End of the Semester

So today was my last class period in Family Relations and honestly I can say I learned more in this class than any of my others. This class taught me how to keep my marriage going and to keep it healthy. It taught me that hard times will come but gave me tools as how to overcome them with my spouse. From taking this class I have decided to become a Marriage and Family psychologist because I feel that there is so much that can be fixed in a family and so many things go unnoticed. I will continue to post from time to time on things that I learn in my other family classes so that everyone can know the techniques to saving, keeping, and renewing a marriage.

Divorce

I have always wondered why divorce is so common now. After taking this class and having lessons on it i now understand. One of the reasons that I feel is the main reason is allowing outside factors to come in. We talked about a situation where in an early marriage the mom let in her mother and consulted her on everything and not her husband. From that it drove a force into the marriage and that led to divorce because there was no connection. What people do not understand is that divorce really is not the answer, there are so many little things that you could change to save a marriage. A statistic that Brother Williams gave in class was the after 2 years of being divorced most said that they regretted the divorce and knew that if they had tried hard enough that they could have saved the marriage. After hearing that I really wonder why people don't try to fix it and just decide to split up a family.

Discipline

What is the right way to discipline your child? This is the question that many parents ask and few get the answer they want. Today in class we learned 6 ways to discipline that will help you effectively. First off before you begin to respond to a situations ask yourself: Who owns the problem, Parent or Child? Second, seek to allow children to learn from the natural consequences of problems. Third, exceptions where you cannot allow for natural consequences are if it is too dangerous, the consequence is not till to far in the future, and if someone else is effected. Fourth always want to provide support. Fifth, give discipline but politely. Sixth and final give logical consequence as a response. After learning this I realized that disciple is not easy and takes lots of thought and consideration. Before you discipline your child taking these 6 suggestion into account. 

Council

Councils are one of the greatest ways to keep your marriage happy, but many wonder what the Council should consist of. As we learned yesterday you should open your council by taking time to express love and admiration for one another. This is a huge step because spirit, but it also clears the hard feelings you may have for the other. prayer so that you may invite the spirit in. This is something that I know many people forget because they just want to go right ahead and get done with the meeting. Next you should prayer so that you may invite the spirit in. This also lets you invite God into your meeting so that he can guide you in the right direction. After that you should discuss to consensus regarding the Lords will. You should never just compromise because than you are just having someone give into the other instead of both of you agreeing on that needs to be done. Keeping the Lords will in mind is a huge part of having a successful council, whatever he says is what needs to happen whether you agree with it or not. Lastly you should end with another prayer and express gratitude for you the Lord. Spouses should meet like this one on one before they go and have a meeting with the rest of the family. This is important so that they are on the same page and no one is taken off guard.

Intimacy

This week in class I loved how we talked about when is the right time to talk about intimacy and how we should teach it. For children we should just tell them when the confront us on things because if we don't than the world will effect there views. I also liked how we discussed that telling kids and teenagers that it is wrong and will make you dirty is not the way to go. We should talk about how it is something sacred and should be left for marriage.

Fathers

This week the main theme I noticed was the importance of fathers. When a wife is pregnant the husband needs to be 100% attentive to her or things will fall apart. For appointments the husband should be present supporting and caring for his wife because doing so will show her that she can rely on him and trust him to come to her aid. Actually being there when the baby is born is also a huge thing the husband should be participating in because it is a strong bonding experience. Throughout the babies life there should be cooperation between the mother and husband whether its for changing diapers or getting up with the baby, no one should be doing it alone.

Dating

This week we focused on dating. I know sounds like a simple thing to learn about but I actually learned a lot more about it then I thought I would. First off there are 3 T's Togetherness, Talk and Time. Being together on everything is very important or the date does not work. Talking is a huge part of dating, if you just go to movies on a date there is no talk at all so that is best to use later after dating for awhile. Timing of everything is important! Being a college student using the dating tips I learned this week will help me with boys and understand them!