Trent Law's Family Relations Blog

It’s that time again for another blog post. For this week, we learned about different areas that relate to parenting. Compared to any other job out there, parenting should be considered the most important job there is. The purposes of parenting are to help train the next generation to live effectively. Another way of putting it is to protect and prepare children to survive and thrive in the world in which they live. The videos that we watched relating to parenting focused on how we can effectively parent a teenager. When children are young they are usually good about following the rules that parents outline for them, but it is a different story for teenagers. Once children reach their teenage years their minds become active in engaging in risky behavior. One example of this was a video that showed a boy sneak out the window of his bedroom early in the morning and came home an hour later. Though he was able to sneak back into his room through the window, his parents came in upset with h...

  In this week’s classes, we discussed the importance that fathers play in the family as well as learning about family finances. Hearing accounts from others about the importance of fatherhood has helped me know for myself that having a father in the home is crucial. From personal experience, I grew up not having my father around, but I am not bitter about it. I cannot remember my feelings about it when I was younger, but there was a chance that I was confused about why my father was not involved more in my life. Though he may not have been in my life every day, I was allowed to visit with him biweekly at his house. My father is big into four-wheelers and I remember the first time that he allowed me to drive one for myself. My first attempt though did not happen as well as what I would have liked it to go. I’m not sure how it happened but I remember driving the four-wheeler one second but then finding myself underneath it the next, it all happened so fast. Luckily for me, the four-...

  In this week’s discussion, we focused on communication and how we can improve upon communicating with others. We also discussed ways that we might be able to help each other in dealing with conflict. Most of the time when we communicate we use verbal communication to express our thoughts or desires. Though verbal language is important to state what we are thinking, our nonverbal language communicates how we deliver those words. From personal experience, I have always loved having conversations with my mother. Some of the topics that we discussed may have been challenging to talk about, but we were able to support each other during that hard discussion. I view communication as extremely important, without it, how can our relationships become stronger? It’s always comforting to know that I have someone that I can go to when I need to get something off my chest. Once I make known my desires and thoughts, then I can receive feedback that confirms my thoughts or influences me to make ...

  For this week’s class, the topic we focused on was learning about family crises and how we can best overcome the adversities that we all face in life. There are mentioned some methods that are seen to be ineffective in dealing with a crisis. One idea that might help initially is denying that the crisis even exists. Though this may be helpful at first in dealing with the crisis, it will still be left unresolved. Avoiding the crisis might give you some relief, but the crisis will also be left unresolved and will only become worse the more that it is put off. The best way of dealing with a crisis is to work together with other members of the family to find ways of getting past the problem. In my life, I have had instances of hearing dear ones who I was close to passing away. The first experience I had of this was a dear friend of mine who was the second counselor of the bishopric when I first met him. I remember him taking me for a ride in his roadster and times that we would go int...

  For this week’s discussion, we talked about sexual intimacy and family life. The topic of sexual intimacy is a bit of a touchy subject, especially in today’s world. With so many different relationships that they can result from sexual intimacy, we must teach our children the difference between these relationships. The first relationship style is that of heterosexual couples, meaning marriage between a man and a woman. This type of relationship, as defined in the Family Proclamation, is the marriage type that our Heavenly Father has designed as appropriate in our day. The other relationship style is homosexuality. Though this form of relationship is not accepted by the church, we do not judge people who decide to embrace this form of relationship. Without going into too much detail about the sexual experience, we must keep our sexual experiences in line with what the Lord has established. Men, on average, tend to want sexual encounters because of their higher drive. Women tend to ...

For this week’s class, we discussed the different transitions that can come into the marriage. With the view of a marriage, there are times that the wedding event can become more important than the marriage itself. Though I still have yet to find that special someone to marry, it saddens me that people make the wedding event such a big deal that they might forget the reason this celebration is occurring. If it were up to me, I would not mind if a wedding party did not even take place. I am speaking negatively about this, but even a small celebration would suffice for me. I am not big into having huge gatherings when it comes to events. When I get married in the temple, that is the only memory that I would like to hold onto throughout my marriage. Of course, I also want to remember the days that my children come into the world as well. The point that I am making here is that some memories are more precious than others. It shocks me to learn just how much the average wedding costs to put...