This week was alot of work.
Actually it was, we talked about work, and the affects that it has on the family.
We discussed the history of work which I found very interesting. How it hasn't been until recently, since the industrial revolution, that families have been separated during work. Before then everyone did most everything together. Which I had never though about before. Yes there was still some division of labor but it was due to the skills that people possessed. Since men are generally stronger they would do some of the heavy lifting, and women and more detail oriented.

This is not the case anymore. Dad works outside of the home, and in many cases mom does too. The children used to work in factories, but now they are gone all day for school, then scouts, sports, dance, piano, and hundreds of other things.

I grew up working, and I love it. I don't have a job right now and so I feel extremely lazy. I used to get mad if there was family work that I wasn't able to do. Work has always been part of my life, and I see the benefits of it.

Communication and Conflict:
Two topics of this weeks discussions. We started off with communication which is something that I feel is always talked about when looking at relationships. But that is okay because there is always new things to learn.
words= 14%
tone= 35%
nonverbal=51%
these were the numbers that we used when looking at how we communicate. Even though there are many different studies that quote all sorts of percentages. But all of them have nonverbal as being the majority. Which is something that I find cool. How much we say when we are not saying anything.
Which brings me to something else that we talked about. Which is that you are always communicating. Even if you walk away or give people the silent treatment then you are still communicating some message. Which means you should always be aware of the messages you are sending.

We stated out our conversation of conflict by talking about power and what power actually is. The definition that we came up with was the ability to influence they way someone thinks feels, or behaves. And there are different types of power.
One of the things the book talked about was styles of conflict. When didn't go over this in class but I found it interesting. These are competition, avoidance, accommodation, compromise, and collaboration. I thought about what style I use. and I think it is one of two depending on the situation. I'm either accommodation, where I neglect what I want in order for the other person to have what they want. Which isn't always a good thing. But I realized that I am also collaboration. This is when you are very concerned about your interests but also the other's interests. I can think of situations where I wasn't going to give in, but at the same time I didn't want the other person to give in to me, because I cared about their opinions.

It is good to be aware of these things because once you realize how you operate you have a better ability to know what is going on. You can build your relationship, and work on establishing healthy boundaries.

This week we learned about family crisis.
We looked at how families can go through similar trials but the responses to it are completely different between families. This can be explained using the ABC-X model.
A- actual event
B-behavioral response
C- cognition (thoughts)
and then all those together equal X which is total experience.

We then went on to discuss the other things that effect how stressful a crisis is.
It can be internal or external, normative or nonnormative, ambiguous or non ambiguous, volitional or non volitional, chronic or acute, and cumulative or isolated.
One of the things that I found interesting from this list was volitional or non volitional. Because if we have some choice in the event then it is not as stressful to us. Because we like to feel in control.

We then talked about ways of coping with crisis.
If you are prepared for them, then they will not have the same effects, and the stress will push our families closer together instead of opening up a gap.

Responsibility during an event was another things we also discussed. How we need to recognize the responsibly that we have. But we also talked about in some crisis that we are the victim and didn't have control over the situation. but the responsibility for that is spelled response-ability. We are still in control of how we respond.

This week we discussed sexual intimacy. We went over a number of things but the part of the class that I learned the most from was a question and answer period.
One of the things that was asked was how much should you disclose to someone before you are married about past experiences.
I have always felt that you should tell them about past relationships. And there were people in our class who disagreed. Our teacher didn't have a answer but he did give us ideas to help us govern our decision.
Some of the things to consider are that with today's technology you don't know what people will post on facebook or say. You will never know when your spouse will find out. And many times the partner feels they were mislead if they find out later. Another thing he said that stood out was you can only make a good decision when informed. I just liked his explanation for this because I feel that you should be very open when the person you are going to marry.
We also covered teaching children about sex. We talked about the do's and the don'ts.
Here are the few things that I agree with:
Don't send the message that sex is bad. Because its not wrong, but you need to teach that it needs to be done within marriage and that it is very special and sacred.
don't use incorrect terminology. This can cause embarrassment when children don't know the actual term. and it makes sex shameful to talk about.

This week we moved on to learning about the wedding and the first kid.

We started off my talking about the proposal. We were asked to think about if the proposal mattered or not. I thought no, not really. But as we discussed it I came to see that the proposal is very important. Because they way you start the relationship off is the way it will continue. So if you don't have clarity in the proposal then the relationship will be lacking clarity all throughout. And we talked about the man asking the girls father for permission. Which has always bugged me. I figure that I am the he should be asking. I'm not owned by anyone, even though I love and respect my dad. But it is a good thing because you are acknowledging the parents, which sets up the relationship to start out on a good foot. Because the parents are more likely to let you do your own thing if you recognize their roles. And if doesn't have to be permission it can just be asking for support and letting them know your intentions. 
After all you don't just marry a person, you marry into a family.

Another thing that we discussed was the first child, and how marital satisfaction decreases after the first child. We talked about a number of reasons that this happens, but the part that I find interesting is how we can stop this from happening.
-The wife should involve the husband. let him feel the baby kick, help pick out the name, go to doctor appointments with her.
-The wife should not complain, by this I mean don't regret the baby because your miserable, remember that your love created this child
-planning ways to have the husband involved during the birth
-keep the couples mothers out of the delivery room

Then we focused on how there is a sacred part of having a child. It is a beautiful thing, and God wants to guide us and direct us. So always turn to him.
That applies into every aspect of life, but the decisions of who to marry and when to have children are especially important, and we need his guidance as we do.

Falling in Love:
That was our topic of discussion in class this week. But mainly our whole class period I tuned most of it out. We all ready gets you need to date date date everywhere else. but there where a few things that I did find very interesting.

First off the mis attribution of arousal:
I had heard about this before. In a study a women asked men questions on a very high and shaky bridge and then the same women asked them the same questions on a low sturdy and very safe bridge. The people from the first were more attracted to the women because they misinterpreted their fear of the bridge as attraction to her.  So in class we talked about others studies done on this same topic. I just find it fascinating how if we don't understand our feelings we will assign them to something in our environment.  And it also makes me wonder if guys try to use this to their advantage, because the last date I went on the guy drove extremely fast.

Relationship Attachment Model (RAM):
This was so cool to me because I have always been told that touch should not come first in a relationship. But it is not just a parents wish for their child to be safe there is actually research that backs this up.
This shows that there are five areas in building a relationship.

           Know               Trust                     Rely                      Commit                        Touch

 and each of these changes as the relationship does but healthy development goes from left to right. The thing that I found cool is that there is a slider under each of these. So when Know increases then Trust can. and Rely can then increase as Trust does. but it has to be level with or lower than the one before.
The example that we used in to know class was a car, you have someone before you will trust them with your car. And you have to trust them more than you rely on them.
When these go out of order then it falsely pushes the others up. For example when Touch goes up prematurely then we falsely think that all the other ones have, which leads to unstable development.

One of the things that we discussed this week, and what I found most interesting, was the differences between men and women. Even from a young age there are differences. And not just of obvious ones.
To start off this section we watched a video about this subject. In it some ladies were saying that if women are not capable of doing the same work as a man then the standard should be lowered or technology should aide them. She was speaking of instances like the fire department where physical strength is involved. This made me mad. I feel that if we a lowering the standards then that is not equality. We should be equal but that means that we must meet the same requirements to do the job.

Another thing that we talked about was how when men focus on a task that is all they are focused on and they devote a lot of energy to that one task. But women focus on many different things at once, that is one reason they can be doing something and then say “I don’t hear the kids anymore”

So I was thinking about that and one time my aunt was telling me that when her husband reads books his whole attention is devoted to that book. She said that she found the only way to get his attention was to call him one of the characters in the book. I thought that was so cool to devote that much attention to a book, and I tried it the next time I was reading, no I can’t do that. While the majority of my attention is on the book, I am also listening to everything around me.

I found this very interesting to look at the qualities that are generally associated with each sex and see how well the complement each other and work well together. But at the same time I see qualities of both that I have.