Marriage and Family - Protecting your team

   Parenting is a very beautiful opportunity and privilege. Sadly, in today's world it is often overlooked or is simply dismissed as difficult and not worth while. But, in class this week we discussed some wonderful ideas of how to deal with some of the 'difficult' parts of parenting, such as discipline and teaching. And the purpose of parenthood.    Some of the purposes our class came up with were as follows: 1. Learning to become like God 2. Responsibility 3. You can begin to change the world, based on how you raise the children in your home 4. Support Network 5. Physical Safety  6. Own Community  7. Disciple Training  8. Sense of Belonging    After listing off these purposes and benefits of being parents we addressed the two main ways the world teaches us the parent: 1. Reward 2. Punishment Although these can sometimes sound reasonable and like they make sense they are actually incorrect ways of parenting. There is a better way to approach te

   In today's world we seem to have things very backwards. We discriminate against men and tell them how unimportant they are, and that they are only important when they are bringing money in, besides that they should stay out of the way. However, we are encouraging woman to leave the home and to embrace manly habits and careers, and telling women to lose their femininity. Both of these are dangerous misconceptions that are not healthy for the family.    In class this week we discussed the dangers and downsides of having a two-income family. In the beginning, it might sound great. But there other variables we need to keep in mind.    Here is an example. A families father was bringing home $42,000. The mother decided she wanted to go to work to help bring in some more money and help provide. Her income was about $22,000. Now this sounds great at first. But there are new expenses we need to add, due to the mothers absence in the home. 1. If there are children, she's not there

   "Communication: the act or process of using words, sounds, signs, or behaviors to express or exchange information or to express your ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc., to someone else." In class we discussed how words are not the only form of communication, but are often mistaken as the most important and most common form of communication. But the truth is, words are often the most misinterpreted form of communication. 14% of communication comes from our words. 35% of communication comes from our tone. 51% comes from non-verbal communication.    In today's world we are bombarded with communication 'boulders'. We have email, text, snap chat and so forth which allow us to send an instant message to another, but only through our words. People read into our messages too much and can become easily offended if you use correct grammar and punctuation, but not emojis and abbreviations.     So we progressed a little and have things like Skype and face time. Although yo

    This week in class we discussed the one thing everyone tries to avoid: stress. However, stress does not equal crisis and the end of a family. It is our responses to stress that either help us to grow or destroy us. A stressor is anything that puts strain on a person or the family. Whereas a crisis is when that stressor takes over and recovery is long gone.     An interesting system we discussed in class in the ABCX theory. A being the actual event or stressor that occurred. B being both resources available and responses (faith, community, family). C being cognition or the way we think about the problem. And lastly X being the total experience or outcome. This theory is what determines weather a stressful event will either tear the family apart or be a wonderful opportunity for them to grow and better connect with one anther.    Stress is actually a very beautiful thing and the body has been created with a wonderful built in protection system. This system is known as the limbic s

   This week in class was very interesting to me. I walked away with many questions and many new insights. In today's society we have a problem. A problem of infidelity. People aren't always loyal to their spouses anymore, the world has become filled with silver lined distortions causing confusion and havoc on marriages.    Why would this be? It's because we have distorted so many other things about healthy relationships and how we get attached to people. In the RAM model there are five forms of attachment: Know, Trust, Rely, Commit, Touch. In a healthy relationship a person should build these five things in that order. They should know the person first, and get to know them really well. As they get to truly know them, trust begins to fall into place, followed by relying, and so on. However, in today's society we have gotten it out of wack and backward. Often times touch is one of the very first models that is developed. On average a junior in college will go on one d

   Marriage is another dying trend in our society. Instead of the traditional, get married, then have sex, and make a family it has become a jumbled up mess. Where one night stands are a common thing, and cohabitation is the newest trend. When the fact is this is actually detrimental to the family. However, not only all this disloyalty and unwillingness to commit is killing the marriage trend. It's the whole 'wedding day celebration' that has been blown out of proportion, making the beginning of marriage a nightmare.    Marriage used to be all about becoming a family, uniting yourselves together as a team and partnership for life and the hereafter. But due to advertising and needing to be seen as popular and rick the wedding day has become a great cause for debt. The average marriage in America today costs between $27,000-$38,000. Couples used to get married young, however, I don't see many young adults walking around with that much money easily accessible to them. So