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.

How to Avoid the "Baby Blues"

          During class this week we discussed the effect that children have on the common marriage within the United States. What is interesting is that when the first child is born and every subsequent child who follows actually brings with it a decrease in the amount of marital satisfaction that a couple shares. This information was very interesting to me because being raised in the LDS faith, i have been taught since the can remember that children are what brings true happiness to a family and was led to believe that if your marriage is struggling that a child would help to strengthen it. Before i go on i need to clarify that it is not a doctrine of the church that in order to fix a faltering marriage one should have a child; this was just an idea that was popular in the Mormon culture in my area. The statistics and research on this topic have been extremely interesting to me because they show that for the general population, having a child is not a good way to save a marriage.
            Generally speaking, marital satisfaction takes a dramatic down turn for most couples after having there first child. After the birth of the first child, marital satisfaction tends to level out a little bit as the couple becomes accustomed to having this new addition into their family and the new responsibilities it brings. Then comes the birth of the second child and with it, another drop in marital satisfaction. This pattern tends to continue until there are no new children brought into the family. At this point, the couples marital satisfaction levels out at this lower level for a long and consistent period of time which typically lasts until the first child leaves the home to go off to collage or pursue other endeavors. When this first child leaves home, the couples level of marital satisfaction seems to have a sharp curve upwards, or in other words, it begins to improve or get higher than it had been in a fairly long time. This tends to happen consistently until every child has left the home. When all the children have left home the couple are now not only empty nesters but typically are experiencing as much if not more marital satisfaction than they shared within the first couple of years of their marriage before they had there first child.
           I don't know about you but when i first heard these statistics and findings i was a little nervous. i had no idea that for most couples in the United States that children actually brought with them a decrease in marital satisfaction. I don't want this to happen in my family, and thankfully, with this knowledge of what typically happens to marital satisfaction along with having children, i can prevent the drop in satisfaction from occurring.
           My solution is not to never have children, although that may seem like a very valid solution. What can be done to prevent this down turn is to know why the drops in marital satisfaction occur with each child. Typically, mothers have a giant increase in their work load which brings more stress, less sleep, less time to yourself, and less time with your spouse; Fathers find that their wife is more occupied with the little one so they can no longer spend as much quality time together, their bond with their wife has changed because there is a new "charmed circle" of mother and baby that they may not feel a part of, and they simply find it hard to relate with what their wife has gone through and is doing while in they are at work.
           Now that we can understand where some of the stress in a marriage can come from, as well as the decrease in marital satisfaction we can come up with ways of how to prevent that decrease and actually make it so that with every child born there is actually a sharp increase in marital satisfaction. my question for you is what are some of the things we can do to prevent the decrease in marital satisfaction and have a sharp increase instead? if you are married and have children, what are some things that have worked for you and your spouse or that you wish you would have done or plan to do with your next child?

Mormon Culture and Courtship

      One thing that i have always been fascinated by at BYU-Idaho is the strange cultural importance of getting married as quickly as is humanly possible. It seems like dating has lost its importance or sway and people tend to go on 2 or 3 dates and become quickly preoccupied with either their own thoughts of marriage or roommates, friends, or family members bringing up the topic of marriage to them because 3 dates shows so much promise and means so much in the area of commitment. It seems to me that people are concentrating too much on the Brethrens talks about the importance of marriage or getting married and not on their talks about courtship, dating, or finding the right person. If this truly is the case and isn't just what i am perceiving than i am worried about the problems that can stem from a line of thinking such as this.
       In class this week we learned about the importance of dating and courtship before marriage and we looked at the research on the marital happiness and satisfaction of people who dated less than three months before committing to marriage or getting married. Before i get into the research on dating i think it is important to define what dating truly is according to the brethren of the church.
      The attributes of a date and what each attribute shows according to the Brethren:
           Paired off        -       Protect
           Planned out     -       Preside
           Paid for           -       Provide
      Dating is not just hanging out in this case but is an activity that will show these three attributes. These are important because then the relationship parameters and hopes can be more clearly defined, if one is looking for a relationship, and multiple attributes and characteristics of your companion on the date can be viewed or perceived by what they do according to these three attributes. This being said, research has shown that people should typically date longer than three months, if not much longer, because after this amount of time your partners behavior in multiple situations will have been viewed by you so that you can make a more informed decision as if to marry them or not. Also, after three months typically the good face or mask begins to come off. I think we can all identify that early in a relationship we all put on our best face for the person we are dating. Typically this holds towards marriage in a short courtship, so frequently a spouse may say to him or herself, "this isn't the person i married" or "I never knew or saw this side of my partner." I want it to be clear that this is not the case for every marriage that happens after a short time of knowing someone or dating but statistics have shown that people who follow the trend of marriage stated above have a greater likelihood to end in divorce.
      The question then is what do we do about this issue or is it an issue at all? Do the brethren really push so hard for marriage that it trumps what they say about dating in members minds? Is this pattern fine for Mormons?
       I don't know the the answers to these questions but it will be interesting to see what marital trends come of these cultural trends. 
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Gender Roles and characteristics

        This week in class we talked a lot about the different roles and characteristics that male and female genders have. After looking at this list and talking with my wife about it we came to realize that there were some interesting differences between her and me. Here is the list we came up with in class.
            
            Male                          Female
        Aggressive                    Cooperative
       Competitive                       Passive
   Spacial Oriented           Relationship Oriented
     Task Oriented              More Nurturing
 Analytically Minded       Landmark Orientated
 Closed Emotionally         Emotionally Minded
                                           Detail Oriented
                                         Open Emotionally

          An important thing to consider about this list is that these characteristics are not representative of all males and females. This list only states what characteristics a large majority of the male population and female population have.
           For example, i am not a competitive person by any means. What i find myself doing more in competitive situations is egging the competitive people on and giving them a hard time because i find that kind of thing hilarious. I understand that this might not be the best thing to do but so far i haven't been beat up doing it. My wife however is extremely competitive and very aggressive on jumping on any opportunity that is presented to her. I am similar in aggressiveness but i don't jump on every opportunity in the moment until i have analyzed the pros and cons.
            My wife is very emotionally minded and open however which does lead to some pretty interesting conversations and situations because men find those situations difficult. i am also very analytically minded and task oriented whereas my wife is very detail oriented and relationship oriented.

immigration and its Affects on the Family

         This is a very interesting subject to me because i served a Spanish speaking mission in Houston Texas so i met a lot of men who had been away from there families for anywhere from 3 months to 12 years gaining money for them in America that they could send home. Many of these men loved their families but while teaching them i did notice that a lot of them had become very disconnected with their families back in central america and mexico. Some had been reunited with their families in America and even though it was a happy reunion they expressed that it was extremely difficult to live with their families again and that their kids were not as respectful or responsive to them.
          In class this week we learned more about how the family systems theory could explain why these families, even after being reunited could still be so distant. I am not going to explain the full reasoning behind the possible explanations of why this could happen but instead i am going to ask you to put yourselves in the shoes of families in these types of situations.
           What roles in the family would you assume or how would your life be different if you were a 13 year old child in mexico with two sisters and your father had been absent from the home working in america for 2 years. what if your spouse was the one who had left for america and you were left to take care of all of the children and provide for them when you didn't receive enough money from your spouse? How would it be harder to communicate with your spouse? Would talking on the phone weekly be enough to maintain a healthy relationship and the intimacy that you shared before?
            Now think after all of this time how you would act if you were reunited with your family. would it be the same? would things easily go back to the way they were, even if your family moved to america? Would it be harder?
          These are some pretty crazy questions that i had heard during my mission and in class and they got me thinking about how difficult it would be and the sacrifice that is being made by families so that they can receive the monetary support they need to survive.

Unspoken Rules and Family Roles

            This week we have been studying family systems theory and there have been a few interesting things that i found interesting in the context of my own family. Before jumping into that topic though i want to explain a little bit about what family systems theory consists of. This theory views the family as a living organism or a machine with moving and essential parts. It takes parts of the sociological theories of structural functionalism along with symbolic interactionism to help describe the roles and rules of each member of the family. In saying that each member in the family has a specific role or roles that they should perform doesn't necessarily mean that these roles are being performed or cannot be different for each family or person.
            An example of how family systems theory would portray the family could be by comparing the family to the human body. the parents could be the brain, left side and right, because they help to guide the family through certain trials and can be considered the "heads" of the family.
            One of the most interesting as well as entertaining things to do to figure out how this theory can apply to the family is to brainstorm some of the unspoken rules of your own family. Many of these rules were never written down or told to us in a family council but we learned them through breaking them and experiencing the consequences which could range from a dirty look to a painful flick on the head.
            Here are some of the unwritten rules of my family.
      1. Never open any bag or package of food without dads permission.
      2. Never ask for money, but it is always available for collage funds if you just ask. (Weird)
      3. Never ask for help.
      4. Always try and fix everything yourself before you ask for help or call a professional.
      5. The curled potato chips are for dad, then whichever ones he misses are all yours.
            Who would have thought that some of the family rules we had would be so contradictory or funny.

Myths About Family Life

                 One of the most interesting things that we studied in class this week was about the myths in family life. these myths include but are not limited to:

-the belief that we have lost the extended family

-opposites attract

-people marry because they love each other

-having children increases marital satisfaction

-happily married people don't have conflict

-half of all marriages end in divorce

                 Out of these myths there are on or two that i will go into detail to describe.
                 The first myth that i find interesting is the belief that half of all marriages end in divorce. Many people believe this myth because they continually hear divorce rate statistics and believe that these statistics are derived from the amount of divorces that occur out of the total married population. The reality is that the divorce rate is actually found by dividing the number of divorces that happen in one year by the number of marriages that took place in that same year. For example, if someone were to take the 2011 divorce rate statistic at face value they would find that according to that statistic 49% of all marriages end in divorce when the reality is that this number only says that of the total number of marriages that took place, there were about half as many divorces in that same year. i guess the divorce rate is as representative of divorce as Twinkies representing healthy eating habits. 

                 The second myth that really interested me is the myth that having children increases marital satisfaction. I have heard this myth multiple times throughout my life but have always been skeptical because i know that my 2 brothers, 3 sisters and I raised a lot of hell for my parents and most likely did not bring only happiness to their lives at points.Ii realize that by using only my family life as an example is a poor indicator of this belief being a myth but research has also shown that marital satisfaction tends to decrease after having children and then tends to increase after children have left the home. This being said, I have to admit i am an advocate of having children and i myself would like to raise children with my wife. I believe that if a family has strong values about family time, activities, and other things that help bring the family together, as well as having an open line of communication; then children can bring not only much happiness but can provide many opportunities to help one grow intellectually, mentally, and spiritually. 

My Beautiful Wife and Me