Parenting

I love this quote and I think it fits perfectly into what I am talking about on the blog this week. Parenting is a huge responsibility and today I would like to shed some insight I gained in class. Although I am sure it can be very overwhelming & difficult I am here to testify it is not impossible (trust me if my parents can handle dealing with myself as a rebellious teenager I think it is possible!)

What is the purpose of parenting? This is the question we started out our discussion with. It was hard for me to come up with an answer for this one, so I would like to turn it over to my readers to tell me what they think the purpose of parenting is. Who benefits the most from parenting? This is also another question I would like to ask anyone who reads this post. So comment below and let me know what you think.

This post may be a little scatterbrained so bare with me, but I would just like to share some of the main discussion points we talked about that I found the most important.

It is more important to focus on character than the behavior. I thought this was huge for so many parents, in my observations of many parents I have noticed how easy it is for a parent to try to control every behavior of the child. But the truth is if you are focusing more on the character that your child is developing than the behavior shouldn't really be that bad. If you know your child is developing a good character than their behaviors should reflect that.

Another important piece of information I found interesting was to not without love, contact & affection. These are huge things for a child growing up. A child needs to feel that they belong and are needed to the family system. It is never okay for a parent to without love from a child because they are doing something wrong. Some people may not agree with this but it really can be so detrimental to a child if affection and contact is withheld from them.

The last thing I would like to talk about is a quote, in class we focused a lot about ways to raise teenagers. (This just gives me anxiety thinking about this huge tasks) Our teacher read us this quote by a researcher named Popins, "By the time our kids are teenagers the only real tool we have to influence them is our relationship." This really hit home for me. I wish I could say AMEN a million times. Like I mentioned earlier when I was a teenager it wasn't the easiest child. I remember fighting with my parents a lot because we didn't see eye to eye on a lot of the choices I was making. I remember my dad sitting me down as he had many times before but this time instead of trying to lecture me about what I was doing and why he thought it was wrong he decided to listen to me, he asked me questions about what was going through my mind. This was a huge turning point in my life. I finally felt as though they cared about what. At the end of the conversation he just nicely said that if I continued making these choices it was going to tear apart my family and lead me down a path I didn't want to be on. He reminded me how much I was hurting my mother & him and how badly our relationships had already been damaged/nearly destroyed. This was probably the only thing that could have gotten through to me at this point. I immediately realized that my silly rebellious behavior was not worth my relationships with my parents and their trust.

I will never forget how important those relationships are because I almost jeopardized everything I worked so hard for. A parent and child relationship takes a lot of work. Parenting itself I am sure takes a lot more work than I can even image. Although I have not been on the parent end of those relationships yet I can say as a child it is so worth it. Keep the big picture in mind, focus on the child's character, express your love for them often, make sure they know you believe in them. We have heaven rooting us on & with some divine help from above I really believe parenting can be successfully accomplished.

Thanks for reading. Have a great day!!

Fathers are Fantastic

Due to thanksgiving this week we only meet in class one time, but during that one time we talked a lot about fathers and finances. If you are like me I really don't like talking about finances, it just stresses me out and makes me scared that one day I will have millions in debt (silly I know). So instead of talking about such a sad and serious topic I want to talk today about FATHERS!

We were asked to find a research article on the benefits of having a father or father figure in the home and discuss why we feel these are important. My blog post this week is mostly going to be based on my paper so here it goes.

"My dad is the best dad ever." This is something you hear everyone say on fathers day, but I am hear to tell you that if you have ever said this you are terribly wrong and I am sorry to be the one to break the news to you. Truth is my dad really is the best, now although that is crazy and silly it is true. My dad is the best dad ever for ME.

In the research article I found 5 pieces of information I found the most important, they are:
1. A father provides protection for their children, economic support and a male role model.
2. Children who feel a closeness and warmth with their father are twice as likely to enter college.
3. Father encourage competition with leads to independence.
4. A child's happiness, well-being, social and academic success is based on their relationship with their father.
5. Fathers introduce children to a wide variety of ways to deal with life and provide kids with social experiences.

So as you read that list I hope it got you thinking of some things you agree with or disagree with. I hope it got your wheels turning to all the things your father did for you or all the things you wish your father would have done for you. Whether your father is a superstar dad or a dead beat, fathers impact their children's lives more than I think they sometimes realize.

I can easily say my dad was all of these things for me. Throughout my life I have learned how important the role of a father is to his children. He is one of my favorite people. My dad was a superhero in my eyes, I still remember being scared of monsters in my closet when I was little. My dad opened up our front door and yelled outside for all the monsters to leave our house alone. Of course I believed him because my dad was invincible. One thing I would like to point out though is that a relationship between a father and child takes some effort. I know I would not have the relationship I have with my dad today if I hadn't gone on plenty of road trips with him, spent days just him & I, and involved him in what was going on in my life. Because we had a relationship well established when I was younger it made the hard teenage years a little easier I like to think. I saw a lot of my friends completely fall away from their parents, for me that was never an option because our bond was already so strong.

I would like to also mention that the relationship between my father and I isn't perfect and I am sure there was some times it was really bad, but I think the important thing is we both keep working at it. He has loved me my whole life, he always has believed in me & in my dreams, even when I know he wasn't impressed with some choices I made he still stood by me. I can't imagine going through life without knowing my dad loved and supported me. That is a huge thing for a child growing up. Fathers are so so important to children, more than they probably realize.

So today, this thanksgiving holiday, express your love to your father. I am sure if you think hard enough they really have shaped you into who you are today.
Thanks for reading & have a great day!

The BEST dad out there!

Communication & Counseling

"Talk to me" is a phrase I can often be found saying to my husband. Communication is the one of the only ways humans are able to form deep and close relationships, its no wonder that there is so much focus on this important subject. We are constantly communicating whether we are talking or not, our words are really actually only about 14% of overall communication. Some people would be surprised to know that the tone of which we saying something is actually 35% and our nonverbal is whooping 51%. Nonverbal communication is huge! One thing I would like to ask my readers is what do you think of the silent treatment? Silent treatment is huge for so many relationships, I remember giving it to boyfriends, my parents and siblings all growing up. Was it really effective? Did it serve the purpose that I wanted it to? I honestly don't know. What are your thought?

Communication is something I can constantly be working on. I am going to get a little person here and talk about some things I can improve with my communication and hopefully that makes you think of some things you can improve on as well. I have a big problem when it comes to communication because I also like to assume I know what someone is thinking about the situation, feeling or meaning. This has effected a lot of my relationships with family and friends. IF you happen to find yourself tending to be like me, I would like to challenge you to not jump to conclusion. One goal that I am going to set for myself as I try to change this is to ask the person what they are feeling/thinking instead of assuming. 

There is one important thing I would like to talk about that struck me during this discussion was a quote my teacher said, "Everyone has problems, what is important is the way we talk about them and handle them." I couldn't agree more with this statement. Everyone has problems of course and as hard as it may be for people its important to talk about them and make sure we come up with appropriate solutions. This is just a little thought I would like you all to think about. 

Counseling is the next thing I would like to talk about. We discussed in class the way that our leaders of the church counsel. I am sure most Mormons already know this, but for those of you who don't know our leaders meet in the LDS Temple every Thursday morning to counsel about things happening. They have a very profound order of the way they do things, first they begin with sharing things they love and appreciate about each other, they then pray to open the meeting for the spirit to be with them, then they discuss the topics that need to be talked about in order of seniority, they close with a prayer and end with refreshments. Of course I could go into more detail and talk about the importance of each of these but instead I would like to focus on something else. 

Growing up we always held a family counsel on Sunday Evenings. Our counsels were not this structured and we didn't do all these different things but I would like to implement them into my future family. In my family growing up we would go through the activities for the week and see what each person would be doing. We would then talk about anything that someone was having a hard time with or just wanted to talk about. They would usually be very sweet and short and to the point. Although these aren't perfect I would say the idea of the concept that my parents were instilling in us is great. 

My Perfect Family Counsel I want to go a little something like this:

• Start with sharing good news of someone else in the family that week (ex: if someone did great on a test or if someone won their basketball game.)
• Then open with prayer
• After that I would have someone take turns reading the family calendar off so we could see what we have going on that week or 2 weeks or whatever.
• Then we would have a time for anyone to bring up any issues that have been going on or any questions that they may have that effect the whole family (if they are personal I will make sure my kids know they can ask their parents after the counsel is over and we can discuss in private)
• Then we would have refreshments and close the meeting

This is something I would like to start with my husband now so that we get into the habit of it when we have kids. Do any of you have family counsel traditions that you have liked or disliked? I would love to hear any comments! 

Thanks for reading guys & have a great day!

Stressin' out the Family

Stress is literally my least favorite word. When I hear the word I just feel overwhelmed and uptight, it is the worst word in the human language. But nevertheless, stress is what we talked about this week in our classes. This blog post is a little hard for me to decide what direction I want to take. With this topic I feel like there is a million awful, sad things I could talk about but instead I would like to talk about some really cool insight I discovered as we talked in class.

Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people, we all know this to be true. I think we wouldn't be lying if we don't admit at least one time in our lives we have asked, "Why me?" This question seems to be normal to turn to when things aren't going as planned, which is very normal in life. I have seen so many families in my life go through very hard things that I would never wish upon my worst enemy, but the really cool thing I more often than not see with these families is that they come out of the affliction or trial stronger than ever. I know that sounds cliche and lame but I think there really is some truth to it. When you are in a longer term relationship with your significant other it is assumed that you will fight and have hard times, for me when I think about the hard times I have gone through with my husband it really strengthens my love for him and appreciation for our relationship. I take more pride in my relationship because I have worked hard to make it the way that it is. I think this is the same way with overcoming stress and crisis in the family.

I would like to share a story about my friend who I feel has a pretty tough hand of cards when it comes to family stress and crisis. My friend has been married for over 4 years and has been trying to get pregnant for the past 2 years. She was married in the temple to a good guy who came from a good family. A few years down the road her husbands entire family started to leave the church, all the siblings and the parents have decided to leave the Mormon church and joined an anti Mormon church basically. My friend and her husband have tried to remain strong as her in-laws have completely made fun of their beliefs and tried to persuade them to leave the Mormon church as well, often getting the husband pretty close. My friend is far away from her family and lives a block away from these in-laws, she is literally always with them which makes this situation that much harder for her. On top of all this she has been struggling to get pregnant for 2 years and has experienced 2 miscarriages. She would love to move if her husband would let them but knows that probably isn't an option right now. Although she is trying to do her best she has often broke down to me crying, saying she feels very alone and like she is barely keeping her head above water.

This is an example in my life I feel of bad things happening to good people, she is a great person and doesn't deserve this in my opinion. This was my view about this for quite a long time until we had this discussion in class. In class someone made a comment that they felt Heavenly Father would never give someone something they couldn't handle. (well, duh I have heard this before but just wait there is more coming) They also said they have a feeling that we all signed up for what was going to happen to us before coming down to earth. This statement hit me like a ton of bricks. I had been thinking about my friend a lot lately and suddenly it all made sense. She was given all these challenges because she knew in the pre-earth life that she was capable of handling all this. I had never thought of anything in this way before. I was shocked. This also means that everything I go through and I ask "Why me?" I also signed up for and I am capable of getting through it. I think this is a great message for us all to remember in family stress, we are capable of overcoming it because we signed up for this.

Although stress in family can be really hard and over whelming it is possible to overcome. Many families have great techniques for dealing with stress and crisis. I would love to hear what you and your family do! Please share!

Have a great day & thanks for reading!

Lets talk about Sex....

Awkward... I just used the S word in my title. I know, I know. But this week in class our topic was sexual intimacy in the family. This is a huge topic within marriage and I know it is not discussed very often in Mormon culture so I would like to talk about that a little.
One of the most interesting things about getting engaged and then getting married in the Mormon culture is that our entire lives we are told that sex it bad and that it is dirty. This is how myself and a lot of others view these lessons and talks that we all heard growing up. Then one day suddenly it all becomes good and encouraged to do with your spouse. This can be confusing for many people and I can't help but want to change this experience for young adults who first get married.  I would just like to suggest that maybe as we prepare to have children and teach them about sex we let them know how special and sacred sexual intimacy is between a husband and wife lawfully wedded.
Which leads me to the next thing I would like to talk about, teaching our children about sex. When I think about this and how important this is as a parent I get very nervous because I know how big of a deal parenting will be. It will be the biggest, most greatest thing I will ever do in my life. I thought about some things I hope my children will know as they grow up, I will share some with you.

1. From a young age throughout the whole entire childhood I want them to know that their parents love each other. 
2. I want them to understand that their bodies are special and sacred gifts from a Heavenly Father that loves us so much. (This would entail that I would never want them to expose their bodies in inappropriate ways and also that they should take good care of their bodies.)
3. I want my kids to know if anything every happens to them regarding their bodies that it is okay to talk about me about it, and they should never feel embarrassed. (I also want them to know in that area nothing is ever their fault.)
4. I want my kids to know they can come to me or my husband with any questions they may have regarding sex and their bodies. 
5. I want to have an open relationship with my children about their relationships with other people, my husband and I want to help them avoid heart ache and mistakes we have experienced and witnessed. 
6. I want my children to know sex is a beautiful thing when practiced with someone you really love within the bonds of marriage. (I want them to know that even though the world does not view it this way, our family does view it as the most special form of love.

These are just a few things I want my family to understand. In this world with so many things going on around us I know that it is going to be hard to continue to defend the sacredness of sexual intimacy within marriage. I can't even imagine the type of world that my children are going to grow up in but I pray that I will be able to teach them correct principles. 

I know that the world may not have the same views as sexual intimacy within marriage as I do, but I believe that when exercised properly it is the most incredible sign of love. It has brought me and my husband closer than I ever thought possible and has shown me what real love is. I am grateful I have a loving Heavenly Father who trusts us to use this small portion of His divine power.

Keep on spreading the love, and have a great day! 

first comes love, then comes MARRIAGE!

Alright so you can probably already guess that as a newlywed this is my favorite topic. Mostly because this is a huge new part of my life right now and I am definitely a big fan of marriage. Everyone should get married! So obviously with marriage it is important to pick the right person for you, remember you have to learn to live with this person, share with this person and you usually have to clean up after this person so it is important to make sure you actually love them.
I am going to talk about a few marital adjustments that occur between couples within the first few months. (Then I am going to share my input or experience on these situations as well.)

The first one I would say is a set routine and set roles. At least when I got married I wasn't used to living a boy and I had to get used to his schedule and the ways it differed from mine. Along with that we had to determine what our roles in this new relationship would be. It is different from dating because now we have laundry, all the meal prep, cleaning toilets and managing finances together. This was something sort of just fell into place for my husband and I. We work very well together as a team and so he is always good to help me with any given task if he sees me doing something. That is one thing I would suggest you look for in a partner, someone that can be a great teammate to you.

Another big adjustment for many marriages within the first few months is sleeping arrangements.  This was actually a pretty big deal for my husband and I. We were both never used to sleeping with someone else and my husband was definitely used to having the entire bed to himself. My husband likes it nice and cold when he sleeps, I like to be snuggled and warm. My husband takes all the covers and wraps himself into a cocoon, I like all the sheets to stay tucked in while I sleep nice and neat. I have to make the bed in the mornings, my husband likes to ball up all the sheets on the bed. As you can see we had some pretty big differences, this made for some interesting first few nights. I will admit the first month I barely got any sleep but it was with this sleeping arrangement problem that I think I learned my first thing about marriage. It is all about compromise. I gave up sleeping with the sheets perfectly tucked in so that he could be comfy. He is usually good to help me make the bed in the mornings. We also have it cold for a little bit at the first of the night and then he shuts the cool air off when I have had enough. Compromise people.

Alright the last thing I am going to talk about is how to split family time. This is a very big one in my marriage at times. It is very hard to split family time 50/50 when we leave 2 hours from my family and 14 hours from my husbands family. This has put us in an interesting position because we don't want to make either families feel bad. Whenever making a decision about who's family to see for what holiday or what weekend we try to keep in mind what is best for our family, as in my husband and I. This is the best piece of advise I have to anyone who may be struggling with this problem in their marriage.

Marriage is the most bliss I have ever experienced. It brings me so much joy to know I am with my best friend for forever if we do what is right and keep the commandments. It also has brought me challenges but I am grateful for those challenges and the things they teach me. Marriage has helped me to grow in ways I didn't know I even needed to grow, it has taught me to forget myself and serve others and my husband and most importantly it has taught me to fiercely love and defend my family.

So there you have it, marriage is the best. Everyone needs to get married when the time is right for them. I truly believe if everyone tried their very best in marriage without the option of giving up, our world would be a wonderful place.

Have a great day!

Everyone's favorite word... L O V E

Love is a big word, some hate it and some enjoy it. It can mean so much to one person and another may use it on an hourly basis. Love is an interesting word. Try defining it, I had a really hard time trying to do this for class this week. Love is one of the words that people can't really coin a perfect definition on it because it means so much and can be used so frequently. Instead of a definition, I came up with a list of things I think love entails.

Enjoying someones company
Wanting to make the other person better
Looking for ways to make the other person happy
Trying to improve yourself for that other person

Alright so obviously there are many things that could fall under this category, these are just a few that I felt were most important. As you can see I didn't mention anything that had to do with a physical driving side of love, I do not believe that is all love really can be. Do not get me wrong I think the physical side of love is very important, but I don't think that should be the main definition or driving force for loving someone. Just some food for thought for ya.

One of the most common questions I think all teenagers and college students finding themselves asking is "Is this really love?" or "Am I in love with this person?" I know I have found myself asking those same questions throughout high school relationships and college. There are many different types of love and that is what I would like to talk about next.

Agape is a service type of love. This is a love where you are focused on improving an others life.
Storge is the love that a parent has for a child. I do not have kids but this seems fitting to me that this is in its own category of love, I can't comprehend how much you must love someone you created.
Philia is brotherly love. This is the type of love I have for my best friends, we exchange personal information about each other and love each other in a friend sort of way.
Eros is the romantic, sexual, passionate love. This type of love is all based on emotions and feelings.

I found it interesting to look at all these types of love and think about the different people in my life that I have loved. The ultimate goal in a marriage is to have all these different types of love in your relationship. Agape, to always be looking to serve your spouse. Storge, to be protective of your spouse like you would a child. Philia, be your spouses best friend. Eros, be passionate and physically attracted to your spouse.

MY ADVICE FOR LOVE:
One of the most interesting studies we talked about this week in class was the more times a college aged women has been in love the harder it is for her to stay committed to someone and it effects the way she attaches to people. I would like to talk about this for a second. This hit me pretty hard as I have seen this in other people's lives, as well as my own. I was the type of girl that always seemed to have a pretty serious relationship, even in high school. Now I know that it is bad to have regrets and I try not to but that is one regret that I have in life. I wish so badly that I could have seen outside of high school and took a better look at the bigger picture. Don't get me wrong I dated really good guys usually and I have lots of great memories of high school and college but I would just like to offer some advice to girls and guys finding themselves in this situation. Let me first just tell you that you think its the end of the world if you don't seriously date someone in high school, news flash it really isn't. In fact I promise you it doesn't matter one bit. Serious dating seems like a good idea at the time, you think it is fun but when you really think about it, its dumb. I don't care what you say ( & yes I once would have argued that it doesn't matter because if you are in love with the person its alright) Here is the deal, serious dating is for people who are looking to get married. I was no where near ready to be married in high school but I treated my relationships unintentionally that way because that is just naturally flows that way. PLEASE BE CAREFUL OF THIS. The fact is for some people that works for them and I recognize some couples make it work (more props to them), but for most people that isn't the way our relationships should be at such a young immature age. Serious dating before I was really ready brought me mostly more sorrow then it did happiness. First of all you get so close to somebody because you think that is what you are suppose to do. You become emotionally intimate with them because you want to be close. But when you break up you feel completely lost. You are so hurt because you just told someone everything about you, you gave them a part of your heart, and yet they just crushed you. Everyone remembers how it feels to have your heartbroken or at least to get hurt by someone you care about. Serious dating before you are really ready just opens the barn doors for all this hurt to happen. It limits your opportunity to meet people, most people don't really want to be hanging out with someone that is super serious with a significant other. I always wonder how different my experience would have been if I would have gone on as many "just for fun" dates in high school as I did my first year of college. It was honestly a blast and really made me see what I had been missing that whole time. Just be cautious of giving your heart away to just anyone, some boys really only tell you what you want to hear. And if you are a girl I am telling you, once you meet Mr. Right, you are going to regret every wasting all those tears, thoughts and time on someone who really wasn't who you thought he would be for you. Just be careful out there is the dating world, take it from me you need to guard your heart UNTIL the time is right for you.
Take this all for what it is worth, this is technically like a half rant/half advice paragraph but oh well! Learn from my mistakes people!!!

As a final thought I would just like to encourage you to think about the types of love you have for the different people in your life. I would encourage you to work on growing a type of love that you are looking for. Remember the best way to receive what you want is to be what you want.

Thanks for reading and remember to spread L O V E today!

Gender Roles & Same Sex Attraction

Alright, I would like to preface this post by saying I know how important and sensitive this topic is to so many. I have a hard time talking about it because I know people are very passionate about it and people tend to get very offensive. With that being said I would like you all to know my intention of this blog post is not to offend anyone or to hurt anyone's feelings, I simply want to talk about some things I learned in my class and state my opinion on this very important topic.

You may have guessed it but we are going to be talking about same sex attraction. This is a topic that has completely taken over the world, at least the social media world in my opinion. Odds are that everyone knows someone who is effected by this tough-to-talk-about topic. I have actually never really talked about my opinion on this topic, I have always been afraid that I wouldn't say the right thing or that I would offend someone but I ask anyone who is reading this to please read with an open mind.

Growing up I never really thought much about this topic, I never really even heard much about this topic except in jokes throughout the halls of my high school. I never imagined same sex attraction was such a huge topic in our nation. In class this week I learned so much about the actual attraction itself, but before I tell you what I learned and how I now feel, I would like to link to you the sources of my information.  The main source were my information is coming from is this website here
I really enjoyed this video and thought it provided me with a greater knowledge for same sex attraction.
I think people that go through this are very misunderstood, people are quick to judge them (especially in the Mormon culture) and I think that is wrong. In this video it mentions that a lot of these people have been through traumatic experiences such as molesting, abandonment and never feeling like they fit in. In our class we talked about the number of young boys that get molested and think it is their fault, that something is wrong with them and then later after some time assume that they are homosexual. It broke my heart to think about little boys that just wanted to fit in so badly that turn to the extreme circumstance. Now without getting too much into the nitty-gritty of this subject, I would just like to say I have no idea what those people are going through, and I am in no place to judge them because I have done things that others view as wrong as well. I would just like to point out that in this video there is hope shown for those that are struggling with same sex attraction. I find it interesting that it is never really talked about that there are programs out there to help people, young and old, with this challenge they may be faced with. I found this video very informative that therapy can help people overcome this and that there is hope out there.

With that being said I would like to talk to you a little bit about the importance of both a mother and a father in my life. I believe that marriage should be between a man and a women and so even though I may take a lot of heat for this I would like to share my thoughts. In class we also talked a lot about gender, I would like to talk about the importance I feel it has on families.
Growing up I learned so many important things from my parents. These are important life lessons that have shaped me into who I am today and I wouldn't be who I am without both of their influence on my life. I have seen my parents have a normal marriage, I have seen them disagree, work out their differences, and have the happiest times together. I believe that the differences in them together make a great team for raising our family. My dad is a tough love, work hard all day long type of guy. My mom is literally a saint, the sweetest lady that is constantly doing everything for everyone all day long.  They are different but I can't imagine what it would be like if they were too much the same.
Lessons I learned from my dad:

• Do a job right the first time and you won't have to repeat it. 
• Once all the work is done you can play all you want.
• Taught me to change my tires and oil
• Taught me to play catch, shoot hoops, throw a spiral
• Taught me to enjoy a simpler way of life on the ranch
• Stand up for yourself and take pride in who you are

Lessons I learned from my mom:

• You can never be too nice to someone
• Taught me to cook, clean, and be a homemaker
• Helped me learn to love myself and my weaknesses
• Taught me how to laugh, have fun, let loose
• If you put the Lord first he will always help you in what you need
• Family will always be there for you no matter where you go or what you do

Both of these people have taught me so much in my life. My parents both taught me things that the other could not have, simply because it wasn't really their nature. I believe that their gender influences their roles on our family. I don't think if I had two mom's I would have learned the things the male influence in my life taught me and the same goes for if I had two dad's. I KNOW that gender is important and that our LOVING Heavenly Father sent us down here with our specific gender because we have something to offer our families and the world. 

In closing I would just like to wrap everything up. (I feel like this post might be a little bit chaotic so I apologize its just a tough subject and I got a little excited to talk about a few different things) I would just like to say I know that Heavenly Father loves all His children and he is aware of what they are going through. If you or someone you know needs help with a topic such as this please get the help that you need and turn to Him. I know that he assigned us a gender and sent us to families because we have something important to offer those families. I hope I did not offend anyone, that was not my intent at all. And to Mormons everywhere who seem to be having a hard time not judging those struggling with these important issues, please remember "LOVE the sinner, hate the sin." Love makes the world go round people!
Have a great day, and keep on doing your best! 

Overcoming Diversity Within the Family

Alright so this week we talked a lot about the challenges families face regarding diversity and social classes. ( I will admit going into this topic I wasn't too excited but I actually learned some really cool stuff!) Obviously families are all unique and different, whether this is traditions, jobs, cultures or anything really. Some families are more well off than others, and most families don't go through the same things. We talked in class a lot about different challenges that different families face. My eyes were completely opened to the challenges many immigrants face just to come to America for what they think is a better life. Whenever I thought of immigrants I always thought of the poor people, but what I learned was that some of these people are lawyers, doctors, scientists in other countries. I had no idea so many well established people from their original country would give up everything they have just to come to America and not even be able to do the same jobs they worked so hard for. This has really opened my eyes to being more charitable to everyone I see because I really have no idea what that person has been through to get where they are today.

The next thing I would like to talk about is ways that people overcome adversity they grow up in. I can think of many cool stories of people growing up in situations that were not exactly ideal family life and making the most of what they have. One story that is particularly close to my heart is the life of my great grandpa Bill. Shortly after he was born his parents got a divorce. Around 2 years old his mother remarried a man that was very mean to my grandpa. He would beat him and wasn't a good step father at all. His real father was an alcoholic and completely out of the picture. Bill's mother knew this situation wasn't working out for her family so she decided to send my grandpa to live with his grandparents. Bill was then raised by his grandmother, whom he adored and his grandfather, who also was very hard on him. His family didn't make very much money and as a result they were on the church welfare program. Back in those days all the food from the bishop's storehouse came in noticeably different flour sacks. Bill's grandma made him shirts out of these sacks and he was so embarrassed by this. He later told his daughter, my grandma, it was at this young age that he made up his mind to never be on any kind of welfare and always work hard to be able to provide enough for his family. Bill stayed true to his word. His grandparents both died and at the age of 16 he was forced to go live with his mother, step father and their children. He enlisted in the Air Force his senior year where his love of airplanes and flying began. He was one of six people in all his area out of many applicants, along with President Boyd. K. Packer, to be chosen to attend flight school and become a pilot. He married my great grandmother and began to start a family. Bill continued to work hard for his family, always remembering where he came from and how different he wanted his children's lives to be. My grandma always remembering her dad working three jobs as a pilot, an Indian school teacher, and a carpenter. He was the father of 6 children and he payed for them all to go to college because he believed education was the best gift he could give them.


Even though my great grandpa never made millions or achieved a great degree of wealth, he was successful in achieving his dream of providing a better life for his family then he had. I am a result of Bill's hard work and determination to succeed in life. He is the perfect example of overcoming the family circumstances you are placed in. This story is a great reminder to me that we can work hard to overcome adversity in our families and lives. I think it is so important to remember that just because your family is stereo-typed as lower class or middle class does not mean you can't accomplish something great. YOU CAN BE ANYTHING YOU WANT TO BE.

Thanks for reading!
(P.S. Please feel free to comment on any of these posts I would love to hear what you have to say!)

Family as a System

I am having a little bit of a hard time coming up with something fun to write about for this week. (We only had class one day this week and I really don't want to just regurgitate everything we discussed.) But the main idea of everything we talked about this week that really stuck with me was the idea of viewing the family as a system.

I thought this would be a good opportunity to talk to you a little bit about my family and the system we are. I come from a family with two parents + three siblings and I would like to tell you a little about each one really quick.

First we have the boss of the system, my dad. 5 things about him: He loves his ranch, fixes teeth for a living, in his spare time he enjoys inventing things, basically he is a walking sports trivia book (I am not even kidding he knows everything), loves being with his family

Next, we have the secretary of the boss, my mom. 5 things about her: She is an organized perfect stay-at-home-mom, plays the harp in her spare time, creates the most beautiful quilts and projects, loves watching her children do something they love, and makes the best food in the world!

I am the oldest child. But you guys already know a little about me so we will skip me.

The one and only boy of the family is next. 5 things about him: He is the most athletic kid I have ever seen, has a hidden talent for drawing (mostly just sports art of course), always looking for a party + is the life of it, is hard working money maker (the kid has 2 jobs while in high school), and has an eye for dressing very nicely.

The middle of the system is my sister. 5 things about her: She is the typical shy middle child to the outside viewers, loves to play tennis + is extremely talented at the harp, has the cutest giggle that makes the whole room start to laugh, is the smarty pants of the family (she only gets 4.0's) and enjoys creating pretty projects.

The finale of the system is my littlest sister. 5 things about her: She is best accident to happen to this family (nah just kidding we love her). She loves to read (and usually that is out loud), Miss Social of the house + always has friends over, she can play the guitar and sing like an angel, likes to keep us all in line, and is 12 going on 18.

This is my family + my husband at our wedding in August.

So now that you have a little background about the system I come from I would like to relate this to the family systems theory and the things I have learn.

Basically, family systems theory is just the idea of looking at the family as a whole system instead of just one person in the family. This theory is mostly used in therapy and helps family overcome problems within their systems. I can also see where this might be helpful though just for everyday knowledge of helping the family you are in now. As we discussed this theory one thing that really hit me is that the family has to work together as a team to accomplish its purpose. This also made me think about my religious beliefs. In the church we believe that God sent us here as families, I can't help but find this correlation interesting.

Within the family we talked about the different roles and rules that we have. I began to think about some of the roles my family played. For example, my dad is the breadwinner of my family and my mom is a stay at home mom, if for some reason they stopped doing their roles our family would fall apart. We wouldn't have an income and our house would be in complete disorder. Each of the siblings also has a role in the house, we do our chores, help each other out when we see the need, and we contribute to the well-being of our family. If some of us didn't do our roles then our family system would have a hard time function, I heard about this specifically when I left for college. My roles in the house were gone and so I picked up new roles as I lived farther away and the whole system has to adjust. But that's the beautiful thing about humans, we are adaptable.

Along with the roles of the family, we also have rules. This was interesting for me to think about the rules that we have in my family. Some are obvious rules but it was fun to think of some of the unstated rules that we just know in my family, like for example where everyone parks their cars and where everyone sits at the dinner table. These rules have never been verbally talked about but we just have established them in our system.

Alright so now that I just posted a super long post about all the things I learned about this week I hope by reading this you thought of some thing within your own family. The roles everyone plays, the different parts of your system and what they are good at, the different rules your family has and lastly the importance of your family working together to solve problems.

Thanks for reading!

How many KIDS will you have?

Don't lie, I am sure we have all thought of this question at least once in our lifetime. Whether it was talking with your spouse or just plain wondering one day the number of children we want to have or will have is bound to cross your mind at some point.

Obviously the topic of children is very important to the family. But what I learned today in class completely surprised me.

We have all heard of the Baby Boomers, the time period where it seemed as though everyone was having lots of babies and our population was rapidly increasing. Well it actually turns out that not as many babies as I thought were actually born in this time period. The average number of children per household was around 3. Now maybe its just because I grew up in Utah and I am used to families with bigger numbers than that, but when I thought about the baby boom I imagined 6-8 kids in every household. I was shocked at the actual information from this time period.

So now I am sure you are all wondering, how does that really effect us today? The baby boom effected the world so much back then and continues to effect us now with our population rates. In fact some people believe our population is in danger. The fertility rate needs to be at 2.13. This means unless we reach that fertility rate for each household our population will begin to increase dramatically.

 I had never really thought about this topic or how it related to my life at all. I always just figured I would stop having kids when I wanted to, which would probably be around 3 or 4. Although I do feel this is a good number of kids, I now have a few more things that will play a factor in my decision for children. First of all if each house hold needs to have at least 2.13 children then I probably need to make sure I do my part.  I had never really thought that maybe God would plan on me having more kids. As we talked as a class I realized that a lot of times Heavenly Father has a different plan that what we have for ourselves. When the time is right and I am feeling ready to be done I need to remember to ask Heavenly Father if that is really what he wants of me and my family.
Another point that is a huge factor in the decision of a baby is finances. I would say this is important but I would like to say this isn't everything. All our lives we are taught that money can't buy happiness and I really believe it can't. My family makes me happy and there is no price tag on them. This is a tricky subject and so I am going to speak lightly and say that maybe Heavenly Father just wants His children to grow up with love and the right foundation, maybe he doesn't really care about the money. Take it for what you will because it really is completely a personal choice.

These are just a few points that have crossed my mind as we began discussing the important topic of children. There are many important things to think about while starting a family and I found the fertility rate to be very interesting. I can't help but wonder what our population will start to look like at the end of my lifetime.

Anyways, fun topic! Thanks for reading.

Welcome!

Hello! To anyone who might be reading this I figured it would be good to have a little introduction post. My name is Kendyl and this is my blog Inspire Bliss. It is required for my class, Family Relations, to have a blog so we can discuss with the world the things we learn about in class pertaining to the family. I am excited to learn more about the family and share what I learn and feel with whoever happens to come across this blog.
First of all, a little about myself. I am currently studying Child Development at Brigham Young University- Idaho. I enjoy doing anything outside some favorites are: skiing, four wheeling, spending time at my ranch, anything in the water etc. I like to create and craft as well, I just wish I was a little better at it. I recently just got married and absolutely LOVE being a newlywed and all that it encompasses. I hope one day to change the world by helping children in a third world country working with an adoption agency, or something awesome like that. Family is very important to me obviously and I can't wait to one day have my own.
 Now I am sure you are wondering what is up with the title of my blog, well I would like to explain that to you. I believing in being inspired and inspiring others. I think that is the best way to live your life. I also just really love that word. I chose bliss because it means happiness but even more than that it means joy. I hope with this blog to INSPIRE people everywhere to find BLISS in their life. I chose this title because the bliss in my life is my husband, parents and siblings. Family is my bliss. I hope to inspire the bliss families can bring to everyone who reads this blog.
Enjoy!!