Divorce, Remarriage, and Aging Families

This week we spent two days focused on divorce, remarriage and blended families. This topic isn't something that has ever affected me, and it's quite honestly something I never really gave much thought to. It was interesting and eye-opening to read the materials, watch some videos and talk about it in class.

My teacher married a woman who was divorced and had two children. He had her come in on Wednesday and we were all able to just talk and ask questions. It was interesting to realize that when a remarriage happens, so many more people than just the immediate family are affected.
When my teacher and his wife were dating, he was still a college student. I was trying to imagine being in her shoes, in his shoes, and also in his roommates shoes. They talked about how their friends would make comments that were completely unsupportive, and I wondered how I would react if one of my best friends began dating a divorcee with children. It really changed my perspective to think that though it may not be what everyone imagines, it could be what's perfect for them.

I think that the most eye opening thing I learned this week was that you can't picture how you want your life to be and plan it that way. We don't know what's in store for us, and sometimes exactly what we don't want to happen could end up being the best thing we never imagined.

These quotes kind of sum up what I learned this week :)

Parenting

 This week we talked about parenting. More specifically, we focused on disciplining your children.
Here's something I learned:

There are three circumstances in which you shouldn't let the natural consequences do the teaching, and you need to discipline your child:

1. Just too dangerous - If your child is using drugs, doing dangerous things with friends, etc.

2. Consequences are too far off in the future for the kid to be able to learn from it

3. Consequence affects other people - ex. shoplifting
 
If the circumstance falls in one of these three categories, then parents should step in and be a part of the learning and teaching process.

Here's the deal with discipline:

You need less structured discipline. If you waste all of your good punishments on smaller things, you'll be out of ideas when it comes to the big problem that they really really really need to be punished for. 

So, start off with polite requests. Respect goes a long way in the long run, and kids and adolescents will be a lot more compliant with respect in the relationship.

If the problem persists after polite requests, go on to using "I" messages. These are the classic, "I feel...." messages. Describing your feelings, rather than yelling them, or not expressing them at all. When you share feelings, you teach them how their behavior affects other people. 

If that doesn't work, move on to a firm direction. It will be much, much easier for you to defend yourself against their claims of calling your action "unfair" or "stupid" if you can come back by saying that you already tried to make a polite request and told them how you feel.

Parenting is hard, I'm sure. I'm not expert and I can guarantee that I'll fall short many, many times, bu we would all do well to remember these things and build a healthy relationship with our children.