Cohabitation

People who cohabitate together are much less intimate than married couples.

-When you’re married, you become one.

-Cohabiting, you never truly give up your full-self

When those who cohabitate eventually do get married, there is a better chance that they will be getting a divorce. The relationship is much more likely to end. Violence is enhanced by nine times in a cohabitating situation towards the women and children.

There is also more likely to have issues with drug use because there aren’t the ties of the family holding people together.

Dating

Dating is not about picking a spouse or reeling one in! It’s about two people changing.

DatingàCourtshipàEngagementàMarriage

Make sure you are doing a variety of activities with a variety of people.

Follow the Relationship Attachment Model—Don’t trust someone more than you know them; don’t rely on them more than you trust them; no more commitment than you can rely on them; and don’t touch more than you can commit to them. “Courtship” means trial.

Principles and Practice Strengthen the Family

         Pay your tithing, use a budget. Make sure you are disciplining yourself and using self-restraint when it comes to money. Teach members of your family the value of work and earning money. As parents we need to be teaching children how to make important money decisions and we need to do it in a way that is easy for them to comprehend. The whole family should be making contributions. We should always be trying to continue our education. Work towards home ownership.

Handling Crisis in the family

1        A-actual event

B-both the resources and responses

C-cognitions

Total--E-experience

When something does happen within the family it is important for everyone to make a positive contribution to help with the crisis. Focusing on family relations and members—connection is important. Breaking down and then rebuilding makes a structure stronger than it was before

Connect

Consider

Consult—are the ways to mend a family crisis. Always turn to the Lord.

Hanging out vs. Hooking Up

This is the idea that relationships are crafted rather than found. B. Chadwick’s idea behind this is that we would be actively looking for a right person not the right person. There are also many steps to a relationship is physical attraction, after comes similarities and interests. Things need to be somewhat consistent with each other, view points, words, thoughts and how the other person makes you feel. There is a specific definition of date; follow the three P’s:

-Planned

-Paid for

-Paired off

Dating is practicing. There are also three P’s for a father and husband:

-Provide

-Protect

-Preside

Hanging out is easy but it’s low commitment, so you should be dating a variety of people!! 

Last Two Weeks

This past week:

  

            In class we have been learning a lot about he reason that some parents do or do not want a lot of children. Research has shown that upon making that kind of family decision, parents usually go back to their own home circumstances. They look at how many siblings they have and analyze whether or not that was a good number for the family. If so they are usually inclined to have that many children (give or take one or two). If it wasn't a productive number for a healthy family parental units are generally more obligated to do something completely different. Before this research was made known to me, brother Williams asked us to talk to our neighbor and let them know how many kids we wanted in the future. Mine and my partner's responses corresponded with the research given: I wanted 3 kids (because that's what I grew up with), and she wanted 5 because of what she was raised with. It was really interesting to see the same results in the rest of my classmates as well.

One Week Ago:

We discussed a lot about the individual roles of a mother and father. In doing this we read the article "Trading Your Mind For a Mop," in this we were able to recognize as a class that when you become a mother, it's not just cooking and cleaning that you do, but things more important than that. As mothers we rear children in the right direction and prepare a better generation. The role of a mother is important.

Family Under Stress

   I gained a new perspective this week. Through looking at my family and comparing it to others that are in my home ward, or even just different families that live in my neighborhood back home--I realize how easy we have it. I have often taken that for granted and I think that it is important that I am trying to help not only the people in my family, but the families around me. We learned this week how even if one individual in the family system is having a hard time with something, that it affects the whole family. A father who has just lost his job for example. Or maybe a daughter who is struggling to find herself. It really does not matter what the problem is. We just know that the entire family is affected, and that it why we really have to work on being close to one another. It's easier to get over a crisis when the family is knit closely together.

Intimacy

     This past week we have been learning a lot about physical intimacy. It was kind of weird for me at first because that specific part of physicality I usually don't discuss with an entire classroom. But as we went on through this past week with all of our with the discussions, I realized how intercourse between a husband and wife is not only a physical thing--but a mental and even spiritual. So it has been really interesting to hear all the stand-point and views of all the married couples in Family Sciences. They have helped me to realize how sex truly isn't a bad thing; not even close. Physical intimacy kept within the law of God is positively beautiful, and we need to respect it.

Relationships

This past week I have been learning more about my future relationships than I though I would ever know at present. I have really been intrigued by all the steps and levels there are in in just one relationship. Mostly I am talking about friendship to marriage. At the beginning of this week I was totally skeptical... How can you live love by the book? It doesn't work that way; but by listening and actually hearing with intent of finding truth I have been able to see some pretty strong guidelines for what I should be looking for in a spouse and in those that I date. Reading about all of the things we have been doesn't mean that every relationship I have is in a book, but by reading about different scenarios and the difference between "Dating and Hanging out," I have a better idea of what to look for.

So Many things I have Learned this Week!!

This last week I have learned so much about relationships and how to develop them. Through listening and taking notes in class I have begun to see what I can do to improve my relationships. I have really learned some important things about the beginning middle and final stages of a relationship. I have learned about the "3 P's" of Dating:

Planned
Paid for
Paired-off

As well as many other things I really liked learning about the stages of a relationship. Like how courting is different than dating. Even though that seems obvious it is often forgotten. I learned about how when there is a problem with a relationship, you shouldn't just throw it away with a divorce. You need to truly work hard to fix it.

Family System's Project Visual

Same-sex Attraction

   This week we talked a lot about same-sex attraction. It really strengthened the opinions that I already have. Often the words "gay" and "lesbian" are used to title someone with same-sex attraction. I think it is so important that we don't put those labels on people. So often "gay" is used as a noun. It's an adjective. We don't need to go around called a white person white, we don't need to state that a black man is black, and we shouldn't go around defining a person as a whole by just one of their attributes. Some of the nicest and most genuine people I have ever met have same-sex attraction. And though I don't necessarily agree with what they think or do, it does not give me the right to give them a label and stay away from them. God loves all of his children and it's not up to me to judge anyone.

Immigrant

    I have noticed some pretty cool this about this last week. My mind has been open to new ideas. Mainly to the immigration of families. I use to be totally closed off to the idea of illegal immigrants coming the the US. I thought that for no reason should ANYONE be coming here without the consent of the law. I didn't necessarily categorize  all people who came here without a visa or papers, but I din't really think well of them either. This week I have learned more about the "WHY" people want to come here and how hard it really is when they do come. For one person to cross the border it usually takes an average of 4,000 dollars. That's a big commitment if you were to have say a family of five. That's a ton of money. It has also occurred to me this week that the people who come here from places like Mexico are generally very good people and very hard workers. And that maybe they were prompted to come to America more so that they could here of the gospel and be taught of Christ's teachings. This week I have really learned to not pass judgment so quickly against illegal immigrants.

CHILDREN

           I have learned so many important things about the family in class this week! I think the one thing that stood out to me most of all though, was when Brother Williams had the discussion with us about quantity of children within a family. I have always been a little upset with the stereotype that all Mormon families are HUGE. Until this week. This week I learned that it is O.K. to have big families. The earth isn't going to run out of resources, new spirits in the world won't be a detriment to life as it already is, and I now realize that Heavenly Father has made this earth to bring all of his children into it to obtain tangible bodies. Why wouldn't he make enough room for those bodies to fit? It just makes sense that we should have as many children as we see fit. regardless of what the world thinks.

First post? Not too hard.