Zack's Blog™

  Week 12 This week hit mostly on raising and more specifically disciplining children in a healthy way. Near the beginning of class, Brother Williams asked us to think of an important lesson we learned personally during our childhood. Then, he asked us to raise our hands if we learned those things from a lecture, few people raised their hands, then he asked us to raise our hands if we learned it from a punishment or reward from our parents. Again, few people raised their hands. Then he asked us if we learned that important lesson from personal experience, and most of the class raised their hands. This shows that the most important lessons in life are learned independent of parents, siblings, teachers, or friends. Still, a good parent is mindful to teach their children the right things to do, reward and punishment are both viable tools in doing so. It relates very well to the gospel, in fact, discipline and disciple share the same root word "discere", meaning "to learn&qu

 Week 11 This week we talked a lot about budgeting as a married couple and family. Brother Williams spoke a lot about how having a second income was debilitating to a family and marriage. Not to say anything he said wasn't true, but it very well could be the case that having a second income creates more problems than it solves, but the people who I know who take a second income seem to do very well while balancing a happy marriage and family. I'm glad Brother Williams told us how he came to these conclusions, but I felt that the sources might be out of date and his justifications were somewhat biased. We made a list of expenses that the teacher presented as unwanted burdens to the family's finances, but to me seemed like luxuries, a new car, "splurging the kids", etc. Again, I'm not saying what he says isn't true, I just don't think I have enough evidence or understanding to say having a second income is either good or bad. At any rate, to quote the pr

 Week 10 This week focused mainly on communication, with families, relationships, and also with God. I loved this topic because communication is something that is very important to me, I believe that we must be true to our word, and forthcoming when it comes to any interaction with others. Being able to honestly and effectively communicate will enhance every aspect of your life, whether that be your career, finances, friendships, living situations, dating/marriage life, raising your children, and becoming equally yoked with God. An important aspect of honesty that is sometimes overlooked is that a person can only be honest when they are determined and persistent in accomplishing the things they say they will do. Here are a few examples, when we pray to God for direction, we must be willing to make sacrifices and travel the road He would have for us; when we commit to helping a friend with a certain task, we do not give up at the first difficulty or inconvenience; when we give ourselves

  This week in class we discussed a lot about how we can form long-lasting, healthy relationships with our family, particularly during the engagement process of a young couple. There were some interesting insights and perspectives shared among the other students as well as the professor, one that stood out to me was when somebody said, "Whoever cares the least is the one who controls the closeness of a relationship." This was said in the context of who presents the possibility of marriage first, the man or the woman, but can also be applied to many other kinds of relationships as well. The idea is that whoever sets the broadest and most restricting boundaries controls many aspects of a relationship such as how frequently they see each other and what are they willing to share. This principle is almost always true for every kind of relationship and can be either a useful and healthy tool for pacing the growth of the relationship, or it can be manipulative and corrupting if it m

 Week 3 This week was insightful because we explored more of how peers, families, and couples interact and develop.  One of our assignments included exploring and identifying unspoken rules in our families. For example, my family has an unspoken rule that we all take responsibility for the family dog Max (who's the sweetest boy in the world). If you know that Max hasn't been outside in a while, take him for a walk. If he hasn't eaten that morning or that evening, feed him. This made me wonder what other, more significant, unspoken rules exist in my family? During class we also discussed the difference between theory and law. A theory is something that is consistent, but can't be proven. A law is something that can be proven consistently. It reminded me of a BYU devotional I recently studied. This devotional took the stance that although God is consistent with His promises, He cannot be secularly proven. That is the need for faith. Just as we have faith in gravity but ca

Week 2      This week in our family relations class we focused mostly on the negative effects that same-sex marriage can have on children. However, we also covered many other interesting topics which helped us to understand healthy child development as well. On Tuesday we discussed that as children, we naturally followed the scientific method to learn about the world around us, even though we may not have realized it. This was an interesting connection for me because I realized how much of what I know came by personal experience rather than by someone or something outright telling me about it. After talking about this, we were then told about an interesting study on marital satisfaction, and it was surprising to learn that most couples who had reported being very dissatisfied with their marriage later ended up reporting a great deal of satisfaction with it five years later. This emphasizes the importance of communication and perseverance in a relationship, and that enduring through the