A college class more important than college

 

            This will be my final blog check as my class is ending, and I will be doing other homework assignments getting ready for graduation in a few weeks, but I will miss writing these because they have given me the opportunity to really reflect on what I have learned throughout this semester. Some of you may remember from my first blog that heavenly father has a way of placing me I not classes I never thought I would take and without fail those classes always end up being the most desirable for me in life. I really think we should require students to take classes like this and other about family and other crucial subjects over things like humanities and a second writing class. The benefit of this class has far outweighed the benefits of many of the other classes I have taken. Although this materiel will probably never make it onto my resume or into my workforce practices, they will have an effect every day when I come home to my family and that is where it really matters.

                As a final discussion in our class, we talked about marriages as they mature and evolve throughout life.  It’s interesting to think about because as a kid in college even with 2 kids of my own you don’t really think about how much your marriage will still change in years to come. It just kind of happens. Kids get older, jobs change, some go to college, some get married and move out. There is still a lot of change to come in our marriage and that’s okay because it will keep things exciting and fresh in our lives.  But that’s just me, personally I think most people’s ideal retirement is my worst nightmare. I love having things to do and being engaged in something especially my family.  

This isn’t the case for all families though many families face change earlier on. What if a marriage doesn’t work out and people end up getting a divorce? Having a regular family is already a lot of change over the years. When you throw in blended families it can become quite a lot to handle. Earlier I mentioned how I look forward to an evolving family but as children this can be really hard. As many of you have seen kids from blended or divorced families statistically just don’t do as well as normal household children on average. That’s not to say they can’t by any mean, it’s just less likely. Personally, I think the great majority of marriages could be saved and even better than ever if those people knew some of the things I have learned in this class. There really not hard concepts. They just aren’t ones that we think about in our day-to-day lives. Because of this we violate the principals of family, and we end up in somewhat dysfunctional ones. It’s not their fault. They just did know. That’s why I think it could be more beneficial than perhaps any other class to teach people these principals in high school and college. I think we can all agree that having a healthy marriage in family life is worth a lot more to most people than knowing what flying buttresses are. It truly believes that these principals could save thousands of marriages and give kid a better chance for success in life.

This class has changed my life and I hope some of the things I have shared will change yours too. I truly value the things I have learned and hope to use them the rest of my life.

 

The Unspoken Needs

 

            I personally am a fairly new parent and am quickly learning the challenges of each stage a child goes though. As a newborn I never knew how to help and felt rather useless to my wife.  at about 9 months, I never knew quite how to teach them right from wrong as I didn’t know what they could understand and what they couldn’t.  Now our oldest is 21 months old and although she is old enough to know right from wrong, she isn’t old enough to really understand why. And I find myself struggling to know how to teach her the why. Just the other day we were in the car, and she was in the backbeat in her car seat, and I think she must have gotten bored or something because she started to spit. For no reason whatsoever and the more I tried to tell her to stop the more she did it. She was old enough to know I wanted her to stop, but not old enough to understand when I threatened time out when we got home. To her without a why my words were powerless to her. I found myself at quite a loss in how to teach her at this stage.

                I guess my point is, parenting is hard not only physically but also just hard to figure out. In my search for better answers, I found some really good information on how to help prepare our kids for the world they will enter into.  Turns out it all comes down to the child’s needs.  If we can understand their needs, we can almost always understand not only their response but also what we should do about it. perhaps before their response ever turns negative. (Most of the time.) I’ve learned that there are 5 basic emotional needs not only children have but also adults. Contact belonging, Power, Protection, Withdrawal, and Challenge.

                I want to start with the first one on the list and go from there. Contact belonging. Contact belonging is the literal need to feel like you belong physically. Although this will look different for everyone, this could be physical signs of love, genuine interest in their life, quality time spent with them, or even playing a sport. Whatever it may be A child particularly needs to feel like they belong and feel loved physically.  As a parent some o the best things we can do to help facilitate this is to offer contact freely and to teach them to contribute to the family. If a child is feeling deprived of belonging, they will often begin to seek what we call “undue attention seeking” where they will do anything they can to get attention. Both good and bad. I think this is what my daughter as doing by insistently spitting even when she knew she should have stopped.

                Power, both children and adult need to feel like they have power over their own lives, accordingly of course for children. But as a parent we can do our very best to offer them as many choices as seemingly fit and to do our best to let natural consequences take their course for better or worse. (Within reason). This will help them to both feel that they have power and learn responsibility. If we fail to provide this to our children, we will often see them act out in ways such as trying to control others in adults or open rebellion in children.

Protection: We need to tach our children protect themselves and others. We can do this by teaching them not only assertiveness but also forgiveness. This will keep them free from emotional chains and they will not seek revenge

Withdrawal: In older kids its important that they leant the value of taking breaks and looking at things from an outsiders view we very quickly can become tunnel visioned and our view can be skewed from reality. We should encourage our kids to take breaks but return to the task promptly. This will help them avoid undue avoidance or procrastination. In getting things done.

Challenge: Kids need something to challenge them. This could eb a sport, school, a project, or any other form of challenge but they need something that encourages skill building and a sense of progression in themselves. Without this they can begin to be depressed and slowed in life.

I hope these 5 things can help someone out there to be a better parent I feel they will help me so I wanted to write about them a  bit.

Is working More Joyful Than Playing?

 

    This week I had the opportunity to take part in some really interesting conversation about the finances and work. Most of our discussion centered around the principal of work and so that is where I will primarily stay for my topic today. Many of us have a mindset that goes something like this. “Once I’m done with this work then ill get to enjoy myself” but how true I that statement? Especially when we are working with our families.

    I want your t think back to some of your earliest childhood memories that are joyful. What were you doing? Were you playing or were you working? You might be surprised to realize that your joyful early childhood memory was actually of you working. Interesting, isn’t it? I have a 20-month-old at home and as much as she loves to play in the living room, she will do almost anything to fell like she is helping. The earliest task I can remember her doing was wanting to throw away her own diapers. As she is a bit older now we find her running around the house with a tall or a rag and attempting to clean up anything that may be food on the floor. Or when the vacuumed comes out she runs into the room and intently watches as if she is taking notes. As I have found with our own kid n dim sure you have found with many of yours. Playing just does grab the attention of kids as much as working does. Especially when they fell like they can help. So why do we turn this round by about 16?

     I think that joy is found in work very naturally, but our society tends to smother that and tell us work is bad and that leisure is where the real joy lies. I find this to be completely false. I think as parents we could a much better job of embracing our kids in their effort to work and help. After all most young kids want to do it anyway. Why not encourage it? I believe that if we were to start living our lives in such a way that work was viewed as a good thing that we would actually find much more joy in our lives and our kids would grow up to be more determined and driven to accomplish great things over the course of their lives. I think every parent wants their kids to find what three passionate about and really work to accomplish soothing don’t they?

    From the time I was very young my dad would take me to work with him doing construction and remodel. I hated getting up early on a Saturday and working much of my summer in the moment, but I now look back and am so grateful that he brought me a long and forced me out of bed all those mornings. By doing so he instilled a work ethic and a confidence in me that has carried me through my adult life thus far. Because of that I am confident in myself that I will be able to do whatever needs to be done and I actually enjoy working to accomplish things and seeing the fruits of my labor. I now am getting ready to graduate college and have job lined up for the next stage in my life and I can honestly say that I am excited to start and good something every day that makes the world a better place. I truly believe that working will actually bring us more joy than playing especially when we do it with our families. That is a secret that I will hold on to and try my very hardest to instill into my own kids as they get older.

Never Decide Alone.

 

            Today I want tot talk about decision making in our families in our work life and for ourselves. Perhaps most importantly in our families though. I’m going to take a different approach than most of you would probably think of when decision making. But before doing that I want to share a bit of my own story with you.

            When I was in high school, probably about 16 I was finally able to make a lot of decisions on my own and for myself. Well, by the time I was 18 I had realized that I wasn’t very good at it and landed myself if a pretty dark place in my life. the truth of the matter is that I had used my agency to shut out any light that my life possessed without ever even realizing I was doing it. (I was not associated or had participated in any form of religion at this point in my life.) But I had realized that A very important part of me was dying because of my decisions, and I needed help reviving it. about this time, I met someone who introduced me to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Over the next few months, I spent a tremendous amount of time with a family who had a very good relationship with God and seem direct there lives so perfectly. Not easily, but correctly for sure. As I spent time there, I almost subconsciously gave the God the opportunity to influence me in a small degree the way he influenced each of them.

            Within a few weeks I began to experiment on my own. Trying to pray for the first time and include God in some to my life decisions. This changed everything… Because I decided to exercise a muster seed of faith during that time, I was able to learn that God was not only real, but he was a perfect Father in heaven who knew exactly who was, far better than I knew myself. As soon as I cracked to door for the influence of go in my life, I was seemingly drenched in the amount of direction that seem to pour into my life. The process was extremely difficult but for me but because Included my Heavenly father in my everyday decisions I have a new life that I would trade for 1000 times the other way.

            The reason I’m telling you all this is because it changed my life and I promise it can change yours too. I’m here to stand today as a witness that you have a Father in heaven who cares for you more than anything and he desperately want s to help you through your mortal life here on earth. You just have to let him. I am now married and the father of two and I realize that the decisions only get bigger and harder as life goes on. Because of that I heave learned the value of seeking the Lords will in our lives. Especially when it comes to big decision in our families.

            No marriage will ever agree on 100% of the life decisions you will have to make. So instead of letting those discrepancies become wedges between a family, why don’t we seek what the lord would have us do instead. You may be surprised at the answers he gives. My wife and I often find we were both wrong and so grateful we were. I want to invite you whoever you may be to invite your Father in heaven into the decisions of your life. I promise he wants to help you and knows exactly what the right answer is.  I have experiences this many times in my own life and have time and time again seen the wisdom of his council. I want to testify to you that taking this leap of faith in your life will not only help you lead a better life but help you get to know your Father in heaven on a personal level. Its has been the case for me And I know it can be the case for you too.

Taking Control

 

     This week I had the opportunity to be a part of some really interesting discussions about anxiety, depression, and crises family situations. Throughout the course of our discussion, I found myself both amazed by the agency our Heavenly Father has given us and taken aback by the adversary’s ability to cause us to limit its power. Agency is one of the most powerful things we have in this life and if we use it properly, we can accomplish miraculous things, however if we let satin begin to take our agency and use it in poor destructive ways, we can find ourselves in very dark places. But that is not our heavenly fathers plan for us. Its far better than that. It is for us to be able to use our agency to become something great and to be worthy of being called suns and daughters of God.

     I will preface this with the fact that this with what I am going to say will most likely counter what you have heard in the world today, but I hope that it will be a light to those who are open to the ideas. But before we get to that I want to talk about anxiety and depression in the purest and natural form. Anxiety is nothing more than our bodies natural fight, flight, or freeze responses to danger around us. That’s right anxiety is a totally natural thing that all of us are capable of.  Anxiety is our bodies natural way of trying to resolve a problem and avoid danger. Depression is a step furthest than that, depression is when our brain believes there is no way to escape the danger and that we will forever be doomed to whatever circumstance has caused our anxiety with no hope of ever changing it. Now, this is where things get really interesting and the part of the explanation of why these things are on the rise.

      You see our brain doesn’t really make decisions based off reality, its our spirits job to discern between truth and error, not our brains. Our brain makes designs based on what we perceive to be reality not reality itself. For example, your asked to say a few words Infront of a crown of people. Immediately anxiety sets in, you hear rate jumps, your blood pressure shoots up and your palms get all sweaty. In a nutshell your body is preparing to either fight or flight. But why? There’s no real danger nobody there is actually going to attack you. So why did our body do this? Because our thoughts led our brain to think there was a real danger. You see this is the key.

      Your brain can only react you can’t change that. However, you can change what its reacting too. Your thoughts. If you don’t think the crown your Infront of is going to attack you, neither will your brain. You won’t feel anxiety if you don’t give your brain anything to trigger it. this is where the agency in anxiety and depression lies. This is where you can take control of it again. Now this is a lot more than just “tell yourself happy thought’ your brain will immediately reject it if you don’t even believe it yourself. The thought that places the false perceived ones MUST BE ABSOLUTE TRUTH. Truth is the key to cure anxiety and depression. If we could stop perceiving the world around us as threatening and stop telling ourselves that we are miserable then we actually wouldn’t be.

       Now there is a third factor to this. Circumstances. But I’m here to tell you that circumstances don’t control your anxiety and depression do. They merely influence your thoughts that then control your anxiety and depression. but this is often the fall of ourselves. We tale a circumstance that’s kind of bad and tell our brains its horrible. For example: Say the father of a child is sent off to war. Not an idea situation but there is a start difference between “the government stole my dad and is going to get him killed” and “My dad is a hero”. You see how the first one cause anger but the second one inspires dignity. The situation didn’t change. Only our thoughts did. If this generation could but learn to use our agency to control our thoughts and therefore our brain we could bring about miracles in the world of mental health.