Week 12: Divorce and Seperation

the picture above is a very accurate depiction of the skewed perception of divorce in our society. Sit-com such as "Happily divorced" and "Parenthood" and "Family Matters" all give a warped view of the trials and hardships that come with divorce and step parenting.

Factors that play into Divorce/Predictors
-Limited education
-Underage (18 years and younger)
-Religious beliefs
-Family support
-Social Standing
-Your view of gender roles/family/marriage roles

Process of Family Reformation
-symbolic interaction of relationships
-roles changing with legality
-families have to choose there activeness in certain relationships

Protection
-Have conversation/ Anticipate and recognize
-Cleave unto your spouse and leave your parents under-wing
-Affection and connection
-Constant Dating ( the most important 5 hours of your week)
-Don't share marital issues with other, work them out with each other

I thought that it was interesting when discussing with Bro. and Sis. Williams that they had some issues that we had never mentioned when brainstorming possible hardships on a mixed family. For example, losing the faith of a best friend like bro. Williams did. Or lose respect from a mother because your moving away from family with grand babies like sis. williams. I think what I learned more than anythign is that the family is a delicate thin g that has to be regarded as fragile and breakable. I think the Williams handle their obtsicles with great care and poise. And if they had taken a decision that affected others too lightly it could have proven to be detrimental to thier families happiness and development.

Week 11: Parenting and Discipline

I decided just to post a few of my favorite most influential notes from this week! Enjoy!

Three Situations in which parents need to be involved in the discipline process

1Too Dangerous to let the consequences do the teaching
2Consequences are too far in the future to understand and learn from
3The consequence affects others

Start off with polite request/ teaching respect

Then, an I message

WHEN YOU... leave your socks on the floor
I FEEL... like your taking advantage of me
BECAUSE... I either have to pick them up or have a dirty house because of you
I WOULD LIKE... for you to try to remember to pick them up for me

I think its important to remember that even if you use these steps, you may not be teaching them respect if the last part is approached incorrectly. For example, if you say ( in the above situation) I WOULD LIKE you to never do that again or id like you to stop being selfish and think of me and my feeling first. This could just cause the person to cut themselves off and not learning anything, as well as being more disrespectful.
LOVE AND LOGIC, now my mom and my aunt are doing this and its really interesting. I believe that it has some really great ideas. HOWEVER i think at times it can become very manipulative. I think its important to involve the kids in their consequences. They will learn what logical consequences are and they will be more accepting of it when they deserve those consequences, good or bad.

Discipline is teaching! Punishment is not teaching, its and inaccurate way to teach realistic consequences.

The way that children view their parents is very similar to the way that they see God.


Segment #3 where often is heard a discouraging word

"i dont see why id waste money on guitar lessons if you wont practice anyways"
Assuming that they would get in trouble

Instead use positive re-enforcement and show trust in your child so you can expect trust from their part
"what are your plans" "you have good judgement" " You know the rules"

Week 10: Fathers and Finances

WEEK 10: Fathers and Finances

Since we had a short week, i thought I would just share some of the points I made in my father involvement paper. I found it very beneficial to write this paper with my family over thanksgiving break, i was able to kind of think of my dad and watch his interaction with me family again with this paper in mind!

1. Religious tendencies in father involvement: I thought that this was such an important point to express. Religion is such an important factor in a father’s developmental interaction with his children. This is mainly true because religion often involves ones moral values, including their family ideology. Even just taking into consideration whether a person is religious at all will tell you something about his tendencies to be involved in the lives of his children, both spiritually and culturally.

2. Ones understanding of the family system and family roles. As a husband becomes a father, he develops a new role in his life and his perception of the responsibilities that go along with that role determine his involvement in the lives and growth of his children.

3. Husband and wife/ mother and fathers relationship. Interaction with the children is often mistaken to be the sole responsibility of the mother because of her innate role of primary nurturer. However, depending upon the relationship of the father with the mother and their ability to divide responsibilities of teaching, according the child’s needs, the father can and should play just as significant of a role in the development of the child, as the mother does.

4. Time management and parental priorities. In the typical family system, the father or male in the mother father relationship is responsible for earning the money to support the family. I believe that the ability that the father has to manage his work and home schedule will determine the effectiveness of the time spent in the home.

5. Gender roles and sexual orientation within the family. As a child is growing and following the example of their parents, the presence of a male figure is essential for both a male child and a female child to understand the difference between themselves and the opposite sex in a respectful safe environment. If a child is unable to identify a difference between the man and a women, the child is more likely to have confusion and sexual frustration because of the lack of clarity and knowledge learn though observation.

Week 9: Dual Income families!

So glad I get to blog about this this week. I have a very intersting case that deals with a mother in the work place and another concerning dual workplace.
1st of all, My Mother-in-law, she is amazing! I absolutly love her and the way she leads our family. My father-in-law lives in Canada with his new wife and rarely comes to AZ. (fleeing fathers ring a bell) He left the family when my husband was 21, his younger brother were 17 and 14 and his youngest sister was 10...needless to say this had an impact in and of itself. However, through our discussions in class I was able to make alot of economical connection. My fatherinlaw was required to pay a certain amount in child support every month which he has failed to do until just this year (its been 5 years since he left) and so my mother-in-law was forced to leave the home and get a job to support the last three children still in the home. A mother who has been at home at least for the past 21 to 25 years, being called into the workforce with no preparation and less than no money to spare is a scary thing. She immeadiatly made time restraints on her work, making sure that she was home from work intime to spend time with her kids, he reached out to the church for support that was given with love and willingness. With constant meeting with her bishop and the understanding of her children, the situation was functionable, not ideal, but functionable. After our discussion in class i realized just how unideal that situation that my mother-in-law was in.

her being away from home changed the roles and functionings of each family member. older siblings became dual providers, a father figure was formed from the eldest son and the youngest was forced to rely on other significat relationshipd for support when her mother was absent when providing for her. This the way that the family is just amazing! The way bthat people adapt! however this can cause complication, I think it goes back to what we learned last week about crisis and how we persive it. Thats the most important part. my in-laws were able to alk about the divorce an extreme life changes that were happening to them and they were able to find a common ground, or an understanding of eachothers pains that helped to re-establish new norms and roles. I think this is very important and while this is never trhe ideal situation, they made a horrible situation into an opportunity to get closer and help one another through pain and anger.

As for Dual family income I often thing of my family. My mom is a great home maker. She stays home and has stayed home since before I was born, and i know that having her home helkp me value and understand my role within my family. More recently she stated working in the summer out of the house. Yes, she doesnt even leave home for this job, and it still has an impact on our family. Grated, its seasonal and her kids can come to her at anytime and she is almost just as available when working as she is when she isnt working, however it was still a strain, we had to replace meals with fast food, time and talking with friends and facebook and the money that was earned from my mothers income went to family vacations so we actually ended up being more tight with our money so that we wouldnt have to take anything out of the bank for our vacations.

I think after this class, the biggest conclusion that I came to ( and the simplist) is that the the family structure has purpose, its a functioning system and just like any other functioning system, it needs to have each role filled. I walked away from class with the knowledge and understanding that when I am a mom, thats all i wanna be and thats all i wanna focus on. This was actually a pretty big realization for me, i had alwasy that that I would work for just a little while my husbands career was developing but i think i can be better used in the home, establishing my family values and structure.

Week 8: Crisis... Danger Combined with Opportunity



The ABC Model: This ia a great model for an individuals crisis.



A. The actual event causing the crisis

B. How the family manages/ Behavioural Response

C. Cognition/ What the Family thinks about it.

I think C is the most important part of this model. As there are always different factors that go inot a crisis and each individuals perseption needs to be taken into account. thats what C is for, to help us understand what each individuals perception is of the issue and why.
What i dont like about this model is that it neglects to identify the importance of outside factors

I thought that this was an interesting excersize that we did in class. Bro williams gave us the opportunity to come up with 10 family crisis events that are more common or relatable to us, then he gave us 5 options or categories to place each crisis in. The categories were 1. That stunck 2. its ok now 3. we managed 4. We're better and 5. Thank you. I found that I would naturally put most of the crisis that i had been through in 'Thank you". I have an overall very optiistic veiw of teh world and the trials that i face. I feel like i have an understanding of the Lords design and why we go through trials so its easier for me to accept them, however the more i went into discussing the different categories, the more that I viewed them as stages. I felt like, with many of the crisis that I have been through, I started by thinking "this sucks" then transitioned to, "its going to be ok, then to "look, i managed", after which i am able to see how " I am better from it" then I have "gratitude" to my Heavenly Father for allowing me to go through that trial and make choices that lead to me learning and growing from it. I think that all those categories can apply at differetnstages of "recovery" if you will. Here were some examples from my list and what we did in class.

10 Events of Crisis in the Family

Divorce We managed

Miscarriage We're better

Death Thank You

Falling away from the church That Stunk

Finacial crisis Its ok Now

Illness Thank You

Sin Thank You

School struggles We are better

Comparing in a family of girls We are better

Crisis can sometimes change your subsets in an effective way. Our perception of crisis is so important when it comes to our interaction with others and how we choose to respond together!

Here are some other random notes that I thought were insightful and needed to be mentioned!

Compassion= passion for another persons experiences

Fade away fathers, how far away does dad live on average=400miles at least.

The atonement heals all wound, not just time. 99.95% of the worlds population are lds. Forgivness and acceptance are lds principles but world wide principles as well.

SOO... perspective heals all wounds.

Week 7: Fidelity, In Marriage AND Family!


I loved our discussions this week! Im kinda bummed that we have to post by Friday, the Porn Education Conference is this Saturday and Im sure it would have provided more insight about fidelity and those influences that drive us away from a faithful happy marriage.



I really felt as though fidelity was a hard subject to grasp. Its something that I try not to think about but i think thats why it was so important for me to be an active part of the class discussions to get all my questions and "gray areas" covered.

Facebook is a growing trend that surprisingly is tearing more people part than connecting people. I know that a number of my friends married and not married have deleted thier accounts in the past year for a number of different reasons.

1) Reality was being skewed. Poeple wereonly posting the happy things in thier lives, only post picture of all theparties that they went to and the people that they know, "friending" everyone they could to get a higher number of acquaintances. Some cant handle the perception of life that are twisted to compete with others everyday life situation.

2) HUGE time waster, it becomes an addition, not one that you cant live without but more of a habit that can be very misunderstood. The habit of having facebook be the first and last thing you see everyday, seeing disconnected from family if you miss it for a few days and feeling like the only way to connect with others is by "poking" them on facebook or commenting on their status and pictures.

3)lastly, fidelity. Facebook can be an escape from you world, you friends, your spouse, its a way too show interest in others and focus on yourself and your needs. Since virtually everyone has or has had a facebook page, it easy to look up old friends, distant family and old boyfriends or girlfriends. This can be potentially hazardous. Rekindling old flames over the internet is secretive and dis honest and rarely recognizable. "I was just saying hi, i haven't seen her in ages" or "We were just exchanging stories about our new families" even these things can seem harmless but the slightest marriage issue can be weakened further and made large by turning to a past significant other for comfort or conversation.

The last is by far the most detremental to the health of your family.

Fidelity is os important in marriage, physically, emotionally and spiritually. I was able to attend the Pornography conference with my husband on Saturday. We didnt go for any particular reason, besides the fact that we had nothing else to go but as we sat and listened to the speakers, we realized that we were both there for a very real reason, we knew in our hearts just how scary infidelity is and how real porn is as an issue in marriage.

We learned alot and it was very education, we walked out of there very releaved, realizing vthat we were making good, healthy decisions keeping us for away from poor choices in fidelity but the knowledge and awarness of it, is sometimes more important than anything.

Week 6: Weddings and Marriage.... Whats the difference?

I LOVE talking about weddings, marriage, love, family, its all so happy! Here is a picture from my wedding, me and my husband with my beautiful family! I love this picture because we were all so sincerely happy.

In our class discussion, we partnered up and talked about what we thought was really important in a wedding and I was paired with a girl that was also married so we got the chance to talk about what made our weddings special. here are some of the things we talked about

-Timing
-Spouse
-Temple
-Sealer
-Family
-Preparation
-Understanding of the Marriage contract
-Respect for the partner
-Formal and special

SOooo I'll just explain a few of our points here. Something that really made my wedding special was that there were no surprises! I knew what I was getting into! Don't get me wrong, i don't have it all figured out but I was spiritually and mentally prepared with my husband. Something else that I realized is that I could have been better about preparing my family. What i mean by this is, when we get married our entire family structure changes. I am no longer just a sister and a daughter, i am now those plus a wife and a future mother and a sister-in-law and I think my family wasn't aware of the amount of change that would occur in our relationship. I shared the example in class of my little sister, she honestly thought that chad and I were just on vacation in Rexburg for 3 months and when we came back she was so excited to see us, a week later when we had to leave again, she was so confused and i had to sit down with my husband and her and we explained that I don't live at the house any more, and that I was still her sister and her mom was still my mom but we lived together in another state. I wish i would have prepared her more for that change in roles.

I also thought that the understanding that marriage is a contract was what made my wedding ceremony so peaceful and spiritual for my husband and I. when he proposed to me, he told me that we would have trials and that he would make me mad, he would get mad at me and we wouldn't gain perfection together, but he promised me that he would always try to be better and love me unconditionally, he understood the depth of marriage and its importance. I loved that when he proposed to me, he actually Proposed marriage. It wasn't just a formality, it was an actual question and request. I showed me respect by knowing that it was an equal choice to be apart of this marriage. he also showed me humility when he acknowledged the fact that we would struggle. Those desirable traits (along with a million others he showed me when we were dating) carried over into our marriage.

It was a great experience to review my proposal. It was nothing extravagant, i think my husband was just a surprised as I was that he was down on one knee but what he said and committed to that day was a great foundation for our marriage.