What I'm Learning About Family

  Hey everyone! This week we talked about transitions in marriage! We made a list in class of all of the changes a person might experience in just the first month of marriage and it was crazy to see the length of the list we came up with! From big things like the way you budget and spend your money, to little things like what temperature you like your house to be at, there are many decisions to consider when beginning a life with another person. When speaking of these questions newly married couples face, the Textbook “Marriage and Family: The Quest For Intimacy” says, “Many of them deal with practical matters of work, dealing with debts brought into the marriage, housework, and so on. But there are also many important questions involving the ways you will relate to each other. Will you openly show both positive and negative feelings? Will you give both positive and negative feedback about each other?” Being prepared for these adjustments and compromises can make for a much smoother tr

  I really enjoyed the topic we focused on in class this week and definitely learned a lot of new things! We talked about preparing for marriage and the critical role dating plays in that preparation. Going on actual dates provides quality time to get to know someone without being distracted by other things. I learned that there are three “p’s” that define an official date: planned, paid for, and paired off. I really like that description because it is simple and clear which is really helpful because it can be hard to tell what is considered a date sometimes. That way expectations are clear for both people and you don’t have as much stress of the unknown. You can just relax, have fun, and focus on getting to know someone new! Hanging out in a group of guys and girls can be super fun, but it does not provide the ideal atmosphere of getting to know and build a relationship with someone the way a well-planned date can. Another aspect that greatly influences dating is how well two people a

  Hey everyone! This week I’ve had the opportunity to explore several resources considering the differences between men and women. In one video I found particularly interesting, a man named John Stossel supports the idea that there are certain gender differences that are innate. There have been studies that have shown slight differences between the male and female brain. Men tend to have more grey matter, while women show more white matter, or part of the brain that makes all of the connections. There are differences in how infant boys and girls tend to behave. Infant boys tend to focus on things that move, while girls focus on people’s faces. In class, my professor also mentioned a study where a clear divider was put between an infant and their mother. In this study, the girls often cried while the boys would charge at the divider trying to get to their mom. Elementary school age children were asked the differences between boys and girls in the video. Girls mentioned things like “boys

Hey everyone! We discussed some cool topics in class this week and the one I want to focus mainly on is social class. I watched a really interesting video where interviewers showed people one of two pictures and asked which class they belonged to. One picture was of an older man dressed roughly standing in front of an old-looking house. The other was of an older couple very nicely dressed, standing in front of a fancy-looking house or building. What I noticed from watching people’s reactions to the pictures is that they seem to resent or find one class or the other humorous. If the person giving feedback appeared to be lower class, they would make comments like, “They look like the type of people who inherited all of their money and never had to work.” The way they said those things made it seem like they look down on those people. On the other hand, when seemingly upper class people saw the picture they would make negative comments about his clothes or even describe him as “pitiful”.

  Hey everyone! It’s been a great week of learning up here in Rexburg! The idea I found most interesting was that each member of a family has a role to play. One of the articles I read to prepare for class mentioned four roles kids may play in the family. It was really interesting to me noticing the way some of the characteristics it explained rang very true with my sisters and I, while others didn’t seem to at all. It said the oldest is the “hero” in that this child is generally the caretaker of the rest of the younger siblings and that they tend to do well academically. The second child is the “delinquent”. These children usually have a hard time because the oldest seems to get a lot of attention from the parents, so they seek that attention in different ways from the oldest. The third child is the “invisible child. They try to keep a low profile because they want to lessen the tension within the family as a whole. The fourth child is the “clown”. These children attempt to use humor