Blended Families

I want you to think of your family structure growing up. Were your parents separate or together? Did you have a step parent? A divorce is never easy it is always complicated. It’s complicated for the parents and its complicated on the children. For example, the parents have to have the talk with their children and tell them that they are getting a divorce. When a parent tells their children, they are getting a divorce they are literally tearing up one of the only worlds that child has ever known. I want you to imagine having your parents tell you that they were breaking up. If my parents decided to get a divorce now, even now at the age of twenty I would be heart-broken I don’t think I would know how to act. I think I might even start to think what is love? Having grown up hearing them say “I love you” all the time and then them getting a divorce would be gut-wrenching. Children have a hard time as well some even start to act out. One of my good friend’s parents got a divorce when we were in elementary school and she acted out all the time. It was one of the ways she knew how to get attention from her parents. After all, they were always too busy fighting they never gave her any attention. Even though it may be hard for the parents, but they need to stay in good contact with one another. It is for the benefit of their children their children. One of the reasons it could be so hard because if the father is dating someone and he has to keep in contact with his ex-wife how do you think his girlfriend would feel. It is just very complicated. 

            Not only are divorces hard but they are also very expensive in 2005 the average divorce in California costs 125,000. That is a lot of money! After the parents are split up it takes about two years for the children to use to having two Christmases in a year and only one parent being at their birthday party. It is a very hard obstacle for a child to overcome and two years are being the average for a child to overcome it. Can you imagine having all these family traditions and then all of this sudden you are breaking up the traditions that is heartbreaking as a child. I loved having family traditions growing up. It helped us become more united as a family. Not having a parent there would be a hard thing to overcome.

            When people get a divorce and they marry someone new so then their children have a step parent. It can be complicated for a stepparent to feel welcome into a house where children don’t really like them as much. They often wonder how they fit in with parenting. When really it should just be the biological parent that disciplines the child. This is because the child most of the times won’t listen to the stepparent they might say something like “you aren’t my parent, you can’t tell me what to do.” The stepparent should be equivalent to the aunt or uncle. If they are like a good aunt or uncle, the children are more willing to tell them things and not be so closed off. When the child does this the step parent should counsel with the biological parent and talk about how the child is feeling. These two people are going to have to counsel a lot more than any other couple.

parenting

Did you like the way you were brought up? The way your parents raised you? There is no such thing as a perfect parent. A lot of times children don’t like the way they were brought up and they tell themselves that they will not raise their future children the way they were raised. Lots of people don’t really know what to expect with parenting. Becoming parents one can learn so many things. They start to understand children and understand how much God can love someone. Having children also helps give an order to our lives. They prioritize things to do throughout the day. Parents need to realize that children have there owned personal needs and need to fill attachment need. They need to have those requirements fulfilled because if they don’t then they can have some issues. Let’s say that Bobby doesn’t get enough attention at home so he acts out in school and gets sent to the principal's office. The principal then calls Bobbie's parents and they have to talk to the principle and Bobby to figure out why Bobby is acting out all the time. It turns out that Bobby just doesn't get enough attention at home and getting into trouble at school is the only way Bobby can get his parents attention. Children need attention that is one way children feel loved. Could you imagine your parents both working and are never home and when they were home they were always on the phone with some and never paying any attention to you could you see how that would have such a big impact on your child.

            Some things that are important to teach your children is responsibility and respect. Without learning any responsibility as a child, they will not learn how to grow up and take care of themselves. going to college I have seen some people who don't really know how to do the basic things. I have met someone who never knew how to start the dishwasher before she came up to college because her mother always did it. Growing up and loading and starting the dishwasher was a choir that the young children got to do. My parents taught us how to do small and simple choirs when we were young and when we got older we got to do things like moe the lawn. I think you have to start teaching your kids how to work at a young age so that when there a teenager they won't complain as much as they would if they had never worked a day in there lives. As for respect that is also very important if you don't teach your kids to have respect at a young age how do you think they will respect you when they are teenagers? Teaching kids to have respect for there elderly and not talking back is something I think all children should be taught. 

            Children need to feel like they belong somewhere they need to feel like they can bring something to the table. When a child doesn't feel like they belong it will be very ruff of them. Growing up one of my friends didn't fit in with her siblings she always felt like the black sheep of the family. It was always sad to see and to hear about. Something that I think is important is to offer contact freely. When your child needs a hug to give them a hug and when they don't need a hug still give them a hug to let them know that they are loved. Let children make some of their own choices if it's not too far in the distance and if they are safe. If we don't do those things you can start to see Rebellion in you child and that is something that no parent wants to see in their child.

Fathers

Blog 10

I want you to think about your childhood and what kind of father figure you had. Did you have a father figure in the home? Fathers have such a big impact on their children. The world tends put fathers down by saying that they are stupid. For example, if you were to go onto Disney channel and watch some of those shows the husband is always being torn done they parents normally don’t agree on things. Studies have actually shown that fathers have a big influence on their daughter’s growth. Mothers and fathers tend to teach their kids different things, mothers might teach their kids how to be kind and loving where a dad might teach his children to work hard and when someone is mean to them he teaches them that they need to stand up for themselves. One that I hear dads tell their little boys quite often “boys is don’t cry.” Something my father taught me was to work hard. He taught us that work comes before play. That is something I think that it is very important and lots of kids are losing their willingness to work. They just expect everyone to do everything for them. Dads pick up their kids and help them stand back on their feet. I remember growing up when my dad would say “I’m so proud of you” It was just so meaningful to me that my dad would say that to me I remember feeling so accomplished once he would tell me how proud he was. Fathers also have such a big impact on their sons. A good father role model will teach them to work hard and the proper way to treat a woman. There have actually been studies that show girls tend to marry people who are like their fathers.

 Some People don’t have the opportunity to have a father in the home, so it is very important that some another man step in whether it be an uncle or grandpa. That will help a lot more than it would without any man for a young boy to look up to. If they just turned to the television instead of an actual person that they look up to, they might start to think that it is okay cheat on their future wife. 

Think of what a father means to you. A father to me is someone I can turn to when times get hard. Someone I can turn to and he will listen to what I have to say and gives me his two senses. People have different thoughts on how a father should act in the home. Some kids grow up with their mom working out of the home and their dad is the stay at home parents. Some kids are not very close to their dad they might not have a good connection. Lots of people think that kids that grew up without a father figure in the home won’t be a very good dad that is not necessarily true my dad grew up without a father in his home one of his oldest brothers was a fatherly figure to him, and I think that he did a great job raising my siblings and I. I think my dad has done a great job with being a father with a very little example in front of him. It is a common thing for people to not want kids because lots of people think that it will ruin their fun adventures lives. There was a study Dave Urbanskiit says that “the men asked, more than 8 in 10 replied that they’ve always wanted to be fathers of think they’d like to be fathers someday.” 

Urbanski, Dave. “Father's Day Question: 'Do Most Men Really Want to Be Dads?' Survey Says...” TheBlaze, TheBlaze, 16 June 2013, www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/06/15/fathers-day-question-do-most-men-really-want-to-be-dads-survey-says.