Bleeding Love

This week in class we discussed divorce. I really appreciated that Bro. Williams had his wife come in and answer some of our questions. I hadn't really ever thought about how difficult it can be to blend a family, even if the children are young. There can be prejudice from the grandparents, either side, and of course hostility from the children. However Brother Williams has shown us that it is possible, it can be difficult, but it is possible and worth it. I also learned how things can get so messy with divorce, and that if you can work it out, you definitely should. Divorce certainly is not the easy way out like Hollywood makes it out to be. Even remarriage after the death of a spouse. There are so many relationships involved and it can be really damaging to everyone involved, especially the children. So what I mainly got out of this week is to rely on the Lord and try your best to follow his council.

Time to Pretend

Parenting Teenagers! Yikes!!! No thank you. That is something I never want to do! But I guess it is necessary. This week we watched some great videos about parenting a teenager. One clip really stood out to me about the way we talk to each other. In the video it showed a girl sitting on the couch and listening to music. Her mom came in and just started yelling at her. Then they showed the situation reversed of the mother sitting on the couch and the girl coming in and yelling at the mom being demanding and saying basically the same things the mom said in the previous clip. This really left an impact on me. Sometimes we think that things are ok because we are the adult but it absolutely is not. This video showed a lot of good ways to talk with your children so that they will respect you and will be willing to come to you if needed.

I feel Better

Happy Thanksgiving a week late! This is for last week. This week we discussed financial planning. Yikes! I must say I am the worst at it, and I have a severe shopping problem! I was so motivated to change that during class I actually planned out a budget. Even though I am not married at this time I know that it is important of getting into this habit of managing money. It hasn't worked perfect yet but I am becoming more aware of how much money I waste every day. I can see how money is a huge problem in marriages and is a big source of fighting. However it doesn't have to be. When we work together and try to plan things out, as well as save money, it can just become a way of life. I also liked the story that Alexandra told in class about buying a computer and how she could of got the really nice one, and her husband would of bought it, but they couldn't really afford it and he respected her more for walking away.

Poison and Wine

Sorry I have forgotten to write a blog the last two weeks! This is for November 14. This week we read an interesting article by Elder Ballard about councils. I thought it was so interesting how most of the time we don't do the church council the right way. When I was on my mission we sat in a lot of ward council meetings and PEC. And some of them I felt really did do it like this but most of them did not. There was one meeting in particular I remember where the spirit was so strong and ideas were just flowing back and forth in the room it was so cool. From that experience I can see how it should go and that the spirit is what is going to help the most. I also had experiences where nothing really got accomplished and that meeting truly was a waste of time.

Some People Have Real Problems- Family Crisis

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Ghosts N' Stuff

Family Crisis! Yikes sounds stressful, well it is. We have been discussing this topic this week in class and I have learned alot. There are so many ways to deal with crisis, and I have learned you can either gain something positive from it or let it pull you down. A major crisis that we have had in our family is that my dad has cancer. At first, the majority of the kids pulled away from everything especially each other. We all dealt with it in our own ways, but know looking back at it I can see that now this experience has brought us closer. We still aren't as close as we could be but things are definitely better. That experiences has also really benefited my life personally, and I can see the growth that has come from it. For the most part in the beginning I can see that a lot of us dealt with it in an avoidance pattern of copping. However it has all turned out for good.

Have a Little Faith In Me

So this week in class we have been discussing marital intimacy and adultery. Today in class my eyes were opened to a lot of things. At first after reading the assignment I decided I never wanted to get married because it is just scary. But I did learn some interesting things about after an affair. That there is hope and that that act isn't the end of the marriage, it can be salvaged. We also talked about other things like emotional affairs and not telling people too much negative about your spouse because it can taint there idea of that person forever. We should keep our relationships within our relationship. We also talked about pornography and Bro. Williams said something so profound. He said that we are all affected by pornography in some way whether it be visually, music, books, or whatever. Anything that is sexually stimulating even just a little is pornography. It really made me think about some of the music I listen to and why it may not be uplifting. But the moral of the story is, try your best, trust the Lord, and and talk to your spouse not others.

Drop

This week in class we discussed a lot about marraige. I had never thought about how in the first year of marraige a lot of things are established. There are so many things you have to sort through in that first year it is so critical. I think that if you are more aware of this it will help your expectations to not be so high when you get married. It is also important to recognize that you may be setting patterns early in marraige that may be undesirable. However if you are aware of this than you can avoid this before it causes problem in the marriage. I also learned more about my family by doing the family systems project. In mine I compared my family to salsa and learned that we are all important to produce something fantastic. Without several of the ingredients it just wouldn't be the same. Have a great weekend!

Breath In

This week in class we talked about the 4 types of love we have. I thought this was so interesting how you can have a little bit of all of them for one person. We discussed a lot about what kind is the most important, we came to the conclusion that they all are important. We need to have a balance of all of them just like in all things. Moderation is essential to having success in anything. In church on Sunday a girl in class said that in all aspects of our life we have the same amount of love we just show it in different ways. I thought that this was really interesting. I think that maybe we just don't access how much we can love everyone. Ideally we are made in God's image so we should have "perfect love" we just don't show it.

High and Dry

This week in class we discussed some very interesting things: Gender differences. There are so many but what I really learned that kind of shocked me was that a lot of the gender differences are social. Because little boys see other little boys playing with trucks they do to. Or there parents because they are a boy buy them trains instead of dolls. I also learned about being accepting of our children if they are a little different. They aren't born gay, society just tells them that they are. I liked what one girl said in class when she said that "we should teach kids correct labels to what they do rather than connecting it to emotions. For example I like to paint I am and artist, versus I like to paint I must be gay." There are so many things in society that we can really get wrong and persuade people in the wrong direction. What I really got out of class is to just love and accept everyone, you don't have to accept the behavior but you do have to love them.

Rain Drops Keep Falling on my Head

This week in class was really interesting. On wednesday we talked a lot how some many aspects can affect our families. Even in this area of Rexburg. There was so much diversity in just our class. It was interesting to see that there were people from different countries and I loved hearing how that affected growing up here in the United States. It is also interesting to see the different aspects of families like blended families, broken families, things like that. You could tell that part of the different personalities came from those situations, some were stronger because they had to become the parent or things like that. Our families affect so much of who we are. That is why the second principles missionaries teach is the gospel blesses families. Our home is the most important place for us to learn. That is why we are similar to our families because we pick it all up there.

King of the Rodeo

Tradition vs. Rule: This was something that I started to think a lot about in our last class. We were discussing family rules in my group we were having issues with deciding if it is a family rule or a tradition. An example of this would be Family Dinner. As a little kid it was a rule that you came home and we all ate dinner together, but now it seems more like a tradition that formed from a rule. It seems to me that a lot of family traditions can turn into rules, as well as rules can turn into traditions. Some one mentioned that if a family tradition isn't done when it is supposed to some family members can get angry. Which to me says it is a rule more than a tradition. It is interesting to think about. I wonder there have been studies done about this?

Reasearching all over the world.

This week in class I learned some very interesting things about research. I learned how to make sure that you are really giving legit research! It was interesting to see in class and hear people talk about some of the really bad research that they found. The website I found was: http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/nonrecorg.html this is a really good website that helps you to know where to find questionable research and good research. However when I looked a little bit further into the Doctor that set up the page he wasn't very credible. So take it how you may!

Welcome to the Machine

Yeah for Family 160 :)