Divorce...

Can you believe it is the end of the semester!? This week divorce and mixed families were discussed a lot. There was a moment in my life when I was forever changed. I had a family member who was not in a healthy marriage. She tried to raise her children in the church and her husband didn't support her, he was gone a lot. They had money problems and yet he could go and do the activities that he enjoyed. This was really hard for me, in my eyes I thought she would be a lot better off without him! She could be a example and not have the negative atmosphere in the home. I took my thoughts to my grandmother. With time and multiple conversations and much prayer she helped me see that this family member had not only made a commitment to her husband and family but to God too. She was fighting as hard as she could. I thought I was so smart in thinking she should just walk away from a family unity, what I didn't know was the problems she would face as a single mom.

Just a few facts for you about divorce. 62% of Children will live with a different family unit other than the ideal mother and father model. Americans divorce more than any other people, why? We get married more than any other country for one and another reason is, one can get divorced even when one of the other spouse doesn’t want to or protests it. It only takes 10 days after you sign that you are legally divorced. You are 16 times more likely to be abused by a live-in boyfriend than a spouse. 70% of men are remarried in two years after the divorce. The kids that had parents’ divorce when they were 18 or old had the same effects or even worse. This comes in to play usually at the time of when a couple becomes empty nesters, they don't think the kids will take it as hard, but they are wrong. 

Satan knows that families are the key to our success and he is going to do all that he can to destroy them. Children that come from broken homes are much more likely to create a broken family themselves. We can be the advocate and it starts with those we are around. Our friends and family should hear us speak highly of their spouses and be able to witness us supporting their marriage.  

So many couples that end in divorce end up getting remarried or wish they had. This is so heartbreaking to me! We need to fight for marriage! We need to fight for love!

Mahrer, N. E., O'Hara, K. L., Sandler, I. N., & Wolchik, S. A. (2018). Does Shared Parenting Help or Hurt Children in High-Conflict Divorced Families?. Journal Of Divorce & Remarriage, 59(4), 324-347. doi:10.1080/10502556.2018.1454200

Parenting

I know you are all thinking... this 22 year old, who has never been married or had children is going to give us advice about parenting styles?! I agree, I have no personal experience as a parent, but I have been a child. I have seen and been apart of successful circumstances as well as moments of confusion and failure in family life. I am sure we all have and I would invite all of you to make comments if you have ideas or stories pop up as you read this post.

First off, what is the purpose of parenting? Here are a few ideas, to help teach independence, help children learn to understand emotions and how to take care of their bodies. Parents can bring order to a Childs life. The one role I believe is most important of a parent is to help a child prepare for their heavenly roles. I would say that parents learn just as much if not more as a child is growing.

Dr. Popkins gives a few ideas that really stood out to me. He mentioned that by the time children are teens the only real tool that a parents has to influence them is the relationship they have together. I can say amen to this principle. I can remember a specific experience in high school, I was so frustrated with my mom, I felt like she was trying to dictate how I lived my life. She didn't agree with a few of my decisions. It wasn't until she sat down and tried to understand me that I was able to open up to her, she was able to describe to me why she was concerned. If we wouldn't have had a strong relationship before that experience it would have been a lot harder to open up to her.

He also talks about problem handling. We should think to ourselves, who owns this problem, that doesn't mean whose fault is it? As well as who is most affected by the problem. Parents often want to come in and save the day! They don't want their kids to hurt and go through hard things... problem is life is hard. We should let them feel the effect of life and love them through it! Help them come up with a game plan. He gives the exceptions to letting the natural consequences come to pass, they are too dangerous, too far in the future, someone else is affected by them.When these three points arise the problem them becomes the parents too.

Here is a website that gives a little more information about Dr. Popkin.

http://www.activeparenting.com/About-Michael_Popkin  

I want to simply testify that parenthood is part of Gods plan! How blessed of a people are we to get to  get to experience it. We get the opportunity to learn how to be more loving and merciful as our Heavenly Father. Just as he has not taken our agency away we cannot take away our children's. I hope a few of these thoughts have helped spark ideas of how you can now or in the future be a better parent.

Fathers... are they really needed?

In today's world we see more and more advertisements and cartoons of fathers who are lazy, they sit and watch TV and do nothing all day while the mother of the family is superwoman does everything to keep the family functioning. Is what we see on TV true? Absolutely not! The problem is, I do believe there are fathers out there who feel as though it is, that their purpose is diminishing, and not at a slow rate. 

                                      

 This quote is so true! Fathers are an asset to each of us. I could go on an on of how my father has blessed me in my life. I did rodeo and my dad would come and wait with me before I would enter the arena to compete, and he was there to get the gate when I was done. More often than not my dad had tears in his eyes as I came out, I knew he was proud of me, but just to make sure he would always say, “good job Ab!” To this day I know the look of when I have done something stupid and the look of when he sees that I have done well, it is all in his eyes!

One of my professors told us a neat story of when he was going to school, working full time had recently gotten married to a woman who had two kids in a previous marriage and they had their first child together. He would get up early and get home late. He knew it was important to be with his kids. Though tired, he would get up with his crying baby and rock her and change her diapers. He recognized that his role as a father was more important than a student, or an employee. I am grateful for this example in my life. Parenthood is full of major sacrifices! He did say to us that when he did that his wife would alway thank him and give him a complement. The quote below fits right in with this!   
 

I want to send a shout out to men all over the world! We need you! Your wives need you! Your children of whatever age they may be, need a father in their lives. The impact you can have on a family as a unit and on each individual in that unit is remarkable. 

 (This is my dad trying to teach me how to fly fish! Key word "trying")

We talk all the time, but are we Communicating??!

The answer to the question posed in the title is yes. We are always communicating! The trick is do we always understand the messages and signals being sent? I want to focus today on encoding and decoding! I know y'all are thinking great... this article already sounds like a real doozy! I promise if you keep reading the information I am about to share will surprise you, and who knows you just might walk away with a goal or two to make your communication skills a little better!?

Encoding is when a person has a thought and sends it out as a media either verbally or even none verbally. The receiver is also known as the decoder. We use trading behaviors to help us decode, and as the one who sends the message, we see how it is being taken,things such as eye contact, nodding of head, and when a person says yeah or yes. It is true that actions really do speak louder than words.
Just as someone would not drink out of a bottle with the poison sign on it. We can not expect someone to want to go on a date with us if overtime you look at them they glare at you and stick their tung out. Silly example yes, but I hope it helps you see the principle of our actions being a huge part of the way others read us.  

I find it interesting that women are the ones who usually come to communicate with someone about their frustrations, and that communication is the most common problem they bring to the table. 

I learned something they other day from a friend of mine, he said that if you decode something as a negative do your best to encode it to understand if what you got from it was really what they were trying to relay. Especially in marriages! Why do we give our harshest looks and often ignore those that we love the most? I believe the answer is, Satan. He and his angles are trying to interrupt the way that we encode and decode. For those of you who are married look at the image below and which corner best describes your relationship? How could you make it be more like the bottom right by using the principles of encoding and decoding??

The brethren of the church have been encouraging us to have family councils, why? Why would they want us to sit down together and learn to work through the small problems. It couldn't be that they are preparing us for when the bigger trials come and attack our family could it? They have shared how they conduct their councils, there is great wisdom in the layout they use. First they usually come early to express love to one other and to share their appreciation. They then open with a prayer to come to know Gods will. They discuss that will, not their opinions or their personal preferences. They take turns as they discuss matters, and never raise their voices. I find it interesting that they do not always see eye to eye all of the time. They each bring a vision. They close with a prayer and have refreshments.

 My prayer is that all of you reading this will take the principle of encoding and decoding and use it! Apply it in your councils. I can testify that councils bring strength to a unit. I know as we seek to do Gods will, windows will open up and blessings will pour down upon us. I love each of you and hope there is something small from this weeks post that you can take away and personalize and apply in your lives! 

God Bless!

Stressor

If we take a look into the world we see both functioning and very dysfunctional families. The question I ask you all is what makes those strong, put together families? What are those of us who struggle doing wrong?

First, I think it is really important to understand that perfection is impossible in this life. I think most  understand that concept the majority of the time, but then we see that family in our ward or have that friend who seems to be able to keep all their ducks in a straight row all of the time.

 I can promise you that they don't always live a perfect organized life, and I am sure there are qualities that you have that they look in on and think, "If I could just be more like her/him!" People we must recognize the talents and gifts we have! We have every right to utilize them and magnify them, if we do so and give God the glory we are sharing his light! We all have trials in life wether they are our own or are by watching someone we love go through them. These could range from, moving, to death, surgery, natural disaster, major purchases, suicide or even attempted suicide, divorce, gabling, a change in job or possibly a loss of faith. These are just a few of many and each of us I am sure can look back in life and think of something hard we have had to face. 

To help understand how a strong family would face a trial I am going to make up a short story and apply some of the principles that help unify and strengthen a family...

Lilly is a twelve year old girl from Kansas. Every night before bed her family says family prayer. She hears her parents pray for each other and for every member of the family. She then goes and puts her PJ's on. Then heads to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She kneels at the end of her bed and follows her parents example and prays for others and asks for help. After climbing into bed her parents together come in and kiss her goodnight, and ask simple questions about her day. When she wakes up the next morning her parents sit her and the rest of the family down together to inform them that their Great Grandma Ruby passed away that night. Grandma Ruby lived across there street for a long time before she was put in a rest home. The family weekly would go and visit her. This hit Lilly really hard, as expected. The kids stayed home from school and shared stories of their grandma. That entire day Lilly was really quiet and kept to herself. That night as she followed the same pattern as the previous, she crawled into bed and her parents came in sat next to her. They asked about her day and how she was feeling. She looked up at them with tears in her eyes and and began to pour out her heart of how she was going to miss her grandma. How she didn't understand why God would take her away from the. Her parents were able to comfort her and answer her questions in a calm environment where the spirit resided. 

So yes... This story makes Lilly sound perfect, as well as her parents. The principles I hope each of you were able to pull from my made up story are, routines are really healthy especially when something new comes into our system or when something leaves our family we can still have consistency in our day. Lilly's parents had previously created an environment for their kids to have one on one time with them. It was not unexpected to have mom and dad come in and ask about her day. Another one of those family routines that is highly recommended is having dinner together, families that eat together stay together! 😆

I once watched a demonstration of how stress affects family life. The instructor had a group of individuals come to the circle and hold hands. He would talk about trials that one of the individuals was facing and then would pull on their shoulders. The entire "family" would brace for it. They each felt it. Dad facing problems at work would bring it home, mom being frustrated that the house is dirty and she has book club tomorrow, affects each individual of the family. All of us are going to face life, are we going to deal with it like the couple below.... 

OR... are we going to learn how to cope?! The definition of "cope" in the dictionary is, "to struggle or deal, especially on fairly even terms or with some degree of success, to face and deal with responsibilities, problems, or difficulties." Coping does not mean life is just going to be full of calm seas all of the time. To explain I am going to share a picture of coping around a swimming pool. Its purpose is to keep the water in the pool, and to keep rain water or other objects out of the pool. Also it serves as a safety tool for swimmers. They can reach out and grab a smooth edge. Interesting fact about the coping material, it is baked at over 2000 degrees!! It is tough and pure. We need to be more like this coping. We need to set boundaries in our lives. We need to be able to be the coping mechanism for others to grab on to and also not be afraid of letting others grab on to us for help. As a family we watch out for each other.  

This quote was on the top of the weeks notes and information for me and my fellow classmates.

 I love it!!

"Just as Jesus used a child in His mortal ministry as an example for the people of the pure love they must and could have to be like Him, He has offered us the family as an example of an ideal setting in which we can learn how to love as He loves. That is because the greatest joys and the greatest sorrows we experience are in family relationships. The joys come from putting the welfare of others above our own. That is what love is." 

-President Henry B. Eyring

I try to cover topics for all adult ages to gain ideas and information from. Today I want to talk about the "s" word... yes sex. But I want to talk about it in a family friendly zone. 😅 I hope to be able to help future moms and dads, parents of young children and parents of teenagers to know how and when to talk about it. 

I love this website. It is put out to the world as a source by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Parents Guide: https://www.lds.org/manual/a-parents-guide?lang=eng

I found it really interesting that we should be teaching our children about sex from the time they come out of the womb. We teach them to respect their bodies, to have kindness towards others. I pulled a section from this website, I couldn't say it better than they did.

"Be kind and patient as infants learn to do things for themselves. Harsh correction could diminish their self-esteem and make them anxious about trusting others. For instance, if a little girl tries to feed herself and constantly spills her food and her father habitually becomes angry, she may come to believe that she is bad because she spills. She may also learn to fear men. Her father’s challenge is to find a clean spot on which to kiss her and to encourage her to keep trying day after day until at her own pace she develops the needed skill. If she throws down the food in anger, her father should simply ignore her anger and temporarily remove the food from her reach. Patient, kind acceptance of young children’s efforts to learn will help them have good feelings about themselves and feel confident in loving their parents." 

I found a couple steps that help give us direction with kids when they are in the ages between 4-11 

"1. 

Teach your children to take good care of their bodies.

2. 

Teach your children how intimate relationships differ from other kinds of relationships.

3. 

Teach your children to accept and understand that basic differences between men and women are complementary in nature. To understand their role identity, children need to understand that each gender completes the purpose of the other’s creation.

4. 

Teach your children about sexuality as they become ready to learn.

5. 

Protect your children from physical and sexual abuse."

Amen. I really like how in #4 it says "as they become ready" When I was little I was quite innocent you could say... I was not like a lot of other kids who had curiosity. My mom and dad had to be sensitive to me and to my little sister. We were ready for differnt things at different times. I can see how important it is for parents to be lead by the spirit in rearing their children in righteousness especially with a topic as sensitive as this. 

It is a responsibility for all parents to educate their families! The teenage years are hard and we all know it! Trying to figure out who you want to be is huge... We need to create an environment where children feel safe to come and ask questions and if they mess up that they dont fear to come and get help. We need to share the love that Christ shared with all of us.

One more topic... Tips to stay faithful in marriage!

We talked a lot about this in my class and it made me realize a lot of different things that I had not thought of before. I never thought about what my future spouse will think of when I have opposite gender friends or how to protect myself in the work environment. Brother Williams made a comment about how when we get engaged that is a time to cut strings and put new ones up between the two of us. I never thought about how having opposite gender friends can be a tool used to destroy a marriage. It makes perfect sense though... why would you go and tell someone things you should be telling your husband, or spending time with someone when you could put that focus on one individual. The chances of their being jealously is really great. I thought to myself in class, I have a lot of guy friends and I don't see there being a problem with it as long as bounds are set. Then Brother Williams asked us... What if he had a bunch of "girl" friends that he had lunch with, just to catch up with. I thought oh heavens no. I think that is a great role to go by in marriage is asking ourselves that exact question. Or how would that make my spouse feel. We should always be trying to lift each other. My mission president was a really great example of how to handle the opposite gender while at work. He was a dentist and he and the hygienists and secretary that worked with him often had to travel for meetings with other doctors. He would never travel with just one lady. He would make them drive separately or would invite his wife to come with them. He never had to be placed in an uncomfortable situation and his wife never had to worry. This week in class I had multiple lightbulb moments and I hope that as you read this you too have had a few thoughts of how you could better your life or the life of your family.