The Most Important Unit

This week we talked about what it is a child needs. It was such a good conversation because it discussed some of the basic needs that children need. Some of those being connection, belonging, & physical touch. This leads me to the question. How to we help children feel like they belong? I think part of helping children belong is letting them know that they are part of the family and they to have a responsibility. Obviously children don’t have to provide for the family and make sure things are running smoothly. But there are little things we can do to help children feel like they belong. Some ideas are:  Let the kids choose the menu:  allowing children to choose what is on the menu. But be creative. This doesn’t mean children get to choose what is for dinner every night. Maybe help them come up with some ideas, and let them know what a meal looks like. Include things you would like to make sure your children get in those meals, such as: vegetables, protein, and other essent...

 What’s a topic that most people don’t often associate when it comes to family relations? Divorce. In my course we read about divorce and the impact it has on family relations. One of the first things I read was that divorce results from “irreconcilable differences”. Have you ever heard that 50% of all marriages end in divorce? Have you ever heard that the statistic isn’t true? I didn’t know that until I did my readings this week. In the last decade less than 25% of couples were actually divorced. Here is another myth. Do you think if your neighbor Sally found out her husband was cheating on her that she would divorce him right then and there? The data suggests that 63% of Americans whose partner had an affair chose to save the marriage. Crazy! These are all myths that I have been guilty of believe in. It gets better. 50% report that they have managed to create a marriage better than the one they had before the affair. From what I learn from the statistics I learn that it is possib...

 This week again proved that I am always learning something new in my family relations class. There are different communication impacts that are associated with marital decline. I believe it is important for us to be aware of what those impacts are. We want to know what the symptoms of diseases are so we should want to know what the causing factors of marital decline. Some of those factors include: negative affect, negative affect reciprocity, wife reciprocates husbands neg. affect, high structure, interpreting messages more negatively, and withdrawal. Here are the factors that are associated with stable and positive marriages: husbands who give in to wife (sometimes), husbands that show more affection, less anger for both partners, less whining from the husband, & high interest shown in wife. I had the thoughts of: well shouldn’t the wife give into the husband but then I realized this is the statistics we are looking at. This is what we see that associates with positive marria...

Have you ever had a stressful situation happen to your family? Where it felt like all hell broke loose? I know I have had that situation happen to me and my family before. While sitting in my Family Relations course this week I found it oddly comforting to heart that stressful situations are normal to all families. And most importantly there is a scientific way to look at the way stress occurs in families. This is called the ABCX model. The ABCX model measures how people cope with stress within the unit of a family. A represents the stressor event that happens, B is the resources that are available to the family, C is how the family views the stressor, and x is how likely the crisis is to happen. Together B and C can determine whether A will result in a crisis. The ABCX model also takes into account the "social context" and how adaptable the family is to the crisis. This tool is great to use when families experience counseling. But even more important, it is essential for all...

 I loved what we talked about in this week's class. It was also refreshing to go back to the two classes per week schedule. One thing we discussed was fidelity in marriage. I loved this topic because our professor was so open about the dangers of infidelity and how it can impact a marriage. I am not really going to pull anything from the text but rather talk about the lessons I learned from my professor. I learned and understood that couples need to avoid having a couple of things. One of those things is "couple best friends". When couples begin to get too close to other couples they begin to become too comfortable. What might start off as an innocent hangout can turn into something far more dangerous? Another thing couples should avoid is sharing their marital issues with people who are not professionals in solving marriage problems. What I mean when I say that is that it is very vital that couples are able to work out their issues. But when a woman or man shares with an...

 I want to start this blog post off by saying I am thankful for those of you who read this. I know reading about family science isn't always the first thing you think of when you have a moment to spare. I promise that what I am writing will bless you and your family! Please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments, I would love to hear about them. This week we learned about the transition into marriage. As someone who is not married yet I found a lot of this information to be helpful and it helped me be more excited for when that transition comes for me. From the discussions we had in class I realized 3 things. Marriage involves team decision-making. Second, an engagement is a great time to test a couple's ability to work as a team. Third, it is essential that the engagement process is a time of merging lives together and not simply living lives together.   Before I went to class I had to make a list of the types of challenges I would expect that a couple is likel...