The Aging Family

           This post talks about the aging family. i actually have more questions than i have information. here are my questions for you.
           People get old. it just happens. but the question that i wanted to present was what you plan on doing with your own parents when they reach their senior years. do you plan on placing them into a nursing home or an assisted living apartment complex? do you plan on having them move in with you so you can take care of them? or do you plan on working on your "granny dumping" skills and dropping them off at wal-mart during the day so that the wal-mart employees have to take care of them? sadly enough that last one does happen.

Divorce and Blended Families

       For this blog post i am going to concentrate on the importance of creating a strong bond and relationship with your new/step children if you are a step parent who has recently re-married. if you are in this situation it is definitely a difficult one because i am sure that you are coming to realize if you haven't already that you and your new spouse have different expectations for how your children should be raised, disciplined, or even rewarded or congratulated for things that they do. one of the most common fears of step parents is overstepping their bounds and sabotaging the relationship that they have with their step children unknowingly or accidentally. if this is a concern of yours here are 4 points to take into consideration that can help give you guidance in this situation.
 
 1-take at least 2 years to reach an understanding of normalcy with your step children.
             -this means that instead of coming in and being a heavy disciplinarian right away as you come into the home, you should talk with your spouse about you being the disciplinarian for your children and your spouse for his/hers. this will allow you to establish a good relationship with your step children instead of being seen as a person who jumped into the role of disciplinarian and has become seen as only an authoritarian parent. what is meant by normalcy is that you are consistent in how you interact with your step children and your own children so that they can get to know you for your personality, humor, likes and dislikes, so their is less ambiguity.
   2-the biological parent has to be the heavy disciplinarian of his/her own children at first.
                -the reasons for this are explained above.
   3-the step parent needs to take the role of an amazing uncle or aunt. this means they need to be supportive and show warmth with the mom/dad and stepchildren.
   4- time must be taken to discuss and address the role of the parent and step parent in multiple situations.

        if you have any other suggestions please feel free to comment so that i can learn more about this topic myself. thanks.

Parenting

          this week in class we learned about parenting and the importance of parenting as well as what to expect and how to do a decent job with it. this is a pretty important topic because a lot of people let themselves be driven crazy by children or get stressed out of their minds thinking about having kids of their own. but here are a few points that hopefully can make parenting a less daunting task.

   -parent responses should be need based not behavior based (most children will act out because they feel that they are getting a lack of attention or recognition. its their way of fighting back and trying to get you to notice them.)
   -all people as well as children need some type of verbal, physical, or eye contact of some type so that they can understand that they are important and have a sense of belonging. (show them that you care about them by respectfully listening to them and validate what they say, take time out of your day just for them)
    -most kids act out disobediently or in an annoying way to get attention, contact or recognition of some sort.
    -teach kids the consequences of their actions and make sure the consequence is directly tied to the action. . . dont punish a child for painting on the wall by making him mow the lawn. make him clean the wall.

              here is a model to understand how children act to get contact and belonging in an incorrect way (mistaken approach) and how you can help your child to steer away from that and maybe even not act out much at all (wise parenting)

                                   Contact and Belonging
Mistaken Approach                                        Wise Parenting
*undue attention seeking                                 *offer contact freely
   -misbehavior                                                    -within appropriate bounds
   -substance abuse, ect.                                       -as accepted by child
                                                                        *teach to contribute
                                                                            -chores, help at home
                                                                            -young men/young women, scouts, sports teams
                                                                            -always encourage to help the family/family member

                If you have any comments or advice on parenting for my wife and i that would be great to. we dont have children and it would be nice to have an idea of what to expect and get some advice from people with other family experiences when growing up or present family experiences that are different from ours.

The Importance of Fathers

            One of the things that i have noticed is that peoples conceptions of fathers are only centered around the idea that they are to be the providers for the family. many people see the home as the womans domain where she has the most influence and outside the home as the fathers. because of this people do not really know what a father should do at home or why it is important for him to be there in the first place. here is part of some research that i did on the importance of fathers and their presence in the home as well as the aspects of them being nurturers.

From the research that I studied there were five facts that I found interesting concerning the role of fathers in the raising and nurturing of their children. One research finding showed that a father’s ability to nurture his children helps to improve psychological well-being as well as the self-worth in his children (Rosenburg & Wilcox, 2006). This finding shows that fathers are not only important in providing for their children monetarily, but also by spending time with them and nurturing them.

It has also been found that nurturing fathers provide children with a correct and healthy form of masculinity that they can model or look for later in life (2006). This finding shows how important it is for a father to be around his children, especially his sons early in life so that they can have a proper model after which they can identify correct behavior for how they should act later in life. For daughters this is extremely important to have a nurturing father in the home because through their interactions with him they will be able to have a healthy and correct idea of what kind of behavior they can or should expect from a male friend, boyfriend, and spouse. This finding coincides with other research that found that by providing a healthy form or model of masculinity, fathers help protect their daughters from seeking premature romantic and sexual attention and other relationships from men (2006).

 Studies suggest that fathers who respond calmly when their “children misbehave, get upset, or otherwise lose control have children who are more popular, boys who are less aggressive, and girls who are less negative with their friends” (2006, section 4.3). In this area fathers provide an essential role in providing their children with a model of how to handle different problems and situations in their lives and what actions are appropriate. The research has also shown that fathers need to “accentuate the positive” when interacting with their wives and frequently show affection for them with children present (2006). For many men who have grown up without a father in the home it is extremely difficult for them to know how to treat a spouse and improve a relationship. 

 please feel free to comment if you have found any other research about the importance of a fathers role in the lives of his family and children. 

Communication Within Marriage

There is a lot of research out there on the importance of communication on marriage that you may have read. the most well known to those i have talked to have been John Gottman, Mark Chamberlain, Sue Johnson as well as other. because so much has been studied on this topic and so many people focus only on the means of communicating instead of the emotions behind the words i think i will talk about the importance of being open with your emotions to your spouse. expressing emotions seems to be extremely easy for girls if you are a man, and if you are a man most of us have been told or taught since early in life that if we show any emotion that exhibits weakness than we are wusses, weak, or even stupid or just making a fool of ourselves. this definitely sets men back quite a bit if they want to approach and try to use this skill, but the learning curve can be steep i have learned.
to really resolve an issue in marriage or to be able to understand one another on a deeper level, it is essential that we understand the emotional ties that each-other have on certain issues and towards one another. in Councillor they teach the councilor how to reflect emotion. most men can learn how to do that pretty well, but to express emotion is something different. when we express emotion we are making ourselves vulnerable to the other person. this is scary but it can have incredible effects.
if we share our emotion with our spouses and express if something hurt us or how something makes us feel we can connect with our partner on a deeper, less superficial level. now the important part is not to go out and yell and scream about everything, because anger is usually not the primary emotion, but what causes anger is usually fear, sadness, and hurt. if we keep this in mind we can learn to really connect and find out what is really troubling us or our spouse.

Family Crisis

This week in class we learned about the family crisis process. The process follows the ABCX model which is. . .

    Actual event
    Behavioral response
    Cognitions (thoughts/thought process)
    total eXperience

The family crisis process is extremely important to be able to identify with if a family crisis is to be understood as well as resolved or taken in the right way. dont get me wrong, people can handle and have handled family crises without any knowledge of this model, but it is helpful to use. What this model helps a person to do is to look past the actual even and the behavioral responses that most people get caught up on. i know for myself, when i look back at tough times in my family and even times of crisis, i remember that i tended to judge people very harshly only off of my knowledge of what happened during the crisis, and how a few people acted. what i have since learned is that if i do my best to take into account what others are thinking and what i myself and thinking during the crisis and how my thinking affects my actions and the actions of others, i can understand the total experience of the crisis in a much more complete way. i also am able to empathize with the people most affected by the crisis and forgive any rash behaviors that they perform because i can understand a little bit more about what they are thinking and feeling leading up to the behavioral response.

now i am no psychic or x-man but i have been working at this a lot in my own family and feel like i have been able to improve significantly after having learned this model and put it into practice. My family growing up and my family now has been strangely fortunate to be able to handle some crises fairly well and only a few pretty dang horribly. but my question is, why do some couples come out of a crisis so well and others so terribly? What makes the difference?

Sexual Intamacy

          This week in class we discussed the topic of sexual intimacy within a relationship and its importance and functions. One of the most interesting things that i learned during this weeks lessons was about some of the reasons and biology behind why men and women would desire sexual relations at certain times in their marriage.
            It has been found in research that men typically would enjoy having sexual relations with their partner with the purpose in mind not just of gratification but with the goal of becoming closer to their partner both physically and emotionally. It seems to be a way to fulfill a sense of attachment that is desired for men so that they may be able to become more united with their spouse when they don't feel so close at that moment. now what is very interesting is that the typical women in the studies done on this subject have desired sexual relations with their spouse only after they feel comfortable enough and close enough to be able to be intimate with them.
             From this is can be seen why men can be seen as always wanting sex, even during a time of struggle in the marriage. I find it fascinating that men have desires for sexual relations with the goal of closeness in mind when women would desire to have these relations only after they feel safe enough and close enough with their partner to trust them. its no wonder why sexual relations can become an area of conflict for couples.