Roots and Branches

       I may have mentioned this before on this blog, but I am a pretty religious person. I have been taught my whole life to believe in God and Jesus, and doing so has given me with an additional, divine lens through which to view the family unit. One quote from a religious leader has always impacted me deeply:  “Jesus saw sin as wrong but also was able to see sin as springing from deep and unmet needs . … This permitted him to condemn the sin without condemning the individual.” --Spencer W. Kimball          I love this idea. While this quote applies directly to sin and religious concepts of forgiveness, I think it can apply to any kind of maladaptive behavior. It could be said that most misbehavior arises from "deep and unmet needs". In terms of family and raising children, having this mindset really changes the way one approaches handling undesirable behavior.          On one hand, a parent may choose to deal with a child's bad behavior by responding to the behavior. T

"All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy."         Whether it makes us dull or not, work has been a part of human society since...well, forever. Though we've switched out our plows and pitchfork for computers and status reports, work is still a major part of everyday living, especially in countries like the United States where hard work and independence are praised.          The big difference between now and a couple hundred years ago in terms of work is the relationship between work and families. Whereas once families had to work together on farms or other trades, now work is something that takes place outside the home, separate from family.           Even with this change, work remains an important part of family life. Some parents, perhaps Johnny's from the saying above, want to keep their kids playing rather than working. As fun as that sounds though, it turns out work might be more beneficial for child development than playing!          The main reason is t

           This handsome guy is my dog Pippin.  He's eight years old and he's an absolute ditz. Though super sweet, his hyperactive golden retriever personality made him an especially inattentive and rambunctious puppy. I am convinced that anyone who says they love puppies instead mean they love the idea of puppies, because those suckers are hard to live with!      I'm sure everyone who raises a dog has their own method of staying sane, but the way we got through the puppy years, full of peed on carpets, chewed up shoes, and mid-night yapping, was subtle mockery. There was something oddly comforting about looking into his smiling face, covered in food stolen off the table, and lovingly saying, "You look so dumb right now, and no one's gonna respect you with that dopey grin on your face."       We quickly found that you can say anything you want to a dog and as long as you say it in a happy, loving tone, they'll give you a beaming smile and a wagging tail.

      I think I can speak for everyone when I say that each of us have experienced some sort of crisis or stressors at some point in our lives. If one doesn't come to mind, congratulations. Your lack of stressors should now be your stressor.       Whether individual or collective, stress is a universal human experience, and though I don't think many of us would choose to put ourselves in deliberately uncomfortable situations, stress and even crisis can actually prove to be a very positive thing for all of us! Several factors go into making the most out of a crisis situation and ensuring our families survive the stress fractures. The ABCX Model     Reuben Hill, an American sociologist, was interested in the affect of World War 2 on families where husbands and fathers were drafted overseas.      He noticed that although many families experienced a similar. extremely stressful event, not every family devolved into a state of crisis. Some families emerged from the events of World W

          "Marriage is a total commitment and a total sharing of the total person with another person"                                                                                                       --  Wayne Mark     Or, as Calvin Trillin put it: "Marriage is not merely sharing the fettuccini, but sharing the burden of finding the fettucini restaurant in the first place."     Whether you're a pasta lover, Wayne Mark, Calvin Trillin, or you and I, most of marriage boils down to just one word: sharing.      No other situation or circumstance will compel someone to share every mundane aspect of their life with another human in quite the same way as marriage. Here we find two individual people combining two realities into one. One home, one family, one future.     I'll forever remember something my now husband said to me a little before he proposed. We were talking about school, and my frustrations over not getting a particular scholarship. We jokingly di

      Creating a Cornerstone: pt 2          Last week I wrote a little about some modern twists on dating that have infiltrated our society, and how they can have lasting effects on the health and longevity of a marriage. Some key takeaways from that last blog post that I want to carry over to this weeks' are that: The level of intimacy, both physical and emotional, must never be more than our established  level of commitment. Dating should be intentional. Dating should be an opportunity to learn all you can about a person before  making a commitment to them, rather than a casual way to eat up some time.          These three points are directly linked to a concept called the R elationship A ttachment M odel, or RAM . This model visually represents what we have been talking about with being intentional, and building relationships in the healthiest way. The RAM consists of five "pillars" that lead to attachment to other people, and looks like this:          When getting to