One of the most important things I learned this week was covenant vs. contract. Covenant is where the superior sets terms and the inferior accepts or declines. A contract is where two parties decide the terms together. We learned this at the beginning of the semester but coming to an end now I think it is important to be reminded. Talking about marriage in today’s society is more of a contract than a covenant. When it should be the exact opposite. Today a marriage contract is easier to get out of than a housing contract. That is crazy! Marriage is a hard thing. It is hard by design, it is not natural. When I get married I hope to have a happy marriage and have no divorce. Something that I have come to know is that generations are following their parents if there is divorce. I want to stop a cycle and keep married. 70% of people who have divorced, after 2 years think that their marriage could have been saved. So I suggest for you to wait to get divorced and see if you can fix things instead of giving up.

        We learned about blending families this week also and it was interesting because I am from a blended family and every situation is different. My dad has not adopted my three half brothers and sisters but they still call him dad. Something that I found really interesting was that some people did not know that their siblings were half. I think this is so weird because I don’t even remember wondering if they were half but I just know. I think it could be because they are white and I am Asian but I don’t really think so. It was really cool to hear someone else’s experience with blended families. I really liked this class and I feel like I have learned more than in any class before! I hope to continue learning and apply what I have learned to my life.

This section is all about parenting. What makes a good parent? Why you need parents? What do you teach as a parent? There are so many things about parenting that are vital to know and very interesting. There are three types of parenting. Authoritarian who are super strict, Permissive who are hands off, and authoritative/active who are more balanced. We learned about active parenting and some of the qualities it involves teaching as a parent. Courage, cooperation, responsibility, and respect. As parents you should strive to instill these into your children. It is a balance to help your children throughout their lives.  The Popkin videos were really beneficial to my learning about how to parent. Something that I feel really strongly about is that when it comes to the approach of parenting we need to focus on the needs of a child not the behavior.  In class there were a lot of examples given of children needing more attention and this would stop some of their thought to be annoying behaviors. This automatically made me think of my niece. I called my sister to tell her what I learned and come to find out she is taking a parenting class. This made me feel really good and we understood what each other was talking about.  There are always good approaches to dealing with behaviors but there are plenty of bad approaches also. I think that as we are trying to teach children we need to find the best possible approach. Most importantly, meet the need instead of trying to change the behavior. In the end because the need is met the behavior will then change. 

There was not a lot of class this week but there was a really thought provoking article to be read and discussed. The article was called "Does a Full-Time Homemaker Swap Her Mind for a Mop?" This article was arguing whether people who stay home with their children are wasting their brain instead of going out and having a "real" job. As I was thinking about this I came to my own conclusion to the topic. It's simple. People who stay at home with their children are not wasting their brain. Period. In fact I think they learn the same or more. Just because you are not out of the house all the time does not mean you are not learning but you are just learning different things. So for all you, just think about this and come to your own conclusion. 

I loved talking about communication this week. There are so many times where I have heard of people have communicating problems and it makes so much sense when we break it down like we do. So I learned that there are 3 different ways of communicating: Words, tone, ad non-verbal. Not only are those these three ways of communicating but there are also ways of communicating through sarcasm. Sarcasm is using words but there is an underlining to it. Between the three ways of communicating we usually take the sarcasm statement based on the tone. When using sarcasm things can be misunderstood and misread so it is important to be careful. Not only can sarcasm just be misread but even a look when communicating. Sometimes people just are super focused and people think you are mad. Something that I found super interesting was the feedback loop thing. So it first starts with thoughts/feelings that then get encoded into a message, passes through a medium, the message gets encoded by someone else and then leads to their thoughts/feelings. Then their thoughts/feelings go through the same loop and it is a continuous circle. If someone does not decode the message in the way it was meant things could turn messy and lean to problems. It is very important to look at the context and really understand what is meant.

        Power- Synonyms: manipulate, control, dominate, authority, Influence. There are many types of power. Expert power = talking with an experience base. Legitimate power = a legal kind of authority. Informational power = Telling someone if you understand this chunk of information, you will get this part. Reward power = only going to do something to get rewarded. Referent power = doing it because someone else is doing it. In a marriage there are many powers that can be used. As you carry out your life recognize the powers that you use and the strength it has. Every time I laugh when I hear reward power. As women we need to remember we hold a lot of power and to use it wisely. Recognizing theses powers we can know the motives behind someone’s behavior. 

I really liked this week’s topic of crisis because we all go through hard things and experience challenges in our life. First of all I really like learning about the ABCX model. Once it was explained it made total sense. A: the actual stressor event. B: both the resources and the reactions. C: cognition, the way you view the situation. And X: your total experience. Learning about crises I found it very interesting that 50% of times after losing a child, within 2 years it is usually a divorce. I think that everyone should learn to deal with crises so that things can end positively. When a crisis happens I like to think of the cognition part of it. When a crisis happens we usually think that certain events lead to certain emotions when that is not reality. Reality is events happen which leans to our thinking it over which then leads to our emotions. We can affect the way we think about crises according to cohesion and flexibility. If we are flexible I think that you can handle crises better. You are able to mold yourself in a way that you haven’t dealt with stuff before.  Closing I want to say a story that was told in class. There was a girl molested and the man was always asking her to forgive her. The pressure was all of the sudden put on her, Don’t put the pressure on someone else except the perpetrator. Focus should be on him. He should not be asking for forgiveness but is on his knees apologizing until you are convinced it is sincere. Tis story really stuck with me and is a tactic I never realized before. When a crises comes up in your life I know that if we try to view it positively rather than negatively than it will definitely help. 

Wow! This week I learned a lot about sexuality and intimacy. I learned the response cycle: 1) excitement 2) plateau 3) orgasm 4) resolution.  I learned that there are a lot of differences between men and women when it comes to sexual relations. For girls this cycle is very emotional. Hormones like adrenaline, serotonin, dopamine  and oxytocin are all involved. Also, when it comes to intimacy boys usually use sexuality as a way to the feel secure or safe. For girls it is the exact opposite. We need to feel safe and secure and then that leads to sexuality. I just know that when it comes time it is very important to communicate and know the physiology and psychology that comes with sexual relations. 

There are so many things that you don’t think about when you are going to get married. Even things as simple as where your medicine will go, in the bathroom or the kitchen? In class there were some questions that we answered about when we get married. These questions are very legit and things that you should think about but they never really came to my mind as important. I think that even the little things are good to talk about when you are getting married. Marriage consists of a lot of adjustments. Also, this week I learned the difference between dating, courtships, engagement, and marriage. Dating is when you go out with lots of people seeing what qualities and attributes you like until you find someone where they have them all. This leads into courtship where you exclusively date. This is where you prepare to want to marry them. Courtship is a trial to see if you are a good fit together. Next if you decided leads to engagement. Engagement is serious and taking your relationship so far to know this is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. Lastly, marriage. Committed for the rest of your life. J Something to realize with these stages is the fact that you should not slide but take steps. You can’t just slowly go from dating to courting, or courting to engaged. These things are definitely different and take a step to get to. One thing I would like to touch on is marital satisfaction. The most common years for divorce are between years 2-5. I hope that families can prevail through this time and be happy. By our choices we can change the statistics and keep going strong. 

I really loved talking about dating. The reading this week I found super interesting. The article we read related dating to a Cinderella story and found it easy to follow. A quote I loved in there that struck me was, “There are very few perfect people in the world, and if you do get lucky and find one, he or she probably won't want to marry you anyway.” I found this refreshing and blunt. I liked it. No one is going to be perfect. In class we talked a little bit about R.A.M. or relationship attachment model. Basically, there are 5 areas to a relationship in determining what is balanced and unbalanced. The order is: KNOW. TRUST. RELY. COMMIT. TOUCH.  I ordered these from biggest to smallest in the level of importance. So otherwise you should know someone more than you trust them, trust them more than you rely on them, rely on them more than you commit to hem, and commit to them more than you touch them. I think this is so great in determining a balanced relationship. When it is all out of whack you know that there is some unbalance. I am going to look at this scale more often now when it comes to relationships. Also, an interesting fact I learned was that oxytocin is an attachment chemical girls release and boys don’t. That is why we girls feel so attached when we hold hands with someone or something like that. I also liked talking about cohabitation. Something that really stuck with me was when Bro. Williams drew the diagram to cohabitation vs. marriage. In cohabitation your life starts out separate but with one another and stays separate. When you get married you decide to join first, get married, and then start a joined life together. So cohabitation starts as two lines and ends with two lines while marriage starts with two but joins to one when you get married and stays as one line. I think it is really interesting to learn about cohabitation because my sister is cohabitating and I really want what is best for her. I will pass this information along so that everyone can be more educated and make smarter choices. 

I really liked the discussions we had this week. On Monday we talked about the differences between girls and boys and their rights. Some people would say that we should raise boys and girls exactly the same but I disagree. I think boys were meant to be raised on way and girls another.  We watched a video in which girls were firefighters but could not do half of the stuff. It is just proven that girls have half the upper body strength then men. They should be treated different in that aspect. In a way by expecting girls to be the same as boys is taking something away from the boys. There are differences for a reason and we should portray our differences to the best of our ability. When we were talking about Gender roles I kind of got a little flustered during the discussion. Some people were saying girls should do this and boys should do this. I do think that are separate roles that men and women should take on but that is not always the case. There are exceptions. I tend to always try to find the exception when someone tries to say something definite. It’s sometimes a bad habit because there are really exceptions when it comes to anything I believe especially in gender roles. Overall though, there are things that boys do that are supposed to be different from girls. There are scientific facts that prove there are differences and we should raise children taking gender roles into consideration.  Even though there are exceptions there are innate roles that women and men take on that do apply to being a specific gender. I love the gospel and the Proclamation does state some roles of men and women. I also liked how we talked about same sex attraction. I never really understood it until class. I now understand that people are not just born gay. I always thought to myself that it is a possibility but really there is none. It was sad to hear that people who are called gay start to wonder because people accuse them of it. I never thought the words of someone could affect a person so much. That’s sad to think that people who aren't gay claim they’re because they feel out of place. It doesn't matter what gender they are though because they are people and we should love them but not support it. These people are not a third gender even though it is made out to be that way.

I really liked this week’s classes and learning about the income and family dynamics because of a family’s income. I think that through our discussions I figured out that middle income people have it the best. I feel like they are less talked about in this matter. I feel the more rich the more you do not have family time. Instead of buying your love from your family you should spent time with them. But this isn’t just the rich that has this problem but also the poor. The poor can work and work and not have enough family time but always just worrying about money. I really liked the videos that we had to watch for class because it showed a lot of family dynamics for each social class. I especially liked Tammy’s story. I just think it is so sad because she tries so hard to provide for her family but they don’t appreciate it. It would be very nice of her though to just be with her family and just love instead of putting in so much work and really getting nothing out of it. I think there is a good balance between work and family and you have to find it. The one thing I know for sure though is never replace your family with work or money. 

This week I really liked the class discussions and the role playing. When we did the role playing it really helped me understand more fully the concepts of theories and why families react in some ways in certain situations. Theories really make it easier to understand why families are the way they are. As we go through the class, I think that I will be able to apply the theories to my own family and to what we are studying. In one of our readings this week I came across the term paradigm shift. I thought this was really interesting and totally fit my perspective. I am taking a whole new look on things in this class. The discussions in class really help me to understand what is going on. I like how the discussions are not totally set but are guidelines of things we should touch on. Another thing that really interested me was learning about boundaries. As I tried to draw out my family and different boundaries we have I found it very confusing because there are so many connections and clusters. I never realized what kind of groups we had in my family till I tried drawing it out. It is amazing how many groups we can be put into when it is only one family.

So... This is My first blog! This thing gave me some troubles at first but I hope everything is okay now. I am really looking forward to this class and hope to learn a lot about the family. I feel like in this first week I have already learned so much. The thing that really shocked me is that our population is going to decline!!!!! That is crazy to think about. It's actually really hard to believe but after watching those videos I am convinced! I hope in this class that I can learn about the values of family according to the church and the rest of the world. I am just really excited to see what this class brings me... besides the fact that I have to wake up super early.