New Discovery

I never knew that it was so hard blending families. I grew up in a blended family, but I just thought we were some kind of anomaly and that's why he had some hard times that other families didn't have. However, my blended family was a little different than the ones we went over in class. It made me giggle inside a little when one of our class mates suggested that if a blended family was composed of a mother whose husband died and a father whose wife died then there would be no troubles. Well, this is my family and even if the trouble are of a different nature they are still there. I think it's easy to say that if everyone shared a common trial then that would make them bond, but the problem with that is everyone perccieves experiences (even if it's the same experience) differently.
         I wish I understood the effects of a blended family earlier. I think I would have been more understanding and accepting of my parents' and siblings' attitudes. I know that this has beena recurring theme in all of my blogs and I hope I don't sound like a broken record, but this is why it's so important to learn about the family from a secular, no just religious, standpoint. Knowledge is power, and I think that the family is so important that we shouldn't just be "shooting from the hip" as we date, marry, and create a family.

Learning vs. Compliance...a change in behavior doesn't always mean that learning has occurred

I learned a lot in this section of the class. I really like the distinction between compliance and learning. Learning is more that just a change in behavior. I think that this is going to be the challenge in parenting, at least for me. I think that it's going to be so easy to give in to our desires to either over pamper our children, or to punish them in order to change their behavior. I think that this is mainly due to a lack of perspective. Instead of looking down the road and seeing that compliance will only change behavior if someone is there to inforce it, we see the present where our children will finally be forced do what's best for them. And the thing is that we want their behavior to change because we love them, not because we want to boss them around. But that's why it's so important to be educated on effective parenting so that we can effectively show our love for them by teaching them, not just changing behavior.