Hello my wonderful people, I hope you had a great week full of so many news things! This blog is going to be a little different because it's my last one :( I'm taking this wonderful class but its coming to an end so this blog is too. This week I wanted to talk about change. Change in life, jobs, classes, friends, and most importantly Family. Our families are sadly not going to stay the same our whole life. We all grow up, add new people to the family, move, don’t talk, and so much more because we always know what life has in store for us. I’ll talk about a big change going on in my life right now. Next week is the end of my school semester, we have a week break then we start a new semester. With a new semester coming it’s all new classes, new professors, new classrooms, a new seat, and new classmates. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was nervous, that’s how I feel about change. It makes me nervous. It's new and I'm never fully sure how I am feeling. On one hand change is so fun, it's a new environment and it can be exciting and happy or scary and bad. But I want to point out that change is a positive thing, in the end it helps us grow. No matter the change, even if it's a slight change or a big scary change, it moves us out of our comfort zone and helps us grow as a person. If we never changed anything our lives would be so monotonous and boring, we would do the same thing everyday and get so bored, we’d be miserable! This is why change is good, especially in a family. I feel like family is something in life that has the most change. If you're like me, I have this picture in my head of my family, it's us sitting at the dinner table. It's my parents, my two older brothers, me, my 3 younger siblings. But it's not the same anymore, my family has added a sister-in-law, my wife, a niece, and a nephew. I love the changes my family has been through to get where we are today, and there's so many more changes to come. If we think about it, we go through changes everyday, the smallest things we change still have a big impact on who we are. What we eat during the day, what we wear to work, how we do our hair, the way we drive to work, the things we listen to or read, everything has a change to it! In conclusion, Change is a big thing or it can be the smallest thing. It's called changes because it's something happening around us but I think it actually changes us on the inside. Change gets us out of our comfort zone and allows us to grow stronger, smarter, and better. When we go through something hard we learn that we can do hard things and we can also change who we are no matter how strong the habit. I want to end this blog with a challenge. I challenge all of my readers to pick something in your life you have been wanting to change but haven’t because you don't think you're strong enough. I know you are! Make a plan and change it, TODAY! I promise you will feel better, and stronger in the end. It had been a great few months will all of you and I’m so glad to have shared my learning with all of you. I hope I helped each of you in some way. Until Next time, Bye!
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Hey everyone! I hope you had an amazing week and talked to all your family, nicely and effectively of course! Did you? Not sure what effective Communication is? Well let me tell you!
Do you have a person in your life that you can’t have a real conversation with? I have a solution for you, just keep reading and I’ll help you out a little bit. So lets learn about effective communication, effective communication is communication that actually works! This week I learned secrets of effective communication and figured they would be good for you too. So there are 5 secrets and they have the abbreviation ‘EAR’ E is for Empathy. The first secret under the empathy category is “the disarming technique”. The disarming technique is finding the truth is what the other person is saying even if it’s unreasonable. This is an important first step because when we are having an important conversation with someone we need to see from their point of view and see what they are trying to say. This is important because seeing from the other person's point of view can help you understand and be open to what they are thinking. What I'm trying to say is that seeing the other point of view gives you understanding. The second secret is, Empathy, Thought Empathy and Feeling Empathy. Empathy is putting yourself in the other person's shoes, though empathy is paraphrasing the other person's thoughts and feeling empathy acknowledges how the other person is feeling. This is important in an effective conversation because when you put yourself in someone else's shoes and see from their point of view you become understanding and it makes an effective conversation. I personally think feeling empathy is especially important because when you acknowledge the other person's feelings it helps them feel seen and heard for their feelings so they feel comfortable in the conversation. The third secret is inquiry. Thai people ask questions to come to a better understanding of how they are thinking or feeling. This is important to make effective communication because asking questions to help you understand can help make everything clear so there is no confusion between anyone so the problem can be solved and everyone is on the same page. The fourth secret is under the A in ‘EAR’, the A is for Assertiveness and the fourth secret is “I Feel” Statements. An example of these are “I feel upset” or “I feel like you aren’t listening” rather than using “You” statements. This is because in “You” statements point fingers and this can make the other person you are talking to feel attacked and also make them feel bad which doesn’t make for an effective conversation. Using “I Feel” can help the other person in the situation know exactly and clearly how you are feeling. The next section is finally R, R stands for Respect. And the last secret is Stroking. This is the attitude of respect even when you're upset, say positive things and be kind when you are heated. This is important because when you get heated the other person gets heated too and the conversation does on good. I know I did a lot of teaching in this post but I think it's so important to know and wanted to share it with you! So in conclusion, treat the other person you are in an important conversation with, with respect. Use clear and kind language, understand the other person and be loving. I challenge you this week to use the things I talked about this week and have a EFFECTIVE CONVERSATION with someone. You got this! See you next week! Hi everyone! I hope you had an amazing week and got to talk to all your friends and family this week! If you didn't, you should Call your parents or your best friend and tell them thank you for their influence in your life. Because that is what we are talking about today! Our culture, the influences they have on us and the different kinds of cultures in the world. To start off this week's blog I thought I would share a little about my life and the culture that surrounds me.
So to start off the reason I am the way I am is influenced by my culture and my culture is very influenced by my religion. I am a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and it is not a Sunday thing it is a lifestyle for me so it has a big impact on my culture. The biggest influence of my culture is the teaching of how important family is. I also married someone who has the same culture as me and to both of us family is so important. We visit and see family at least once a month and we call our parents very frequently. Alright I know I keep talking about family but it's a big part of our culture and has made us who we are because we know the time my wife and I spend together is so special and important. I think another part of my culture is rules. It might sound a little crazy but my religion has rules or guidelines we are asked to abide by and that has a big influence on the way I live my life. WE can’t drink certain things, we can’t wear certain things, and we are asked not to watch, listen or say certain things. We have the choice of whether or not to abide by these guidelines but I do and it has impacted me so much. The reason I shared this is because this is my culture! Culture is the way we live, so cultures have traditions or ways we do things. For example Mexican culture is very big on family and they take time during the year to take time to appreciate their ancestors and those who have passed. I think this is so cool and I think it has an impact on how they think or do things throughout their daily lives. There Are so many types of cultures there are cultures based on your religion, where you're from, your genetics, your schools, the area you live in, the people you're around, the people who raise you, and so much more! There are so many things that impact or create your culture. It's Important to know what influences your life and your culture and know other cultures. I think it's important to know what influences your culture to help you raise your kids, the people you interact with and the area you are in impacts your child while they grow and play a role in how they turn out. It’s important to teach your kids other cultures so they know that not everyone is the same, that some families have different religions, rules, family dynamics and no much more. In conclusion, Culture is important and knowing other cultures is important to understand where other people came from. So my challenge for you this week is to learn of other cultures and how they work or what they do. Teach your kids about these other cultures so we break them out of the “bubble” some people live in. I hope you all have a great week and learn something new. See you next week! Hi everyone! I hope you guys had a great week and followed all the rules this week! If not, you should because rules are how everything works in this world, class, work, and families. Well by the title and my cheesy first line, I bet you already know what I’m going to talk about today so here we go. We are going to talk about the rules and dynamics of families, and I’m going to share some ideas of rules I hope to incorporate into my family one day.
Family rules are there no matter if you think there is or not, they are there. Not all the rules are talked about but discussed but they just come into play and work out. So one rule I hope to work into my family one day is chores! I know this is a pretty common one but chores are so important and when everyone has a role in the cleaning or tasks that need to get done. When everyone in the family is doing their part in keeping the house clean and getting things done it makes life so much easier! I Want my kids to feel like they are a part of a working family by doing the chores and also I want them to feel accomplished that they are doing their part to get things done. I know this is easier to say because when I was a kid I absolutely hated chores but it taught me to clean up after myself and get things done. ( sometimes I wonder if my college roommates were taught this too…. Haha Just kidding) The next “rule” I want my family to follow is family dinner. My wife grew up eating dinner with her family every night at the dinner table even if it was takeout! She didn’t know that people did it differently. Since we have been married we have made an effort to sit down every night and eat dinner together either at our table or on the couch, but we are together. This has taught me the importance of that dinner time. Not only for a healthy meal but its pure family time, sitting down and being able to talk about our days has helped us grow so much closer. I don’t care if my kids are angry with their mom or just don’t want to talk but I want them to sit and be present with their parents and siblings during dinner time, this may be the only time throughout the day that some families may be able to get together. This is also a great way For me to know what is going on in my future kids' lives and them in mine. My next rule I want to implement is, clear communication. I know this one is very hard to work for but it is so important. I want to know what my kids/wife are up to, where they are going to be, what they are doing, how they are feeling, Etc. This may seem like I’m obsessive but no! I want to be aware and be there for my family when they need me. I want to know where my kids are going to be no matter if they are doing something I don't agree with, I’d rather them be safe then not know what is going on. I want communication when everyone is home at the end of the day, I don’t want my kids locking themselves in their rooms at night on their phones. I want everyone to be in the front room talking and interacting with everyone as a family. This builds connections and trust through everyone and I truly believe it is soooo important! Those are all the “rules” I have for this week but I hope they have helped you realize things you want to implement in your future family! See you all next week! Hi everyone! This post is a little late but better late than never right?? Well that's what I think at least. I hope you guys are having a great week and are learning and experiencing new things, because you never stop learning. In fact, I’m about to teach you something today that I think is very cool and interesting because it involves anything and everything. So without further ado let's talk about the scientific method.
The scientific method is “a method of procedure that has characterized natural science” ( I got that from googling the definition of scientific method). There are a few things that are included in the scientific method and I will go through them slowly and explain each step. Because we are in a Family Relations class I'm going to come up with a scenario and go through each step using the example in each. So picture this, you are sitting at a table in an amusement park and you are people watching. You see a family with a woman, a man, and 3 children, an older boy, and 2 little girls. Okay let's talk about the scientific method! The first step is making an observation. An observation in a scientific method is receiving knowledge from an observation and recording the information. For example in the scenario with the people at the amusement park, based on the observation I see a mother and father and 3 kids, maybe a family? So my observation is I see all these people and then…. Forming a hypothesis is the next step in the scientific method. A hypothesis is an educated guess based on the observation you got when you were observing. So in my scenario my hypothesis is that all of these people, the man, woman, little boy and 2 little girls are a family. A family enjoying a nice sunny day together at an amusement park. The next step in the scientific method is to carry out an experiment. Carrying out an experiment would be testing to confirm or deny the hypothesis. So in this case it's a little weird but maybe you could go up and ask if all these people were a cute family, or you can continue to observe and see what the people doo, such as call one of the adults ‘mom’ or ‘dad’ or the two adults kiss could mean they are in a relationship, etc. In other causes in science it would include conducting an experience with chemicals or living things etc. The next step in the scientific method is Collecting data. This is measuring results of the experiment or taking the results from the experience and using the answers as results. The data in this scenario would be if you saw the adults kiss or the kids call the adults their ‘mom’ or ‘dad’ and so many more examples. The second to last step in the scientific method is Analyzing results. Analyzing results are taking the data that you got in the last step and drawing conclusions of what it all means. For this scenario if the two adults were showing affection you could draw the conclusion that they are in a relationship or if you heard the children call them their parents you can draw the conclusion that well, they are their parents. This is the last step to your specific experiment that you are using the scientific method on. The next thing you could do is repeating your experiment on something else you observed. This shows that the conclusion you drew from the experiment wasn't just a chance but it gave you correct results. In conclusion you can use the scientific method to conduct any experiment you want. So go try it, good luck and I will see you next week :) Hi everyone! I hope you all had a great and happy week. If not, then this blog is for you! This week I want to talk about mindset. It’s not what my classes were exactly about this week but we touched on it and it has really stuck out to me since. So, what is a mindset, right? A Mindset is the way you are thinking, the thoughts, the mood about it, and the overall feelings you have. This week we talked about family situations such as financial struggles, a family member's/friend's death, or really anything that anyone can go through. What stuck out to me was the mindset that can change that whole trial and process.
I want to talk about an experience I had about mindset and I think a lot of you can relate to it. So it all started with Covid. When the Coronavirus hit and the entire world closed down, no one could leave their house and interact with others and no one could really do anything except stay inside and do whatever. I feel like a lot of people went into this experience mad, negative, and scared about the whole situation, which makes looking back at that time really sad. But there were people out there that took Covid and changed their lives entirely. I know my mom is a great example of staying positive in situations. So when Covid happened she took it as an experience where all her kids were home and we could spend time together, grow our faith, and change our lifestyles. My family took Covid as an experience to change and work on ourselves. We all learned how to be kinder to each other, how to make all sorts of things, we did a lot of house projects, and watched a lot of movies. Some people learned and found God, Some started and accomplished so much on weight loss journeys, and others didn’t do anything and became depressed. Those who changed and got a positive outcome from Covid like I did went in and had a good and positive perspective of the situation. Those who thought about it as a terrible time had a negative perspective. Think about it, God blessed us with a time to step back, reevaluate our lives and reset. But honestly, if you think about it, if we change our perspective about any situation or any day then our lives could have a completely different outcome. If we woke up and instead of dreading going to work or class, we could be positive about the situation and be blessed that we woke up that day, we have a job, and we have a home to come back to. No matter the situation we are in we can look at it from a positive perspective I think a good example of this was a talk from an Elder in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints. He talked about how his 2 daughters had different plans the same night. One was going to babysit and the other had a blind date. Someone came to the door and the girl that was going on the date left with the guy at the door. A few minutes later they came back. The guy at the door was actually the one that needed the babysitter. Instead of being embarrassed and negative about it, they laughed! If you don’t laugh and make fun of life and the things that go on it can change everything. In conclusion, Be positive. Think of the happy side. Everything we have and get to go through is a blessing and we should be thankful and happy for everything we go through. Remember that no matter the trial or miracle, the Lord trusted you with that and YOU GOT THIS!! Hi everyone! Hope you have an exciting week and found something fun to do this week! If not, here I am to give you a great blog all about sex, well kind of. This week I wanted to talk about all the brain chemicals and body functions that go into the beautiful action of love. First I want to start with the differences between women and men when it comes to sex and their different sexual organs.
First, What's the reason you want to have sex? Most men would say they want to have sex so they can feel close to their significant other which is great! But the thing is it's the opposite for women. Women want to feel safe, warm, close, and loved in order to want to go forward with intimacy. Which most of the time takes longer for the women to get aroused than it does men. So, some advice for those men out there trying to get lucky (and are married!!) get your girl some flowers and dinner, cuddle up and watch a movie, be extra kind and make sure you tell her you love her and see where it goes :) Next, let's talk about feeling aroused and wanting to have sex. The chemical in our brain that gets us excited or aroused into wanting to have sex is called Dopamine. This is an important chemical that allows our bodies to prepare themselves for this encounter. Fun fact, most men are easily sexually aroused at the age 18/19 while women are ages 30-35! Isn’t that crazy?! I think that it is so interesting that girls are so much different when it comes to these sexual things, and I've learned so much about it this week! Alright back to brain chemicals. Another chemical is Serotonin, this chemical gives a sense of well being, this helps each person in a situation feel comfortable and happy. Oxytocin is a a funny chemical in my opinion, it's created during sex, childbirth, and lactation. This is the chemical in women that helps them feel closeness. The funny part to me is this chemical helps so a mother thinks her child is beautiful, even if that child is ugly! This is also the chemical that makes the women want more kids and forget how bad the pain of giving birth is. Oxytocin also is the chemical that helps a woman feel closer to their husband while making love. It's so interesting to me that there are such strong chemicals in our brains that can literally control the mood we are in and what we feel in our bodies, so cool! Some important things to keep in mind when it comes to sex is, everything is okay, if things are bad they can be fixed! A good thing to keep in mind is alcohol driven sex is always BAD sex. It doesn’t bring anyone closer if neither of you are going to remember, and if one person is drunk the other should stand up and walk away from that situation where that person is under the influence and isn’t in the right state of mind to make that important decision. Another important thing is when something is wrong and you are struggling in a marriage don’t go to counseling alone, or talk to the opposite gender about your marriage problems. It causes problems when you are talking behind your spouse's back, especially if it's to your opposite gender. Pornography can also cause so many sexual problems because your expectations are completely wrong and they aren't spiritual at all, those expectations come from the devil and can create sexual problems. There are so many other important things about sex and parts of intimacy that are so important but I think the most important thing to end with when it comes to sex in any way is consent! No matter if they are your boyfriend/girlfriend, spouse or your significant other. They still get to have a say in what happens, they get to say yes or no, they get a voice! And remember NO means NO! Hey Everyone! Hope you guys had a great week this week and had some fun things to do! This week I wanted to talk about marriage, or more like entering into a marriage. This week I want to talk about the topic of when to marry. Should people get married young or a little bit older? Let's talk about it! First, my opinion is WHENEVER IT FEELS RIGHT! It doesn’t matter what Bill Nye the science guy or Wendy from the New York Times says about when to get married, it's your life and your timing. Marriage is the most important decision in your entire life so don’t rush it!
Alright now into the topic of getting married young or wait till you're a little later in your twenties or even older. Personally I believe that people should try looking for their future spouse around their early twenties and see where it takes them. As you are living on your own, and learning life you start to develop routines and patterns that you want to have forever, but when you get married you may have to adjust these patterns or routines to fit someone else in them or develop a whole new routine, which can be extremely hard! So as you are first starting out to figure out your routines and patterns I think you should look for a spouse so you can work on developing these patterns together. I am now in my early twenties and married and I still find it hard as we are adjusting our routines to fit into each other's schedules and find time to spend time together. For example, my wife has a routine of getting up before me getting ready and leaving for work way before I even get up for classes, then we have tried to work in time to see each other during our breaks from work or classes but it has been a struggle because we already have a routine, so then we try to make time for each other at night between and after homework. It's a challenge but doable! So no matter how old you are or whatever routines you have you can always make a marriage work and make time for each other. Another thingI wanted to talk about that I looked into this week is babies! In a marriage when you have a baby all emotions are enhanced, a mothers attention usually turns to the babies instead of the spouse. This is usually a problem in a marriage because the couple stops working together to grow, this is also similar when a couple becomes empty nesters. When a couple or one person in a couple turns their focus to their kids and forgets to work with the spouse and grow, it ends up causing problems in the future because all the time that they aren’t growing together they are growing apart. Once all their kids leave the house they end up only having each other to spend time with and if you aren’t continuing to develop that relationship its going to slowly die and be harder to recover, this happens to a lot of older couples when their kids leave their home. In conclusion, start dating and looking for a spouse earlier so you can learn and build together instead of having to adjust and change your methods too much when you get married. This can help with the ease of all the changes in marriage and stress of that. It's also important to make time for your spouse, like going on dates or having a real conversation everyday so you can continue to build together so you don’t have problems later. Hey everyone! I hope you’ve had a great week and had lots of fun things to do. Here I am again for this week's lesson. The lesson I have for you today is about dating. I think dating is so important. Dating is an essential part of preparing to get married. Through my college experience I feel like a lot of my friends didn’t ask girls on dates or look for anyone. They sat around hanging out with girls in our wards hoping their person they were going to marry was just going to come up to them and fall in love at first sight. I think in some cases that has happened for people but guys need to be asking girls to go do fun things or even girls ask. I think there is a big myth that you can only ask girls out that you're interested in, or think you would marry but I think this is a total LIE! Dating is supposed to be fun and it's supposed to prepare you for marriage and teach you how to treat each other. I believe in this because when I got up to college I was going on dates like twice a week trying to meet people and with an end goal of getting married but I was like all my friends thinking I could only ask someone out that I was interested in. Until one day, a girl from my family home evening group asked me on a group date with her roommates. I wasn’t really interested in this girl and couldn’t ever see us getting married, but said yes anyways. I went on the date and had so much fun! We kept going on dates then about a year later we got MARRIED!! I never saw myself dating let alone marrying this girl for some reason, but after getting to know her and spending time with her I completely fell in love! I share this because dating shouldn’t have so much pressure on taking the perfect girl on the perfect date and falling in love, dating people should be fun. A part of my religion is the advice not to date till your 16 and when we do turn 16, to not date exclusively. I believe this is a thing because when we turn 16 we are supposed to experiment with dating different people so we can figure out what we want in a future spouse. Dating is not only important to prepare for marriage but it's also important to date the person you do marry while you're married. I think there's a big difference between going on dates and hanging out. Hanging out is calm and natural, something you would be doing by yourself not really doing anything fun or special. I think a date is something out of the ordinary everyday activities (watching a movie at your apartment, or doing homework). A date would be like going bowling, painting a picture together, going to a museum, stuff that is a fun activity but it doesn’t have to cost a lot to do. Doing these fun activities to meet people and eventually find a spouse is good but dating your spouse is also really important, actually it's essential. It continues to build your relationship with your spouse and allows you to learn things about them and fall more in love everyday. In conclusion I think dating is genuinely so important. When was the last time you went on a date with someone? I challenge everyone this week to ask someone on a date, whether that’s a nice girl/ boy in your class, your boyfriend or girlfriend, or your spouse. Dating is an essential part of preparing for marriage and keeping a marriage alive! Good luck with your dating! See you next week!
I hope everyone is having a fantastic week!
This week I learned about sexuality and gender. I read a few articles that stuck out to me this week that really changed my mind about raising my future children. I’ve done a lot of research about the topic of different sexes, and sexuality and how kids know about their gender. Starting at only a few months babies can recognize their gender and understand their gender. Meaning a baby boy is more likely to be drawn to a toy truck or a ball, and a baby girl can be more drawn to a baby doll. This is because gender is literally our nature, our genes. As humans and especially when we hit puberty, we become curious and more aware of our bodies, that is proven through science. We are born and brought into this world as a gender and it is an important gender, nowadays there are lots of people that medicines or procedure that can reverse that nature of ourselves because of this curiosity or want to change. I learned that this is a thing called Gender Dysphoria. I truly believe this is dangerous and something that I don’t believe in. I believe that our gender is not only who we are but what we are supposed to be. In my religion we know and believe that gender is an essential part of God’s plan. The Family Proclamation to the World says “Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose. “ I truly believe this, I think the gender we are assigned at birth gives us a purpose and we should choose how we use that purpose. In my research I found that in a family when there is a sister in the home, no matter if they are younger or older than the other siblings, the sister psychologically can affect how the other siblings are feeling, like helping with mental health. This is because as a female, females have more of a nurturing and accepting feel more than men do. As a sibling they can look to their sister for compassion or comfort, even if the siblings fight a lot there is something scientifically that changes when there is a sister somewhere in the family. In my research I also found ways of raising a daughter that I thought was fantastic. I was taught that most girls think they need to act tough and strong ‘like a man’ in order to be the stronger sex, right? NO! Females hold so much more on their shoulders just because of how they were born. I believe females are made to bear children, to nurture her children, to teach her children, but also to be a strong women who will stand up for herself. I want to raise my daughter to be strong women who can participate in anything they want, any sports, any job, any opportunity they want. I want my future daughters to learn to love their person, they were born as females that can bear children, be a loving wife who will be an equal in their relationships, and women who are good communicators of how they feel, what they need, and what they want! I hope my future kids are born and love who they are. In conclusion, gender in important and who we are born and made to be is who I believe we should stay as. Think about the future you want your kids to have and raise them in a way that will bring them closer to that goal. Thanks for reading my thoughts this week, hope you found something that helped you. See you next week!
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JaredI'm 23 and from New Plymouth, ID ArchivesCategories |