Divorce and Blending Families

Boys have a harder time with divorce than girls do.

• Most of the time the mom's get full custody
• boys have more aggression
• it takes longer for them to adjust
• boys hold things in and don't express it very well

On average, kids ages 12-15 whose parents are divorced, the father will live 400 miles away.  These can be for many reasons, but the most common are because of:

• work
• new relationships
• new start

There is a study that has said that 70% of couples think that they could have worked out through their marriage 2 years after the divorce.  For blending families, it takes on average 2 years of normalcy to finally set in.  The birth parent should be the discipline of the heavy stuff, and the step/adoptive parent should be more of an uncle or an aunt.

Purpose of Parenting

Parents are meant to protect and prepare children to survive and to thrive.  There are four main points that need to happen in parenting.  First there is courage.  This is necessary to have in parenting their children.  The next is responsibility.  I really liked how my teacher split the word into response.ability.  We need to have the ability to have a response.  There are a few different parts of responsibility including choices, natural consequences, and logical consequences (1 too dangerous, 2 too far in the future, and 3 if it affects others).  The next is cooperation.  I thought it was interesting because my teacher talked about how it is important to let kids work out their arguments so they can learn how to cooperate.  The last part is respect.  We need to respect our children if they are to respect us.  They learn through example.  It is also important to remember that children understand the tone of the different words that are being said.

Fathers and Finances

In class this week we talked about the differences between work and recreation.  It was interesting to learn that during the time of Adam and Eve, all the way until the Industrial Revolution, working together was the way of life.  They had to learn how to work together and get some major perseverance in the family.  The mother and father had to teach their kids, become parents, and were all about building.  After the Industrial Revolution, the Dad is gone 60+ hours a week, mom is more fragmented with all of the at home responsibilities, and children who used to be contributors but are now consumers.

The benefits of working together are patience, understanding each other better, be more open with each other, fall into the different roles, laughter, and having fun together.  There are also dual earners, which just means the mother and the father are working.  It is difficult in all sorts of situations.  The children are put into daycare which gives the care, time, and parenting to the sitters.  The household duties are also put all onto the children or get really behind.  I liked this quote from an old man in this story who said, "You can buy anything in this world with money."  The old man in this story is Satan.  I think that people don't need money to be happy, and money definitely doesn't find true love.

We also talked about finances in class.  The law of sacrifice should be a constant in the home.  The booklet that we were introduced to "One for the Money, Guide to Family Finance."  I actually really liked it.  There are a few different sections that are on it that I specifically liked including, regulate spending, use a budget, and pay tithing.  I know that it is important in my life that as I start my own family, I will be able to teach them early.

Communication

Communication is an essential part of everyone's lives and a part that a lot of people struggle with.  There are the people who can't communicate how they're feeling and then the people who say way too much, but it's still not what they really mean.  In this world of total confusion, I am glad that I have this class to help me sort through all of the nonsense.

In class I learned about the communication between two different people.  There are of course thoughts and feelings on both sides of the equation because this equates to each person.  When one person is communicating something they are encoding, but then there is media that gets in the way, so when the other person tries to decode the information they have a higher chance of being wrong.  The encoding is usually done subconsciously, so we have to make sure that we check back and make sure that we understand and decode the right information.

There are three different types of communication: two are verbal which consist of the words itself, and the tone or emotion that comes out when using those words, then there is the non-verbal which could consist of gestures, face expressions, eye contact, touch, or proximity.  Out of a 100% scale, words are only 14%, tone is 35%, and non-verbal is 51%.

One of the biggest problems that happen through stress is finances which causes a lot of stresses with the family.  Another huge issues in families now is sarcasm.  Sarcasm is sending two different messages in two different directions.  One is the words and the other is tone.

Stress and Coping

In class this week we talked about the stresses in life and how to cope with them.  It was interesting for me to learn that stress in life is not always bad, it can be a good thing.  When we cope for stresses and experiences that may come into our life, we will become better prepared if those types of problems come back around.  I believe that we can even become grateful of the crisis's that we have had after they have happened, it can be one of those blessings in disguise.

The method that I learned about with stress and coping is as follows:
Actual Stressor Event
Both Resources, Responses
Cognition
________________________
Total EXperience

ABC will eventually give us the end result of X.  There is the possibility of learning from our mistakes and stressors and cognitively seeing it as differently.

Stressors can pull at families which leads to people coping with different outlooks:

• drugs or alcohol
• religion
• avoiding the problem
• self blame or blaming on others

The most important aspect that I have learned from this class is to be involved with the children and be very open with communication.

Sexual Intimacy

In class today we talked about sexual intimacy and how important it is within a marriage.  We talked about a lot of the physiology and it was definitely interesting to say the least.  A lot of people I think were afraid to talk about it because it is such a taboo in our culture, especially when not married.  I don't really understand this at all because I feel like it can be such a beautiful aspect that is in our lives.  We learned marital intimacy needs relaxation, comfort, and love.
There are many things that are different in the physiology between a man and a woman.  The boys are a lot faster in many different aspects where the woman is a lot slower.  We also learned that boys sexual peak is 18-19 years old and a girls sexual peak is 30-35 years old.  This can cause several problems.  A woman usually wants to feel safety and confidence are needed to have sexual intimacy.  A man usually wants physical intimacy in order to be closer with their spouse.  Some challenges that can arise from this are communication and timing.  There are some opportunities that can come from this also including learning sacrifice for your spouse, the peaks will start to extend, and the relief of stress.  The best love making is when we sacrifice for each other and think about the wants and needs of our spouse.

What is LOVE?

As I have said before, I am engaged to a wonderful man named Andrew.  I love this man with my whole being and I am so proud and thankful that he entered my life and become so much apart of it.  This week in class, we learned about marriage and the different types of love.  There are several different types of love that were mentioned in class.  There are four different types to describe the word love.  The first is agape which means love or true love.  The second is eros which means passionate love, with sensual desire and longing.  The third love is philia which means affectionate regard or friendship.  And the last love is storge which means affection in regards to parents to offspring.

While learning about these different types of love, all I could think about is that I want all of those types of love in my life.  Not necessarily all from one person, but throughout my life I want to have all of those types of love.  With my soon to be husband, I want to have agape, eros, and philia.  I want Andrew to be my best friend, to love on me physically, and to be my true love.  So far, Andrew has been everything that I could have imagined, with the things that we can do now.  When we are married I know that the other part of love will be fulfilled too.  The part that I am most excited for is storge.  I watch my sister, brother in law, and nephew, and they are so much in love with him.  They would do anything for him and I can't wait to feel that way as well.  I have really enjoyed reading about love and everything that goes along with it.