Learning about My family

Wow. I learned so much about my family this past week. Both the good and the not so good. We talked in class about family rules. These rules aren't ones that you talk about during a family home evening discussion or a family council. In a way they kind of set themselves. No one has to establish them or really enforce them most of the time they just exist. When you really stop to think about it, every family has a lot of these rules that you don't even realize until you stop to write them down. There are rules such as where you sit at the dinner table, if it's okay to talk back to your parents, when to use your parents first name if ever, who has the last say in a decision, rules about grades in school, and so many others. These rules really define a family and make each one unique.

We also talked about different boundaries. These boundaries deal with the way people in the family interact and communicate with one another. There are three main types of boundaries. They are diffuse boundary, rigid boundary, and clear boundary. The best type to have is the clear boundary. These boundaries are used when mapping out the relationships between family members. The boundaries look like this:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  is a diffuse boundary. This indicates that the family members that this is between are too involved in each others lives. There is more space in between than there is boundary.

____________________  is a rigid boundary. This indicates that the two people have little communication and rarely interact with each other. There is like a brick wall between the two people.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - is a clear boundary. This indicates that both people understand the family rules, but they don't try to be overly involved in each others business. They have a good understanding of how much interaction is appropriate. There are equal amounts of space and boundary between them.

Here is an example of how you would set up a family relations boundary picture:



This is just an example and each family's picture will look different but this one shows all the different boundaries. See if you can find all three. The M stands for Mom, D is for Dad and C is for child.

To wrap up, I really learned a lot about my family this week. I learned that you can solve family issues by redefining the boundaries between the members and also by making new rules if that is needed. If your family is having problems, draw up a boundary picture and see where you can help. 

Second Week :)

So the second week of school is officially over and I have to say that I do think I am really going to enjoy this Family Relations class. It is teaching me so much about the family. Things that I had never even considered before. This week we watched a video called the Demographic Winter. It really opened my eyes to what is going on with the population these days. The problem is that people just aren't having as many kids as they used to. Families are getting smaller, and there aren't enough children and young adults to take the place of the people that are retiring and eventually dying. The population is slowly decreasing and although this may sound like a good thing now, it will surely cause problems in the years to come. We also talked about some of the family trends that exist today. As I mentioned earlier, families are getting smaller, but there are also more single parent families, people are waiting longer to get married, people are living alone, people are living together before marriage, and more and more families are having both parents working. I understand that it's tough in this economy but mothers need to realize the impact for good that they can have on their children. If moms absolutely need the extra money, there are options for working from home, night shifts, and other options. I don't think I can stress enough how important it is for moms to stay home and raise their children.

It has been really interesting because I am also taking the Family Foundations religion class this semester and I have seen so many ties between these two classes. I am so glad that it's just the beginning. In my religion class, we are learning about the Family Proclamation and the roles of mothers and fathers. The Proclamation states that it is the mother's job to raise the children and the father's job to provide for the family. Whenever possible, this should be the case. The idea of being a part of a family was not an accident. Heavenly Father knows that we are social beings and we need interaction with other people to thrive. I am a strong believer in the traditional family with a mother and a father that are legally married and whenever possible sealed, and as many children as the couple decide to have and can support.

I want to be an influence for good. I want other people to know what I know and to share the joy that I feel whenever I see a family that is centered on the gospel of Jesus Christ. I can't wait to have more experiences as I learn more and more about the family in the weeks to come.

Beginning

So this is my beginning post. A little about me is that I am a sophmore, I am from Provo, UT, and I am a Child Development major. I am really excited to be in this class.