Family Relations

This week is thanksgiving, so we have a break the second half of this week, so we only had one day to condense all the information for fatherhood and finances. So I'll just tell you the important stuff. Finances are not something that are supposed to be put on one person's shoulders in the relationship. Both should be a part of making decisions on where money should go and how much to save. This is important to recognize because often in the church we hear that the men are to provide and the women are supposed to stay at home with the kids and be the nurturer. This is where it's important to remember that both are equal partners in everything they do. In situations where the man is the sole provider for a family, some might look at it and say that the wife doesn't do anything and just spends the money.

       This week we talked about good communication and bad communication. What makes it effective and what doesn't work. We talked about the 5 secrets of effective communication. The first part of it is called the disarming technique. This is when someone confronts you, there is always some part of what they are saying that it true. There are parts that are there to hurt and attack but there are always kernels of truth in it. Once you recognize that and show the other person that you understand what they're saying, they are more open to what you're going to say. Another one of the secrets we talked about in class is expressing empathy to the other person. This is kind of like the disarming technique, but you express that you understand why they are feeling that way. The next part is inquiry. This means asking the other person why you are feeling this and getting a better understanding for yourself. The next part is to express how you are feeling, using 'I feel' sta

     What does stress in family life look like? This week we talked about some of the things that can cause stress in families lives. Sometimes these stressors are internal and within the family or sometimes from external sources. Some of the examples we came up with in class for external stressors were things like losing your job, natural disasters, or maybe an economic recession or inflation. These things can really take a toll on your family even when you had no control over them. Some of the internal stressors the book and my class discussed were, losing a child, and drinking or drug abuse in the home. These things can lead to worsening family life or in some cases can bring your family closer together.       One thing that really stood out to me in class when we were talking about this topic was that how we think about the problem play a BIG role in how we will experience the problem. I think we have all experienced this idea. An analogy my professor always uses is the rain. When

       This last week we talked about dating so this week it would make sense we talk about engagement and 'courting' as we called it in this class. This was an interesting topic because many of the students in the discussion have not been married and aren't engaged. We learned some interesting statistic on how successful marriages usually happen. One of them that I thought was oddly specific was talking about how long you should date before getting engaged. It says that those who date 1-2 years have more successful marriages than those who both date for under a year and those who date for more than two years. This seemed a little weird to me because it seems like the longer you date someone the more you get to know them. The research shows that people often get too comfortable in the relationship status of 'dating' that the transition to marriage is much harder, and many times doesn't work out.      This part of the discussion led right into question of, 'H

     This past week we talked about dating and how the culture has changed over the last decade or so. we talked about how when our parents were dating in college you could go on a date one day with someone and the next day with someone new. there wasn’t this thought that you were DATING someone just because  you went on a DATE with them. We talked about how this has changed. If you were to go on a date with someone people might think that you're super into that person and might want to see if you should go on another date. I remember having this conversation with my mom many times in high school. You can't just date around because you might be considered some rude names. I think it would be so fun to be able to go on fun dates with a bunch of different people! How else are you supposed to find out what you want in your future partner?! Since I have left for college, this culture has kind of changed. It's more acceptable to do this kind of dating.      We also talked about

    This week in my family relations course we talked about the characteristics of a female and male. How they are different and how they are alike. I really enjoy learning about what makes boys and girls different because, for some reason that I don't understand, the relationship between the two work together so well.      Today in class we talked about gender roles and how it effects the dynamics of a family. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little worried at the beginning of the lesson because I was prepared to hear someone say that a man can't have feminine traits and a female can't have male traits and that they SHOULDN'T. Good news! That's not how the discussion went! It was actually the opposite. We talked about this study that had been done on little kids around the age of 4 or 5. I mention how old these kids were because they are at an age where they haven't been influenced by outside forces, telling them to act a certain way because they'r