feelings to one another. I think that you have to constantly work on a marriage to make it work and to most importantly be happy.

Week 5

This week I have been thinking a lot about my family and how we all are different, but similar to each other. As I've been working on the Genogram project and really getting to know my family, it has opened my eyes to how things carry forward through generations. It's even been crazy to see the similarities between my parents families even though they're not even related to each other. I have enjoyed hearing stories about my relatives and as I've been talking to them it's made us think about each other on a whole different level than we hadn't before. When I was looking at my immediate family and how our relationships are with one another, it's made me want to change somethings in my own life. I know that I need to develop more closeness with my siblings and really focus on that so that our family dynamic can change. It's really helped me see how one person can and has really made a difference in my immediate and extended family.

Week 4

On Friday our topic was Homosexuals. This was a very interesting discussion and broadened by understanding. I thought that Brother Williams lead the discussion very well. I have always known my divine roles, but I had never thought how some people thought of them and how confused that they could get. I hadn't thought of why gays are that way because they've lost sight of their divine roles and how it feels in the eternal realm of things. I knew coming into the class that people aren't born with being gay- it's a choice and people can reverse their choices. One of my relatives works with people to overcome their challenges of being attracted to the same sex and it does work. People can reverse it. I also hadn't realized exactly why people become gay- the circumstances that help these feelings be manifested. I realized that I shouldn't label people because it's not helping people not become gay. I'm really just helping them become that way. This made me do a reality check and to change somethings in my life so that I can help people and not bring them down.

Week 3

This week we have been talking about how culture affects us in so many different aspects in our lives. It's amazing to see in my own life how culture as affected my life- how my everyday life focuses on my culture. I have several different cultures that make up me- or basically my family. First of all, my religion plays a big role in how I think and act- it's the biggest cultural factor in my life. Especially since I'm at school with a large population of people that share my religion. It's nice to be immersed in this culture, especially since in Naperville it isn't predominantly Mormon. My grandmother (we call her Mormor in Swedish) immigrated from Sweden so we incorporate  many traditions. It plays a role in birthdays (we always sing happy birthday first in English and then in Swedish) and at Christmas time we celebrate St. Nicolas Day, Santa Lucia, and dance around the Christmas tree and do other Swedish traditions. My culture from living in Naperville has affected me in many ways of how I think of the world around me. If we just look around we can find how everything affects us, for either better or worse.

Week 2

I have been thinking a lot about how my upbringing was so different from other people in my class. We're all coming from different backgrounds and because of that we bring something different and maybe new to other people. Our background affects how we think. I had never really thought about this until I've been in this class.
I have grown up in the church mostly in the mission field- in Indiana and in the Chicago, Illinois area. My dad is a convert and my mother's parents are converts- so my family is still "new" in the church. Having this background and having family that aren't members of the church, has broadened my understanding of families and how different families can be. Being different from how my family operates, doesn't mean that it's bad. I had especially noticed this when I first came to college and had to live with roommates for the first time. We had all come from different backgrounds and we had to learn to understand another to keep the peace in our apartment. I think that as I'm in this class, I have to learn to be understanding and remember that we all come from different backgrounds.

Family Relations Week 1

So I survived the first full week of classes- YAY! One of my classes is Family Relations and we have to keep a blog on our thoughts and feelings of the class that week.
This first week was an introduction on what the class is about and what we want to get out of it. When I was pondering why I was in the class, I thought of my own family. My family is just a lot of chaos. I'm the oldest of four- two brothers and one sister. Everyone has things going on all of the time and my mom is basically a taxi service and when I'm home I turn into the second taxi. I want to learn to be understanding of my family members and to learn what I want in my future family and what I don't based on my family traditions. I love my family don't get me wrong, but there are some habits that I want to break.
This class is certainly going to be interesting and I'm sure that I'll learn a lot.