END OF THE SEMESTER!!!

I am so thankful that I was able to take this class this semester. I have been able to learn soooo much over the course of the semester.  I am really thankful that I was able to learn all of the many aspects of marriage and the family, and family relations all together.  I know that I am definitely going to apply many of the concepts that I have learned in this class to my own future family.  Even though I do not have a family now.  I can still apply many of these concepts.  One of the things that I have enjoyed learning about this week was just some of the things about blended families.  I thought that it was interesting that it takes an average of two years for the blended family to normalize.  Even though this seems like it would be a bit long for the normalization to occur, it is not a big surprise.  I have no experience with blended families, so I really don’t know that much about what goes on in them. I just thought that this was really interesting.

One of the most important things that come about in a child’s life is the way that they are raised.  Their parents have a huge responsibility to raise them and to teach them the things that they need to know.  We need to always make sure that we are there for our kids so that they have someone to turn to when they have problems and when they need a helping hand.  One of the main things that parenting does is that it provides a foundation for the child.  Parents have the responsibility to teach them right from wrong. We need to make sure that we are doing what we need to so that our children are good.  The way that we raise them is going to set the standard for how they are going to live the rest of their lives. Something else that I found to be interesting is that the younger that you have kids, the more generations that they are going to get to know.  We should not postpone parenthood because of all of the valuable things that they are able to learn from their living relatives. I really think that this can be a great blessing for the child.

WORK!

Work is a very important principle that we need to make sure we are teaching our kids.

I have it to be very interesting just how much work can teach a child.  One of the things that I have learned growing up about the importance of work is the wise use of it as well.  When I made money, I learned that I need to save that money so that I can buy something that I want or need.  It also helped me to save for my mission.  Work has taught me many values that I think that I would not have learned if I would not have had a job when I was younger.  It taught me to never give up, dependability, honesty, and many other values.  One of the things that we learned in class was just how important it is that we pay our tithing first, before we do anything else with our paycheck.  I think that this principle is very inspired.  When we pay our tithing it is basically our fire insurance.  It will help us when we have to go through hard times.  It is giving back to the lord what is already his.  My parents taught me this very important principle and I am very grateful that they did.

Communication!!!

We need to make sure that we are communicating better.  One of the things that I learned in class this week that I thought was extremely interesting was just how much our words aren’t really communicating anything.  According to bro. Williams, I’m not sure or his sources he just said a study, which could be anything, he said that words make up 14% of communication, tones make up 35%, and nonverbal communication makes up 51% of communication.  If this is true then we really need to work on our tones and our nonverbal body language when we are trying to communicate with someone.  When we say something that we mean, but our tone is off, they are going to take the message in a way that we never intended.  We are going to be communicating to them a completely different message than we had probably had planned in the beginning. I really think that if we understand this, then we are going to have a happier marriage and family life.  We really just need to make sure that our nonverbal and our tones are not communicating something that we don’t want to be communicating.

Coping with stress with the family can really make it so that the family comes together and become stronger.  One of the things that I have found to be extremely interesting in this weeks class was the lesson about the coping saw. I just thought that it was so interesting how, when the saw is used correctly, it can make it so that the two pieces of the crown molding can be put together and look nicely.  If we apply this to our families then we are going to become closer together as a family.  With all of the stressors that we have today, we need to make it so that we are depending on our families in our times  of need. One of the things that can really help us out as a family when we are in these stressful situations is the ABC X model.  When we apply this model to the stressful event, it can just open up a whole new world of solutions for us.  When we apply this model we have to look at the A which is the event, the B which is the resources, and the C which is the cognitive experience of everyone that is in the family.  I know that if we just do these simple things while we are in in stressful situations that we are going to be able to overcome them and really grow together as a family.

One of the things that I have found to be very interesting this week in class is just how much we need to make sure that we are including the Lord in everything that we do.  When it comes to marital intimacy we need to make sure that we get a confirmation from the lord that it is ok.  We need to absolutely make sure that we are being faithful to our spouses.  We should not be looking for other relationships with other people.  When we get married it is our job to make sure everything that we do revolves around the partners.  You shouldn’t be sharing your personal problems with someone that is not your spouse.  If you do this then you have the chance of creating a bond with them and this is not good.  When we get married we are supposed to cleave unto our spouses and no one else.  This is where the problems come in.  It is when we go through troubles and difficulties and we are not talking about them to our husbands, or our wives, but to other people.  Marriage is sacred and this is the way that we need to keep it. 

The 3 P’s of dating, paired off, paid for, and planned. These are some very powerful P words, especially when it comes to dating.  Dating should be something that we do frequently, it is the prep that we need for marriage. It is a great learning experience and we really need to take advantage of it while we are at this school.  One of the things that I think that we really need to take advantage of while we are at this school is the ability that we have to go on dates with so many different people from so many different walks of life.  While we need to go on many dates before we find the person that we want to marry, we need to make sure that our dates consist of the 3 p’s/  They need to be paired off dates, not necessarily group dates, or even double dates,  The need to be paid for.  You can’t be dining and dashing, that wouldn’t be a very good date, and they need to be planned.  I have been on some dates where nothing was planned, and those dates turned out to be awful.  There never really is a waste of a date, but those dates that I have been on that weren’t planned, were never really productive and they usually ended up being really short and not very fun.  But if we do keep to the 3 P’s we can have better quality dates, and dating is really going to help us to prepare for marriage when the time comes.