Family: The Hearty Part of Life

  The time has come for my last post and it's a bittersweet feeling. I've really loved doing these posts and sharing what I've learned. There has been so many great topics and information. I hope you've learned something useful and/or helpful. For my last post I'll be talking about parenting and the needs of children. Michael Popkin is a famous family therapist in Atlanta. He created a company called the Active Parenting Publishers where he provided tools to help parents teach their children how to become responsible and contented adults. He says that there are needs that children have that are beyond the basic necessities of life, like education, water, food, and shelter. He proposed that they also needed: 1) Contact/Belonging 2) Power 3) Protection 4) Withdrawing and 5) Challenge. Contact/Belonging A child needs physical contact, obviously appropriate contact. My husband and I took a mindfulness parenting class about 3.5 years ago and this was a topic that they ta...

  Have you heard of Dave Ramsey before? Maybe Jordan Page from Fun Cheap or Free ? If you haven't I  highly recommend that you do. They are finance pros. I've learned a lot from them, even before this week in class. Finances really can make or break a relationship. It's the number one reason spouses argue or end up getting divorced.  Growing up, my parents did not teach me these super important money management skills, though I wish they had. I think it's a skill that is being taught less and less, maybe because the parents themselves don't have the skills. As an adult and especially now that I have a family, I really want to take a bigger responsibility in my finances and pass that knowledge and skills down to my children.  This week I read a few great articles that really encouraged me to take a good look at my own finances and see where I could improve. The one I'm going to focus on is called, "One For the Money: Guide to Family Finance" by Elder M...

  Communication was the topic of this week's lesson. When I got engaged the advice I heard the most was "communication is key to a successful marriage". I was kind of sick of hearing that and in my head would say, "yeah, yeah, I know". It wasn't until I got married and situations came up that my feelings got hurt or I offended my husband, or we had an important decision to make, that I realized I lack some communication skills. I think a lot of us do. It's not so easy to take your thoughts and feelings and express them to another person so that they understand. It's even harder when we live in a world where lots of our communication is through texting or emails. Communication is made up of a couple of things: words, tone, and body language. With a text or email a person only gets the words to help them decode the message. They can't hear the tone with the message or the person's body language. We tend to trust what a person says by their body...

We always hear the term "positive thinking", right? Positive thinking can change our attitude, which then changes the outcome. Our brain believes everything that it perceives. So when you're watching a zombie movie your brain believes for that duration of the movie that there are zombies coming to eat your brain. The limbic system of your brain takes over. This system controls emotions. So since we are feeling scared because there are zombies coming to get us then our brain is going to start sending messages to our brain stem that we're in danger and physilogical changes start occurring. Our senses become more acute, our heart rate goes up, your blood actually starts to thicken (to prepare for an injury), and your hands and feet might get cold since your body is sending lots of blood to your mid-section of your body to protect your major organs. It's so cool! Here's a link if you want to read more about the fight, flight, or freeze response.  Back to zombies....

There have been subjects in my class that I have felt very passionate about and this week was another one. We talked about intimacy in marriage-the differences between men and women when it comes to sex, challenges that couple faces, and then the opportunities that couples have when they work together to overcome those challenges. One thing that I loved about class this week was seeing that the few married people in the class all agree and nod their head in agreement when we discussed challenges or differences between men and women. It showed me that these differences and challenges were real and something that lots of couples faced.  When I got married I faced these challenges and didn't know about what was "normal" as a woman to feel and want in intimacy. I felt like there was something wrong with me and that I was broken since sex was not something I wanted to do and didn't get enjoyment from it. It was a strain on my relationship with my husband. Don't worry,...

I was kind of annoyed and a little irritated with a comment made during class on Thursday in response to a comment I had made. Quick back story about myself. My parents divorced when I was 10 turning 11 after my father had an affair. Anyways, I said that during the early years of my marriage I was super afraid to voice my opinions or disagree with my husband in fear that we would argue, which would then lead to us getting divorced. A girl, I’m assuming who isn’t married, responded by saying something along the lines of you should marry someone that you feel comfortable talking to and who you trust. It was probably good that I was attending class via Zoom or else I would have probably said something out of anger. I just want to make clear that it’s OKAY to disagree with your spouse and TOTALLY normal. It does not mean that your marriage is on the rocks. Okay, back to the task at hand. When a couple decides to be exclusive and then get engage, boundaries should be made. One of those boun...