Week 12- Blended Families

So this week, Brother Williams had his wife come in and they answered any questions we had about blended families. I found this very interesting. They talked about some of the best ways to blend a family, and some of the challenges. The question I asked, about the differences between blending divorced families and blending widowed (or widower-ed) families helped me to understand my grama's relationship with her step-father a little better. My grandma lost her father and brother in a fishing accident when she was 16. Her mom eventually remarried, and to this day, 61 years later, she still talks about Art with a sneer in her voice.  Granted, Art was kind of a scum bag, but I wonder if my grandma, mom and uncles would think differently about him if her mom had just gotten divorced instead of widowed. I love learning things like this, that make sense of the things in my life.

Week 11- Parenting

So, I have actually been taking a parenting class along with this class, and I have to say, I love it. The whole idea of active parenting, or parenting that is more about meeting the needs of the child than controlling the behavior of the child is parenting that raises children that are prepared for the world. Alfie Kohn, a well respected authority on child development, parenting, and education, says that the best way to prepare children for the so called "real world" is to raise them in an environment where they don't feel ignored or controlled.  This doesn't mean give your kids free reign, it means give them choices, make them know that they are heard, and meet their needs- not just biological, but emotional and psychological. Children are all too often disrespected in our culture, and I feel that is a great problem for our society. The more we respect children, and give them a reasonable amount of control over their lives, the better they will turn out. Simple as that.