Blended familes

Blended familes is becoming moe of the "normal" these days if we even know what "normal" is. Blended familes have a lot of adjustments to make with making a new family out of two familes. It is important to rember both familes when it comes to making the new one. It is important to remeber that you may be going through so many transistions butt your kids are going through a lot more and they dont know how to handle there emotions. I have watched a lot of my friends go through blended familes and they have had to make a lot of new adjustments. This last year my oldest brother got married and his wife has a child from a previous relationship. They have only been married for 10 months and they have had to make a lot of adjustments, My brother had to move from Alaska to Las Vegas because his step-daughter and the custody with her dad. that is just one of the several adjustments that they made my brother had to figure out where her fit in because he is not the dad but he is with her for 50% of the time they had to find a balance of who dose what and now they are exspecting there first child together and ther is going to be even more of an adjustment to be made in such a short time. I would hope that parents and step-parents keep the children in mind and make the transitions as nice as possiable for them.

What is our jobs as parents.

I am not yet a parent butt I have some ideas as to what the job and responsibilites are of a parent.  A parent needs to teach the Gospel, provide, they need to be humble about what they are doing, parents need to relize tha they dont kow eeverything and just like there kids they too are learning and growing everyday. Parents need to teach respect and the only way to teach respect is to show respect and parents need to teach there children to become self reliant and trust that they can go out into the world and succedde.

We talked about NEVER WITHHOLD CONTACt. Just because you are ad at your child dose dnot mean that you shoul sennd them away or make thiem feel that you do not love them or that they are not important. We all want to belong and the place of all places that we should feel that we belong is in our homes with our familes.

Again communication is so important it is vital that you speak to your kids and that they know what is exspected butt alos that they know no matter what you will love them even if they make mistakes because they will make mistakes.

We need to show that we love our kids and that they are important and that belong here and they have a purpose on this earth.

Work and Money

Over the last 200 years there has been a lot of things that have changed when it comes to working and money in the family. 200 years and even as recent as 70 years ago it use to be that families would work together on the farm to earn money as a family. Families wee close and they just took care of each other. Now days you have families that have one or more parents that work out of the home this separates the family and they do not have a since of unity. Researches show that often times a family that has a two parent household where they both work you are losing money because you are paying for child care and that cost a lot of money. It is my opinion that if at all possible a parent should stay home with the kids at least until the kids are all in school. It is not far for your children to be raised by someone else. If your children are in childcare they are NOT getting the attention and love that they need and I say this because I know I worked as a preschool teacher for 6 years and even though I tried my best to give all of the kids the love and attention that they needed and deserved I could not do it I was one teacher to 10 kids and I would have kids that would get all of my attention or most of my attention because they would difficult children that would disrupt the class room and it would take my attention away from those who were good and did what they were suppose to do. Our children are our future and they need us to invest our time in them ad show them love and dedication and not ship them off to others.

Communication

Communication with your partner is streamline important.  I have seen so many relationships end because there is a lack of communication in a relationship. There are so many times in relationships that a partner dose not tell the other one what is going on and this can begin to put up a wall between the two and than things start to fall. Everything starts with communication when you don't communicate about things you are not working together in the relationship and trust is loss and you often become your own person and not a couple. A quote by Myra Kassim says " In the absence of information we jump to the worst conclusions." I know this to be true even in my relationships with family and friends when I feel that someone is holding information from me I feel like they are lying to me and nothing good ever comes from lying and I jump to the worst conclusions and often times I loose my trust in others. COMMUNICATION is the key to any relationship. find ways to told with your partner find ways to show them love through more than just being physical.

conflict and trials and tribulations in a family

All family go through periods of transitions and have trials and tribulations. My family has had many experiences whee we have had to learn from the exspereiance that we came across. One of the harder things our family had to overcome was my dad losing his job very suddenly and things in the family had to adjust to. My dad had to adjust to working jobs that had no meaning they were just ordinary jobs that paid minim wage and he deferentially tock a pay cut. My mom had to go back to work and help support the family. Our family had to adjust to a different kind of life style and we as the kids had to adjust to not having our parents around as much because they wee working more hours. I started to work to pay for my own things because I wanted to take as much financial stress off my parents as I could. My family pulled together and worked together as a team to make things work. Every family has there own situations it comes down to how you handle those situations that makes all the different. 

It has now been 5 years since my dad lost his job and he has since gone back to school to receive a bachelor  degree and a masters degree. My dad has taught me about hard work and even when the going gets tough to not give up. I would not change the experiences that my family and I have shared together for the life of me. We can not always prepare for what situations may come but we can have a say about how we handle those situations when they come and we can pull together as a family or we can pull a part the choice is ours. 

Intimacy

What do we mean when we say intimacy? In today world I feel that intimacy is a dieting art other than when people refer to sex and even than it is becoming something that is way to casual and has no meaning. Intimacy should be something that means something between two people and is something that requires work between two people.  It takes a lot of work for people to shave a continues connection with one another and it is something that needs to have work between two people. The point that I want to make is that it is important to love your partner and to share with one another. Remember that there are two people in a relationship and intimacy is not just sex it is a connection that you share with one another

There needs to be a strong connection with each other to share a life or even a friendship with more than just one person. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses and we bring them into any relationship that we enter and it is our job as a partnership to work together and to build those bonds stronger and show each other how much we mean to one another. .

Hang out or not

'If so what" Elder Packer
What dose this mean when I heard this I thought about asking it to myself in situations of improvement. Ask yourself if so what is this going to make things better or worse, am i going in the right direction or the wrong direction, am I doing what the Lord would want me to do or not. these are all questions that we should be asking ourselves everyday in order to live and be successful. When it comes to dating are we asking ourselves "If so what" how is this relationship moving me forward to the next step or am I ready for this serious relationship am I ready for that next step? there are so many times in our lives hat we can as ourselves "If so What"

4 things that I want you to think about when dating
1. dating
2. courtship
3. Engagement
4. Marriage

We have been warned that if we are ready to move ahead in our lives to the steps of marriage then we need to stop hanging out. We need to date and that means to date with the intent to someday get married and that dose not mean to marry whom you are dating at that time butt to be open to learning about you partner and investing me into them. Courtship is a step further than dating if you are interring into a courtship then you have interned into a serious relationship that could be heading down the path of marriage and then there is Engagement this is promising yourselves to someone else before marriage and that you guys have made a commitment to one another that is going to take you to Marriage winch is sharing your life together and eternity.