Fatherhood

         The father needs to become more involved as an active parent he will find more desires to be a father. This is a good point to make because when the father becomes more involved he will want to do things more for the child or children. But I think its also part of the wife’s job to help her husband know these things and help him have times to be an active parent/father.

Also that it’s important that both of the parents need to create an equal balance in the home. Both parents need to know and help each other in the home. These parents need to create a balance of what each one should do. I think that they also need to take turns in doing all of those things. I think this because if you have one parent always doing the same thing the other parent won’t get to have the same kind of bond with the child. You need to make things equal between the parents. 

Marriage
With in the first 6 months of parenthood the work load if the mother increases by 63% and the fathers work load increases by 47%

• When you have your children you need to make sure that both of the parents are involved in the whole process of the pregnancy and even until the child is all grown up
• Both of the parents need to be there for each other and support one another as well 
• Remember that before you had the child you both loved each other and now that is the reason you have this child 

Divorce
70% of the people who get divorce 2 years later regret their divorce
There are six stations of divorce

1. emotional divorce- this involves a loss of trust, respect, and affection for each other. They stop supporting each other and find ways to hurt, frustrate or to lower the self-esteem the other person  
2. legal divorce- this is when the court brings the marriage to an end. This can be a relief from the legal responsibilities of the marriage and the right to remarry.
3. economic divorce- this involves settlement of the property, this is not an easy matter. This can also be very hurtful or painful. 
4. co-parent divorce- this is ones who have children, which is about 2/3 of all couples. Its figuring out who will have custody, visitation rights and continuing parental responsibilities. This can be one of the most tragic part of divorce. 
5. community divorce- when each parent leaves one community of friends and relationships and goes to another one. 
6. psychic divorce- the central separation that occurs, the individual must accept the disruption of the relationship and regain a sense of being an individual 

Parenting
There are three types of parenting

• Authoritarian (authoric)- The parent has maximum control over the child. The parents and child interaction is not the give and take of a developing relationship, but its mostly of giving of orders. If the rules are broken or violated the discipline is severe and physical  
• Permissive (Doormat)- The parents minimize any control. These children are encouraged to make their own decisions and develop their own independence with few or no parental constraints or guidance. The parent child relationship consist of the parent approving whatever the child decides to do.   
• Active (Authoritative)- They put boundaries on acceptable behavior with warm and accepting context. There is a good parent-child interaction which is generally characterized by affection, give and take but relatively clear expectations for the child's behavior. 

This week in my class we are going to talk about divorce. I want to know if you think divorce is good or bad for you and why. Than later in the week I will post more about divorce and then you can give more thought on what I post.

The ABCX model is a stress and crisis model that helps people understand their responses to stressful events.
A- Actual Event
B- Both resources and reactions 
C- Cognition, what we think and what we define 
X- Experience

• The big difference was with the cognition and how the B effects the C  

• Its not always what you have its what you do with what you have 

We are starting to talk about fathers and the importance they are in the home. I want you to tell me how important you think your father is and why.
Please respond and put any thoughts down

I just got back from this trip called NCFR-National Council on Family Relations in Phoenix, Arizona and during this we had different workshops that we went to. I really enjoyed going to them and I learned a lot. One thing that I learned about was that how much we really use the internet and other technology for relationships and how bad it is.
      This tends to be a problem because if all that we are doing in our relationships is texting or facebooking or other things like that. I we do this we wont get the right messages that people are trying to send to us. Like we wont be able to really know what they are saying to us. You don't know the real reactions that the other person is giving you because you cant see them you only are reading what they are saying. Also since it is not one on one and in person you can wait how ever long you want to respond to them and revise what you are going to say many times before you say it and make sure its what the other person wants to hear. We need to know how the other person feels and what they are really meaning when they are communicating         .     They gave this example about this man and women who are married and when ever they were having a fight they would go off into the other room when it got to much to handle and just text each other and continue their fight because they couldn't face each other.
 So having the technology is a big problem in relationships I think that as a person you need to be able to talk to those around you and learn how to communicate in person and not always use the technology that's in front of you. I want to know what you guys think and put in any experiences that you have had with this.

We learned about the Relationship Attachment Model-RAM
This is a model shown what level you should know, trust, rely, commit, and touch the person you are in a relationship with.

By looking at this graph you can see how there is a decline in it. This is a good decline. This means that you need to know more than you trust and than you need to trust more than you rely on them rely on them more than you commit and commit more than you touch. If any of these are out of balance and at different levels  your relationship will be as well.

This week in my class we have been talking about same sex attractions. I was wondering what you guys feel about it. It was also brought up in class that when we start to label the kids at such a young age they than  hear it so much that their minds are changed and than think that they are attracted to the opposite gender because of things that they are doing and what people are saying about them. What are your feelings about that? 

 We also talked about how people think that it is given by God to have this trail in their life. What are your thoughts about this? Do you really think that God would give his children this trail in their life? Think of it like if you had your own child would you give your own child this thing to deal with? Let me know what you are feeling and thinking about all of this and please let others know and have them share their thoughts and feelings as well. 

Here are Trends that have effects on the family

• People are waiting longer to get married. Men age 26 and women age 28
• Cohabitation is going up
• There is fewer children is going down by 1/2 
• The birth rate is 1/2 less 
• The house hold size is going down
• Employed mothers is going up
• Single parent families is going up
• Pre-marital sex is going up 
• Non marital births 
• Divorce rate is going up

 After reading these trends let me know what you think.