More on Parenting

 This is sort of a continuation of the previous post, but it's focusing more on how we should parent, not so much on the why.

• A teen's perception of parenting is much more reliable than the parents' perception.
• Types of parenting
• Authoritarian
• force
• tendency toward coldness
• rigid
• Authoritative (most effective)
• teach via example
• open communication, negotiation
• child guidance
• parent before friend of children 
• Permissive
• friend before parent
• many choices, few consequences
• few limits
• acceptance of behavior
• low expectations, high warmth
• Neglectful
• not involved/present

• behavior control vs. psychological control
• coercion =  to exert control over
• Authoritarian & Permissive tend to focus more on parents' needs instead of child's.
• Active Parenting (Michael H Popkin)
• focuses on natural consequences of behavior

• the punishment should match crime (NOT: grounding for misusing cellphone, taking cellphone for staying out past curfew)
• problems with punishment:
• revenge cycle
•  can damage relationship
• can make parents lose their child's respect
• no learning (if they don't get caught, they don't get punished)
• can create criminals
• curfew at 12 AM: coming in at 1 AM = chewing out!, coming in at 3 AM = concern, lecture (creates desire to come in later & kill time; can lead to girl becoming pregnant)

•  Alternatives?
• rewards: trains them to be manipulative, they learn to rely on rewards, they take advantage
• natural consequences (no interference from parents)
• logical consequences :
• discuss with them!
• don't use firm statements frequently (don't use a canon when a flyswatter works just fine)
• polite request: respectful, denies negative attention, helps with request of others in future (such as teacher, police, etc)
• use when natural consequences are :
1. Too dangerous
2. Too far in the future
3. Too harmful to others

• We're not just trying to teach our kids how to mind, we're teaching them how to be successful in life & as parents themselves!
• Punishments that aren't logically connected to the crime are manipulative & disrespectful.
• Set up logical consequences after a rule is broken/a small problem occurs.
• Needs of human beings (especially kids!):
• contact & belonging
• not just a desire, it's a need
• failure to thrive (physical & mental, kills babies)
• feeling important is so valuable (kids love to contribute!)
• teach to contribute (belonging)
• offer it freely (contact)
• hugs, attention at home lessens promiscuous activity

• When needs not met: undue attention seeking (misbehavior, desperation)
• "You can never get enough of what you don't need, because what you don't need will never satisfy you."

I'd like to conclude with a personal story I have about a girl that I knew years ago. I'll call her Sarah. Sarah was a very annoying girl that rode on my school bus when I was in Elementary school. She was noisy, she wouldn't stay in her seat, she'd do gross things, and just plain bother/irritate everyone on the bus. One day, I decided to take action and work on controlling her so she'd stop bothering everyone. I sat next to her (with her against the window) so she couldn't get out of her seat; I kept her from licking the bottom of her shoe, the bus wall, or other people. From that day forward, I dealt with her and did my best to get her to calm down and be nicer. It didn't take long for her to begin to be calmer on the bus and I eventually became her friend (even though she was a few years younger than me :P). After learning about parenting and the needs of children and Brother Williams sharing a story about a boy he knew in his church ward who acted similarly, I have realized why Sarah acted the way she did and why what I did helped her. She was, for whatever reason, desperate for attention and contact. Me sitting next to her and constantly telling her to "stop," "sit down," "don't do that" gave her attention, albeit negative attention, and me physically restraining her at times gave her the physical contact she so desperately sought. All in all, once her needs were met, she became a much more calm and likeable little girl and we didn't have problems with her on the bus anymore.

Brother Williams' story about the boy in his ward was very similar: Jonny acted just like Sarah, if not worse, but when Brother Williams went out of his way to talk to and make physical contact with him, he calmed down and became a whole new person! I guess the "take-home" message from this is that we should try to find the reasons behind people's behaviors; we should look for what need is going unmet. And, we need to make sure that all the needs for our children are being met throughout their lives. Like mentioned in my notes, a baby that is not getting its need for contact met will die. Being fed is not enough to survive; we humans need contact with other humans or there can be severe emotional, mental, and physical consequences.

Purposes of Parenting

I don't know how well I'm going to be able to elaborate on this topic, so I'll just share my notes this time because I think it's the best way to pass on what I think is important.

• The purposes of parenting
• prepare for eternal life
• help children so they can be successful
• learn & grow via responsibilities
• bring people to Christ
• have joy
• feel & become more like Christ (charity)
• creating bodies for God's children
• The biggest resources we have for our teenagers is our relationship with them.
• Mothering =
• great love & concern
• verbal expression of emotions/problems
• relationship oriented
• emphasis on support
• nurture 
• Fathering =
• task oriented
• fixes, solutions
• independence
• orient children out into the work
• teaching
• Divorces tend to occur between 2 & 5 years after wedding (after birth of 2nd child)
• The husband should be in the delivery room, not the mother of the woman giving birth!
• The mother will put the new mother in the role of the child & the husband will be left on the sidelines.
• Child care
• husband (& wife)
• responsibility
• Nurture
• wife
• tend, support, comfort
• Having an expert in both areas (child care & nurture) will allow you to cover more territory
• Fathers are portrayed as useless, insignificant, dumb, uncaring in the media (men are only needed to contribute their X or Y chromosome)
• Not true!!!
• Women entering workforce denigrates & removes father's role as breadwinner & mother's role (she's no longer at home to care for the kids)
• My definition of parenting: The purposes of parenting are to provide an enriched environment in which to raise & guide children such that they will be prepared to live a full life when they are out on their own.
• purposes: protect & prepare to survive & thrive in the world

Marriage Preparation

In today's society, people are now more preparing for divorce than they are for marriage. Evidences of this include: prenuptial agreements, high aspiration and low expectations, waiting longer to get married (on average until age 26 for women, 29 for men), waiting to have a career to "fall back on," delaying marriage to have more money and resources, finishing college first, cohabitation (parallel lifestyle, less likely to marry, less sex). All of these actions are focused on divorce avoidance rather than marriage strengthening.

Disadvantages of waiting longer to marry:

• Narrows the field (you're around fewer potential spouses when you leave college)
• Having kids later (can't have as many, have less energy & interest in them)
• Have a more established life, which makes it harder to mesh with someone else's life (you have more to give up)
• Makes you completely self-dependent, when you should go from leaning on your parents to becoming a little more self-dependent, to still needing to lean on someone (your spouse). As a married couple, you should be depending and leaning on each other for support.

 Dating= Planned, Paid for, Paired off (with multiple people, it's not exclusive!). Young, single adults today tend to "hang out" instead of dating and they go straight from hanging out to boyfriend/girlfriend to engagement. They skip dating and don't truly court each other! Dating is SO vital! To help illustrate this, here are some things that separate dating from "hanging out":

• One-on-one conversations, getting to know each other
• You're not competing with other people for the person's attention
• They're frequent and simple
• You get to know yourself and others (what you like and don't like in them)
• You build social skills

Why do people tend to hang out instead of date?

• It's less complicated
• It takes less effort, easier
• Free for the guys
• You can come and go as you please
• NCMO (non-committal make-out) (benefits without committments)
• Dating is not properly understood

Courtship should be the next, clearly defined step after dating. It is exclusively dating (not hanging out!) and is a trial for marriage. Everything about dating remains the same, you're just doing it with only one person, getting to know them and your compatibility.
 

After courtship comes engagement, again, a distinct step away from courtship! Engagement is the point at which you are making definite plans for marriage, are truly and clearly committed to each other. However, engagement does not mean that you should stop courting! There is always more you can learn about someone, and your potential spouse is no exception. Even after you're married, you still continue to learn about them!
 

The final, obvious step, is marriage. Again, marriage does not end courting. You should still go on dates (dress up and make it special!) and must stay in contact throughout the day, just like you would when you were courting prior to engagement and marriage.

 
As I mentioned multiple times, the steps you go through towards marriage should be clear, distinct, and defined! This means you must communicate with each other where your relationship stands and where you are headed. This is the best way to build a good relationship and a firm foundation for a strong marriage. Thus, the "dreaded" DTR (define the relationship) is actually smart! It removes confusion about where you stand with each other and opens up communication. It will be awkward at first, but it'll get better! If you can't discuss your relationship when you're dating, how can you do it when you're married? The natural tendency is to slip from one stage to the other, with no or little communication; it "just happens." This creates confusion and neglects developing your communication skills, which will be detrimental to your marriage.
 

But, if you're already married and "slid" when you were dating, there's still hope! Go on dates! Dress up, make it special, show that you care about each other. Work on communicating more on a daily basis. These things help you stay connected and in love and keep you from just "drifting" apart, which occurs all too often in marriages.

To end, here are some final notes on marriage prep:

• Deception and duplicity in dating doesn't end with marriage.
• Dating isn't trying to lure in (getting dibs on) someone  you like;  it's learning what you like in people, getting to know different people.
• Inspiration is needed all throughout dating, courtship, engagement, and marriage because if you just wait until engagement, you're not as willing to hear "no."
• You want to know your Father's will to let your relationship continue or not.
• He wants to counsel with us, not just give His "stamp of approval."

So, now that you know what dating is, GO DO IT!!!! Hanging out is not bad, in moderation, but dating is so much better!

Physical Intimacy

So, I know this is an awkward subject for some people, but it's really important and should be well understood. I'll just stick to the basics though and keep it relatively short.

 The Relationship Attachment Model illustrates the ideal/most stable levels of knowing, trusting, relying on, committing to, and touching that should be seen in a healthy relationship. You should know someone more than you trust them, trust them more than you rely on them, rely on them more than you are committed to them, and be committed to them more than you touch them. (see below)

However, relationships today tend to have much higher touching and commitment than they do the other 3. A more common model American society today may be the exact opposite of the ideal. This causes problems with relationships and has long-term effects on marriages. My professor, Michael Williams, is a marriage and family counselor. He says that quite often, when a couple comes in for marriage counseling, if you look back to their dating history, their problems began at the beginning of their relationship with their RAM. Thus, it is evident that RAMs are very important and we should be careful how we handle our relationships from their initiation.

To finish off, here are my notes from class:

• Purposes of sexual intimacy
• invite children into the world (not a casual act!)
• create closeness
• become "one"
• grow closer to God
•  Being very physical with many people greatly decreases your ability to form attachments.
• it makes it harder for others to attach to you as well (they don't know how serious you are)
• Sexual intimacy is not a race (after you get married); you can take as long as needed for both of you to be comfortable!
• The greatest satisfaction comes in happy marriages & those that have been married for a long time.
•  Being attentive to your partner provides the most satisfaction.
• Focusing on spiritual aspect more than physical aspect helps you draw closer to God.
• It's important to marry a person who is chaste! Being a virgin is not the important part; it's being clean.
• If you're engaged and still feel the need to keep your opposite gender friends, you're not ready for marriage.
• Have clear boundaries!
• Be so loving and so kind that your spouse has no need to look for comfort else where.
• Preparation/overcoming apprehensions: And They Were Not Ashamed: Strengthening Marriage through Sexual Fulfillment, by Laura M. Brotherson (read before marriage, separate from partner)
• Teaching children: LDS.org - search teaching about physical intimacy

Hopefully you found some of this interesting and helpful. I did and I wish that everyone in the world could understand the sacredness of sexual intimacy. It should only be shared within the bonds of matrimony. It was create to bring children into this world, therefore it should not be "played" with outside of marriage! Anywho, that's my little lecture and that's everything I have to say on this topic.

Marriage, An Equal Partnership

The idea of marriage being a truly and sincerely equal partnership is a revolutionary idea and comes from a unique belief system. In past generation, the husband was considered above the wife. Currently, this can still be the case in some homes, but so can the wife being over the husband. But, most importantly, marriage can now be seen as more of a relationship of equality rather than one of dominance and submission. This is more of a religious view on marriage and can especially be seen in LDS or "Mormon" culture and it is quite contrary to the practices of many other cultures of the world.

Creating a marriage of equality takes significant hard work because it is rising above natural tendencies towards structured leadership or dominance (this is seen many animal species, in the food chain, in business, in government, etc). However, it can be a refining process. You learn to become more submissive or outspoken (depending on which end of the spectrum you are on to begin with) and charitable.

As a quick side note, something interesting that one of my classmates said regarding same-sex marriage is that males and females are like puzzle pieces, you can't fit the same pieces together (a hole won't attach to a hole and a peg won't attach to a peg)! I won't elaborate more on this topic because it is so controversial, but I thought that was a very profound analogy that really makes sense. We are designed to choose a mate of the opposite sex.

One of the best ways of creating unity is through counseling, and I don't mean going to see a marriage counselor. The council method is used by the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and their model can be applied to marriages, families, or any situations that require coming to a consensus. The goal of the council method (for the leadership of the church), is discussing a topic to consensus regarding the Lord's will. They open with a prayer to invite the Spirit in order to receive inspiration, to facility love from unity, and to get everyone focused. Next, the agenda of the meeting is laid out so that everyone knows what will be talked about and to prepare them for discussion. What follows is the discussion. I will not do the process justice, so here is a video describes what happens very well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtwpPT1QQQE&feature=feedwll&list=WL. 

The key is that everyone has a say and they continue around the circle until everyone agrees. The meeting is then closed with a prayer to solidify the proceedings and give thanks to God. Afterwards, a treat is always provided. This is because eating together bonds people, opens them up to each other, allows them to reconnect, and lightens the mood. Another thing to note is that before the meeting begins, the brethren take time chatting and expressing love an appreciation for one another, which helps create unity and love and starts the meeting on a good note.

The council method does not have to be religious for those who are not. The same principles can be applied to anybody or any discussion. Make sure that everyone involved feels loved. Have an agenda. Let everyone share their opinion and go around the group doing so until everyone has agreed (it may take a long time!). Then, take time to enjoy a treat together afterwards so that you can reconnect and lighten the mood back up. My roommates and I used the counsel method to discuss issues we were having regarding house work. By far, that was the best group discussion I have ever been in and it greatly outshines any previous roommate meetings I have had. I felt like we were all friends and loved each other before hand and was able to keep that in mind throughout the meeting. Everyone was given an opportunity to share their thoughts, ideas, and feelings until we all agreed on what needed to be done to fix the problems. By the end of the meeting, we all left happy and united and more willing to do future meetings (quite the contrary to my past experiences!).

I know that love and unity is important in any relationships, but especially in marriages and families. The world would be so much different if husbands and wives always worked as equal partners and if the council method was used to resolve issues. I bear my testimony that, as the hymn "Love at Home" states, there truly is "beauty all around. . . joy in every sound. . . [and] peace and plenty. . . when there's love at home."

Recap on October 8 - October 10

Marriage is Ordained of God

The Family: A Proclamation to the World states that "marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God." In class, we defined "ordained" as meaning confer holy orders upon, power/responsibility, to order or command, and prescribed by God. Thus, this statement means that marriage between a man and a woman is commanded by God, no other marriage will be blessed by God, it has prerequisites, and it is a gift.

Following are some of my notes from class:

• Just because something is legal does not mean it is no longer a sin. Legal sin is still sin!
• the family= a foundation
• it's Christ-like
• it is a Zion in every way
• essential functions of home:
• procreation
• bringing souls back to Christ
• Priesthood
• shelter, food, security
• love (father's different from mother's! <- will be discussed more later)
• teach the gospel, love God, focus on God
• place of refuge
• unity
• sacrifice
• Not having a father in the home is the greatest predictor of poverty.
• Mothers and fathers relate to both genders differently.
• When there is love in the home, Satan is unable to dwell there.
• 25% or more of the Proclamation is about marriage.
• Marriage leads to less selfishness; things become less about me, my, and I and more about us, our, and we.
• Love is less about romance and more about genuine concern for the other person.
• Christ-like love: unconditional, eternal, not dependent on returned love, grows & develops
• sometimes we are blessed to be able to love beyond our natural capacity
• Spencer W. Kimball's marriage formula:
1. Focus on what's most important
2. Great unselfishness
3. Continued courting (express love in unmistakable ways)
4. Live the commandments
• The quality of your family will always be limited by the quality of your marriage.
• The interaction cycle:

• The most difficult trials for young couples:
• showing your love every day
• communicating (1-on-1 talking)
• relying on each other and not their parents
• service, selflessness
• Nothing should ever come between you and your spouse (physically, emotionally, or symbolically)
• Fun fact: women are much more likely to file for divorce than men.
• Women marry expecting change, men marry expecting things to stay the same.
• It's not natural for women to love their husbands more than their children (because children are so vulnerable and require so much care), but the HAVE to in order to sustain their marriage.
• "Magic 5 hours": spend 5 hours a week with your spouse
• 10 sec. kiss every day
• really talking (as friends!), not just business talk
• do something special
• weekly date
• Nurture your friendship with your spouse! (active process, tend to every need)
• Fun fact: the longest "chemical" love (excitement, butterflies) can last is 2 yrs, after that you have to work at loving each other (through service)!

One final note I would like to leave you with about why marriage is ordained of God: it is the foundation for a new family (a quality marriage will provide scaffolding for the family), it helps you develop Godly character (you better understand God through it), it facilitates growth and understanding, and you become one with another human being ("Zion").

I love my family. I love this gospel. And I bare you my testimony that a strong family is truly dependent on a strong marriage. I wish that everyone could understand and apply these principles to better strengthen their marriages and families. One day, I hope to be able to apply them to my own marriage and family. Please take them to heart.