Family Crisis

Everyone deals with challenges differently and it all depends on how you do that determines how the challenge affects you. This week we talked about crisis and how families deal with it. Some people may look at a struggle as a big crisis while others may look at it as a small thing. It is all based on how you handle it and your other circumstances. We learned about the ABCX family crisis model. This is the actual event, the resources and your application, and cognition all adds up to the total experience that you have. Stressor events bring about a family crisis. The events are not sufficient to cause serious problems, but it is important to know the kind of events can cause a family crisis. There are different types of stressor events. They are categorized into internal and external. The internal stressor events are events that begin from someone inside the family, such as getting drunk, suicide, or running for election. The external events that begin from someone or something outside the family, such as earthquakes, terrorism, the inflation rate, or cultural attitudes toward women and minorities. The internal stressors are normative, ambiguous, volitional, chronic, cumulative. The external stressors are non-normative, non-ambiguous, non-volitional, acute, isolated. All of the stressors can be handled in a ways that make it easier for you and your family to handle. It is important to keep perspective and know that your trial will be just a moment in the grand scheme of things. If you just keep perspective, be flexible, and do what you can to take everything one step at a time and support the other people in your family.

Sex Education

Teaching your children about intimate relations can be very important. You don't want your children to learn from their peers and be misinformed. You want your child to know your stance on intimate relations outside of marriage. I am going to speak from my stance now, so I'm sorry if you don't agree. I would want to teach my children of the importance of sex and how sacred it is and should be shared between a husband and wife. The world looks at it as a recreation. It is important to talk about it with your children so they don't look at it as a bad thing. Let your children hear it from you and not their health teachers or students first. You can practice with your spouse how to share the information with your children, let them ask questions, invite them to share their thoughts, and avoid euphemism. 

We also learned about infidelity. The words we thought about when we heard "high fidelity" (related to music) was truth, loyalty, purity, warmth, multi sensual, and interactive. This can relate to relationships too. Infidelity is actually very easy to fall into. Some forms of infidelity are pornography, fantasizing about another person, and romantic relations with another. Other forms of infidelity include putting anything above God, same-sex, sexting others, dishonesty, confiding in friends, impure thoughts about others, lusting after others, some romantic novels or romantic movies. We should be very careful of infidelity.  

Newly Weds

There are many challenges to the first few years of marriage. The big one is traditions. It is hard to start making your own traditions, deciding which traditions to go with, and deciding which families to see during the holidays. It is hard to decide which family and or whether you'll stay and develop your own traditions. It is also hard to decide which traditions to create especially if both spouses come from a different cultural background. It is hard for spouses to get used to their new roles and responsibilities. Money is often a big thing couples disagree on. Getting used to living with each other and sharing everything can be difficult for some people. The sleeping arrangements can be a hard thing to get used to. In-laws can be hard to deal with, but it takes a lot of patience and it can be a way to solve problems together as a couple. Dividing responsibilities is one thing that couples have to learn in the the first few months of marriage. We also learned in class that when couples have children, their marital satisfaction goes down with each one. Having children can cause the parents to grow more distant because of many factors, but couples can mostly avoid this if they stay close, take time for one another, talk about their feelings, and work out problems together.

LOOOVE!

This week we talked a lot about love and dating. I learned about the selection process and how people choose who to date. People look at physical attraction, similarities, accessibility (meaning close to where you live), and propinquity. When looking for a life partner, people look at age, race/ethnicity, religion, and education. There are different types of love. Storge is found in affection between parent and child. Philia is the type of love that exists between friends. Agape is a love that is independent of one's feelings for another such as to care for the well-bing of a person whether you like them or not. Eros is love between men and women. We talked about which of these types of love were important in a marriage and came to the conclusion that it is important to have all of these types of love in a successful and happy marriage. We also talked about how people sometimes mistake being in love or being attracted to someone because the experience misattribution of arousal. This is when different emotions can produce similar kinds of physical arousal. You can mistake certain emotions that have similar symptoms to the emotion you believe you're feeling. People tend to be more attracted to someone when they are scared or excited. Their emotions are high and produce butterflies, sweaty palms, and nervousness just like attraction can do. I found that very interesting. Basically, don't go to a haunted corn maze with a guy;) You may be tricked into believing you like him based on that experience. haha Another thing I learned is that cohabitation is not a successful way to try out what marriage will be like without being married. Most people who cohabit before marriage are not as happy and often end in getting a divorce. Married couples are found to be happier, less depressed, and have higher levels of commitment to the relationship  than cohabitation partners. Don't believe me? Look into it. Look at the statistics. I don't recommend cohabiting with someone.

Same Sex Attraction

This week, we talked about same sex attraction. Some people believe that people are just born lesbian or gay. That is not the case at all. Each of us had a specific gender even before we were born. It is a part of our eternal identity. It's hard for me to believe that God would put people in the wrong body. Then He would cease to be God because he would not be perfect. If you believe in God, then I hope you agree with me on that. No one is born attracted to their same gender. Just because some girls play with trucks and some boys play with Barbies, doesn't mean they are gay or lesbian. The environment is a big factor in a child's life. I watched a documentary made about guys that were attracted to their same gender and moved away from that. They all had things in common. For each of them, when they acted on their attractions, they felt happy. They realized it was only temporary. Their childhood environment he relationship with their parents were both factors in their homosexuality. I am going to base what I say off of the documentary. They talk about boys specifically so I will too. A wounded sense of gender is one factor of homosexual feelings. For example, when boys aren't accepted by other boys, it is hard to feel a part of that group. They have a low self esteem an they feel misplaced. Another factor is bullying. A boy/man would detach from other boys when there is bullying going on. This is especially true if the bullying comes from within the family. Parent relationships are often a factor too. The men in the documentary had some sort of father hunger. They were in some ways disconnected with their father whether physically or emotionally. They form a deeper connection with their mother without the male figure in their life. There is also "mother confusion". When the father figure is not there, it is easy for the mother to connect with the son so deeply, but also be smothering or getting over involved. Another factor is inappropriate touch or lacking touch at all. All of these men were sexually abused at one point in time. This contributed to their feelings. Pornography was also a factor. Pornography can enforce some of the imagery that might come along with homosexual feelings. It can also introduce thoughts and feelings that weren't there before. These factors can lead to same sex attraction. People aren't born that way. Often times people don't want to have these feelings. All of these factors lead to a misunderstanding in feelings and if understood, can help a person understand why they feel the way they do and find a solution.

Culture and Gender Differences

This week, we discussed culture. We decided as a class that culture is more important than race when getting statistics for research. Culture is what traditions you grew up with and beliefs that make you who you are. Just because you are a certain race, does not mean you have the same culture as other people of your race. That should not be a determining factor of your culture. For a homework assignment, we had to watch a video about whether there was a difference between men and women. This was a old program done by abc news. They interviewed a few women rights advocates and they were very opinionated in this subject. They say that of course there are no differences between men and women and think they should have equal rights. When the interviewer mentioned things that plainly proved men and women are different, they somewhat slightly admitted it and then quickly dismissed it. The program went on to show how boys and girls act differently from the time they are born. They react differently to situations and then they are older, they even play differently. The women that were interviewed said that children acted a certain way because of the way we raise them. They said that we raise them to fill those gender characteristics and the children just think that is how they are supposed to act so they do. The tests that were performed and showed, proved otherwise. In my opinion, of course men and women are different. They are genetically different, we have different hormones and different abilities. Women can't do some things that guy can. Face it! Guys can't do some things that girls can. It is not something we should be offended by or ashamed of. We should embrace this fact and use it to our advantage. It is not sexist to admit these things. I'm not trying to belittle anyone. I am just giving fact. We are build differently, see things differently, sometimes learn differently, and have different roles in family life. I think that God made us differently so we could learn to rely on each other and form a closer bond within the family. Men's weaknesses can be assisted with women's strengths and visa versa. I don't believe that having weaknesses makes  you weak. It keeps you humble and gives you opportunities to rely on the Lord. Equal rights between men and women do not mean that we are the same.
On other note....
My Parenting class is reading Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn. I suggest reading it. I am still formulating my opinions of his ideas on parenting, but we have some great debates in class about what he says. It is an interesting read and I would be curious to see what y'all think about it. I could make another blog just on ONE topic in his book.

Parenting Class

In this post, I want to talk include things I learned in my Parenting class. I hope my professor won't mind. I am going to ask him if I can continue to do this, but I just love all of the things I learn in my Parenting class and want to share it with y'all. To start off, I will talk about a few things I learned in my Family Relations class. For a homework assignment, I watched an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond called "The Gift". I was so excited to watch it because I find this show entertaining and I used to watch it with my dad. I think one reason I  find this show interesting is because of the family dynamics that I am not used to. The parents of Raymond have a love-hate relationship. They joke around a lot in ways that normal families would probably find very hurtful. Raymond and his wife always feel obligated to please the Ray's parent and are not completely honest with them. Ray's brother, Rob, is always fighting for attention with the parents and is always in a competition with Raymond. Overall, I don't think it is a very healthy family relationship, but hey! It provides for good entertainment, right? Whatever works for the entertainment industry. Hopefully people don't watch it and think that families should look like that. :P Well, while I observed the relationships in the show, I noticed how harmful it can be to have sibling rivalries. For some, it is just a playful thing that kids will grow out of, but often it can grow into something far more serious. Sibling rivalries cause problems as the children grow older. The siblings can grow distant and become bitter against each other. I feel like sibling rivalries can somewhat be avoided if the parents don't allow it to become an issue. Based on what I have observed, sibling rivalries are usually caused by children trying to impress their parents. They want to feel loved and good enough. If parents give the impression that one child is better than the other or seem more interested in one child's activities, the other child or children will work against that child to one-up them. It can cause a lot of tension in the home. Something seemingly trivial as that can and should be avoided before it becomes a bigger problem. 

In my parenting class, I learned about personalities and different temperaments of children. I watched some videos on YouTube that are called BBC Child Of Our Time- The Big Personality Test. I found these videos very cool to watch. It shows the different personalities of the children participating in this big test. The researcher follow the children up until they are ten and see how they developed their personalities and temperaments and how they have played a role in their life. I won't go into lots of detail, but I highly recommend watching the videos. Just look them up on YouTube. The personalities that they talked about in the videos were openness, agreeableness, contentiousness, extraversion, and neuroticism. You can take a test to see your personalities and how high or low you are in these areas here http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/ 

I learned that it is important to know the personalities of your children are so that you can better accommodate them. All children learn differently and react differently. It is hard to relate to and connect with your child if you don't understand how they are viewing the world. When you understand more about your child, you will be able to help your child in those areas where they need more help or encouragement. Get to know your children better. Have one on one conversations with them. Take time to spend an afternoon with them. Let them know you care about them and take an interest in their life. Don't just let them know, though. SHOW them. Actions speak louder than words. 

Thanks for reading! 'Til next week.