Love Her Mother

       This week we addressed the hard topic of divorce. Many if not all Americans have seen how difficult divorce can be on families and individuals. So how do we try to avoid such things in our own lives? We talked a lot about how negative patterns can develop in relationships. These patterns don’t lead to finding “who is at fault” rather they show that many problems in family life occur from habits or acting on natural instincts that in effect hurt someone else without us even realizing it. Patterns can unfortunately follow an individual from one marriage into another. One way to prevent divorce or another divorce is recognizing these patterns, accepting it is pointless to put the blame on someone, and working out how to break that pattern.

       I believe one way that helps our children avoid the pains of divorce is showing them the joys of a happy marriage. Because there are so many examples, even in the media, of unhealthy relationships it’s our responsibility to help build their trust that they can find someone who will love them unconditionally. Elaine S. Dalton a leader of young women in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints once said that the best thing you could do for your daughter (talking to fathers) is love her mother. I love this video that was made regarding her words of wisdom… https://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/love-her-mother-1

       For more information on how Mormon’s view divorce see…

https://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/marriage-and-divorce-1

What kids really want

              One of my favorite things we talked about on the topic of parenting was Michael Popkin’s explanation of “Mistaken Approaches”. Michael Popkins is the founder of a program called Active Parenting that helps educate parents about raising their children. Popkins points out that there are many needs a child has, however they themselves do not always even recognize these needs. When we as parents do not recognize these needs as well our children could act in ways they don’t intend to be harmful in order to meet those needs. For example every child and teenager needs physical contact and a feeling of belonging. Teens sometimes may act like they don’t need this, but they desire it more than they realize. When these needs are not met children often act out in ways that parents tend to label as “attention seeking”. This is what Popkins would call a “mistaken approach”. Instead of writing off these acts as attention seeking he would encourage parents to recognize the unmet need and fill it. In this case providing physical contact and giving the child opportunities to feel like they belong would help fill that need. Many of these misunderstandings are where conflicts arise between parent and child. As we step back and think of our child’s needs we can then better understand why they act the way they do. In effect we can better parent according to those needs.