Chapter 1: Family-- A Plan of Salvation - of Happiness

Resource:  Introduction to Successful Marriages and Families, Hawkins, Dollahite, Draper


Chapter #1:   Happiness?  God has a Plan--It's Family 

"The family is ordained of God. ...marriage between a man and a woman is essential to His eternal plan.. the divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave."   --The Family:  A Proclamation to the World

Elder D. Todd Christofferson said, 

“Marriage is more than your love for each other.

In your love, you see only your two selves in the world, 

but in marriage, you are a link in the chain of the generations, 

which God causes to come and to pass away to his glory, 

and calls into his kingdom. 

In your love, you see only the heaven of your own happiness, 

but in marriage, you are placed at a post of responsibility 

towards the world and mankind. 

Your love is your own private possession, 

but marriage is more than something personal

—it is a status, an office. 

Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, 

that makes the king, so it is marriage, 

and not merely your love for each other, 

that joins you together in the sight of God and man.

So love comes from you, but marriage from above, from God.”

The family is the original cell of social life.  It is the natural society in which husband and wife are called to give themselves in love.  Family life is an initiation into life in society.-- Catecism of the Catholic Church, 2000

2 Nephi 2:25 (We were created to have joy)    

Alma 12:24; 34:32; 42:4; Abraham 3:25–26 (This life is a time to be tested and prepare to meet God)  Purpose of Life and Self Worth 

3 Nephi 12:3–12 (The Savior names several godlike attributes)

3 Nephi 12:48 (Heavenly Father wants us to become perfect as He is)

D&C 138:53–56 (We are here to help build God’s kingdom) 

Marriage Saves Tax $$$ 

The public costs--costs to American taxpayers--of marital family non-formation (non-marital child-rearing) and break-ups in the US totals $112 billion each year from taxpayers, $42 billion in state and local tax dollars and $70 billion in federal tax dollars.  (Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, and the Institute of American Values.)

Chapter 2 Marriage Readiness

Interactive Slide Show
based on Chapter 1 of 
Successful Marriages and Families: 
Proclamation Principles and Research Perspectives
Hawkins, Dollahite, and Draper

Be a Quality Person

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1993/02/be-a-quality-person?lang=eng

“Don’t worry about being a good [spouse]. Concern yourself with life’s number one priority: being a quality person. If you are a quality person, you don’t have to worry about being a good catch, a good wife, son, mother, daughter, church member, leader, single, or community strength. If you are a quality person, you will be good in any situation in which you find yourself.” --Marvin J. Ashton

Chapter 12 Recreation

Reference:  Successful Marriages and Families, Hawkins, Dollahite and Draper, Chapter 22: "Wholesome Family Recreation:  Building Strong Families," Widmer, Mark A and Taniguchi, Stacy. 

"We suffer from depression, anxiety, and discontent. We spend an inordinate amount of time with electronic media and, as a result, become disconnected from one another.  We have lost vital and nourishing connections to nature; many of us do not exercise, are overweight, and work too much.  Wholesome family recreation can help us strengthen our relationships and reduce negative emotional and spiritual consequences.  Wholesome recreation strengthens families."  (p225)

For the best effect, choose contributory not consumptive activities.

"Research suggests that joint activities lead to the highest marital satisfaction. (230)

"Family recreation can create a positive home environment where adolescents feel comfortable discussing conflicts and personal issues.  Family recreation also promotes healthy identity development (231).

"If we are drawn to seek wealth, material goods, and pleasure in the pursuit of happiness, we are likely to miss important opportunities for wholesome family recreation.  We may find ourselves struggling with emotional and social difficulties" (234).  Activities that promote family are more important than anything else money can buy.

Chapter 11 Celebrate Work!

Reference:  Successful Marriages and Families, Hawkins, Dollahite and Draper, "Chapter 21, "Meanings and Blessings of Family Work," Bahr, Kathleen, et. al.,

Families working together is one of the four things that could "in a generation or two" turn society's "moral values" around.

-- Gordon B. Hinckley  

Boys 2 Men  -- Raising Workers is God-Ordained

Ian and Aidan, circa 2009

"I take every opportunity to involve my children in physical work. Not only is it one of our important family values, but because more work for them means less work for me. Also, around my happy little imaginings, there flits the fleeting image of a future daughter-in-law voicing appreciation that my diligence was appreciated. But for now, my motivation is off-loading the drudgery!"  -- Mom 

Define the Task:   Hey kids, "The walk needs shoveled." I thought that making that statement would be enough. The task would magically be completed. Not long after, I noticed the work was not progressing and I realized that with literal-minded children, I must give further direction.

• Moses 4:23, 25.  God cursed the land for Adam's sake meaning as a blessing. 

Be Specific:  so I added, "Start immediately."

• Neal A. Maxwell said "The divine attributes of love, mercy, patience, submissiveness, meekness, purity... cannot be developed in the abstract...or in a hurry.  

Be Fair:   I defuse the obvious incoming comparison bomb by assuring that the task was universal, "and involve your brother when he gets home."   This will ensure that some sort of sibling altercation will ensue, and with luck, the anger and frustration that results will be expended on the icy sidewalk.   Then I leave to run errands.

• Peter thought work was beneath Jesus' stature.  Jesus replied, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me... ye ought to wash one another's feet... for I have given ye an example."  

Be Consistent:  When I return home an hour later and see no progress, I advance the process more forcefully, "Off the computer, back outside, and no coming in until it's finished."

• "The positive aspect of repetition is that it facilitates learning.  Reluctant helpers one day can practice working together again the next day."   Rituals of work can teach love, forge family ties, build family identity and promote the cumulative impact of small moments that form character, virtue and beliefs. (SMaF, 215)  

Be An Example:  Really, the only way to effect change is to join the masses as an example. It stinks, but in this early training phase, it seems to be the only thing that works. Chores are much easier to do it myself, but that's not an option when teaching work.  So true to form,  I join them and also begin the subtle manipulation. Chop, chop, chop. I try to echo their frustration. "I wish we didn't have to do this." Scrape, scrape, scrape. "This takes muscles."  "I'm going to be so buff."  

• "At every age, children respond best when working alongside parents or other children.  Also, The subtle difference between a mother who emphasizes how work is done and one who emphasizes what work is done yields startling results."  (SMaF, p 221) 

Encouragement:  "I'm surprised this is coming off this easy."   It's important for me to expend most of my energy talking and not a lot actually do their work for them.  For I have not raised total dimwits.  

• "Prosaic work (repetitious, mundane) requiring a minimum of focus leaves our minds free to focus on one another as we labor... inviting intimate conversation that binds us together." (SMaF, p. 215)

Cooperation:  "You two work well together."  Even if they don't, actually, yet.   They work best with a touch of competition and I'm sure that will become even stronger as two brothers grow and develop.  I try, "You lift and I think I can slide this under." And throughout the process I speak filled with a great deal of excitement. 

• Work offers parents an opportunity to exercise "attentive love."  Don't yield to society's "love one another, but only when you feel like it."  Housework may bring conflict, but joint activity with meaningful tasks increases solidarity and emotional bonding.  Inspired parents use family work to link and heal.  (SMaF p 219)

Enthusiasm:  Okay, I'm best at being the cheering squad, but hey, whatever works. "I'm impressed that you have done so much." 

• President Eyring suggests we seek opportunities to work in behalf of others.  "the Atonement working in our lives will produce in us the love and tenderness we need."  [When I made the bed,] not only did my love for her increase, but I also felt His love for her."

Reward:  And as we finish, the ultimate pay-off, "So what do you think this is worth, in purely intrinsic terms?"

• Journalist Jeannette Batz, "I plotted out a doctoral dissertation and began researching the symbolic and spiritual meaning of housework. What I learned convinced me that the chores I'd branded oppressive and mundane are creative and profound, bringing us closer to the earth, to each other and to God... when they are done with love. (Batz, 2007, pp 78-79)

More enthusiasm:  "Way to go! Wow, look what we've accomplished! 

"Unfortunately, I don't expect that most employers will expend this kind of energy to extract my level of work ethic, so I will begin the weaning from the mommy motivations.  And someday soon I hope that the words, "The walk needs work," will be enough.  Meanwhile, I reaffirm the comment I should have made to the neighbor who hollered over that I could just wait a day until the ice melts,"

 "We're not chopping ice, We're raising men."

Chapter 10 How To "Actively Parent"

From Successful Marriages and Families:  Hawkins, Dollahite, Draper

Chapter 10:  "Parenting with Love, Limits, and Latitude:"  Hart, Newell and Haupt

"When I would call my mother for advice she verbalized something I would say over and over to myself for many years to come, "Just save the relationship."  I believe those words are the most simple and powerful parenting principles I have ever learned."  Kathleen H. Hinckley

What is Your Parenting Style:

Love

"Every child is entitled to grow up in a home where there is warm and secure companionship, hwere there is love in the family relationship, where appreciation one for another is taught and exemplified, and where God is acknowledged and His peace and blessings invoked before the family altar."  G. B. Hinckley

Limits

"Finding ways to effectively help children learn how to regulate their own behavior in noncoercive ways is one of the most challenging parts of authoritative parenting."  (p109)

Latitude

"Children benefit from being given choices and appropriate levels of latitude to make their own decisions in a variety of domains." (p112)



Take a quiz on parenting styles.

http://www.activeparenting.com/Parents-Parenting_Style_Quiz


Are you a coercive parent?     Retrieved from:  https://archive.org/details/Latham_chapter1_clip01

Chapter 9 Modern Family Birth Statistics

Resource:  Successful marriages and Families, Dollahite, Draper, Chapter 14, "Modern Fertility Patterns and God's Commandment to Multiply and Replenish the Earth," Hill, E. Jeffrey, et.al.

Quote by Professor Hawkey,  FAM100 Strengthening Family

"It was very eye-opening for me to realize what the current trends are on this world and what the consequences are because of it. The fertility rate all around the world is declining for various reasons: 

1) children cost money, 

2) fear of overpopulation, 

3) government pressure (China) and 

4) choice/contraceptive use. 

I have found that the choice of not having children is becoming more and more common around the world. I think that a large part of it is that America is becoming more individualistic.  The world focuses on personal fulfillment, and the joy/pride of the individual. Due to those choices, we all could suffer the consequences of: 

1) depopulation (when the fertility rate does not 

replace the amount of deaths), 

2) economic consequences (later age of retirement and no 

children to replace the working population and less GDP), and 

3) societal and political issues, such as mismatched ratio 

of potential partners for marriage."

President Spencer W. Kimball said, "...you did not come to earth just to eat, drink, and be merry. You came knowing full well your responsibilities. You came to get for yourself a body that could be perfected, immortalized, and you understood that you were to act in partnership with God in providing bodies for other spirits equally anxious to come to this earth for righteous purposes, and so you will not postpone parenthood."

-- Professor Hawkey  FAM100 Strengthening Family

Economic Reality Video:  Demographic Winter

This video has profound concepts.  If you are rushed, start at 25:00.

This video gives a different perspective about population growth.

We are living in a declining population world.

When someone asks why you have so many children, the answer is, "For Human Capital to Sustain Economic Growth."

Chapter #8 Marriage--How to Work It Out

Reference:  Successful Marriages and Families, Hawkins, Dollahite and Draper, Chapter 8: "Should I  Keep Trying To Work It Out?" Hawkins, Alan J. and Fackrell, Tamara A.  

Why is "Gray Divorce" on the rise? 

 From pew research, "At a time when divorce is becoming less common for younger adults, so-called “gray divorce” is on the rise: Among U.S. adults ages 50 and older, the divorce rate has roughly doubled since the 1990s."   

Why?  Have we stopped being that person who has made themselves spiritually appealing--that appeal that was defined in Chapter 2?  Were we ever?  How can we get that back?  

References:

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/09/led-by-baby-boomers-divorce-rates-climb-for-americas-50-population/

http://scottwoodward.org/divorce_selfishness.html 

This question is pertinent to everyone at every age--dating and marriage and maintaining a relationship is never easy.  I have been married 35 years and as new empty nester, I am hyper-focused on this topic. 

Spiritual Counsel on Divorce

There is now and again a legitimate cause for divorce.  I am not one to say that it is never justified.  But I say without hesitation that this plague among us is not of God."  

 Gordon B. Hinckley 

"Over a lifetime of dealing with human problems I have struggled to understand what might be considerered "Just cause" for breaking covenants.  Only the parties to the marriage can determine this. They will bear the responsibility for the train of consequences which inevitably follow."  James Faust 

Secular Perspectives on the Crossroads of Divorce

• Allow time for deciding about divorce.  Research suggests that many who divorce have regrets about the divorce later.  A study that followed divorced individuals over a long period of time found that in 75 percent of divorced couples at least one partner was having regrets about the decision to divorce one year after the breakup
• Try to resolve problems before deciding to divorce.  Researchers estimate that only 30% of couples make effort to reconcile before the divorce.  Related to that point, research suggests that over half of Utah couples did not seek counseling.  

Chapter #7 Fathers

Information from:  Successful Marriages and Families:  Chapter 13, Honor Thy Father, Brotherson, Sean E. 

The 5 P's of Fathering

To Partner

To partner in fathering is to accept the responsibility of rearing a child in cooperation with others, particularly the child's mother and to assist, give support in doing the work of nurturing, love, and guidance in a child's upbringing." (p142)

To Be Present 

"A fundamental principle of fathering is meeting the need for the longing for home.  This is a universal aspect of human history and psychology.  It is a longing for presence, for parental connection, for companionship in family living." (p144)

To Provide

D&C 75:28, "Verily I say unto you, that every man who is obliged to provide for his own family, let him provide, and he shall in nowise lose his crown."

• "To provide in fathering is to assume the stewardship of meeting children's needs and offering opportunities for their development, as well as dedicating one's time, energy, and resources for the benefit of the next generation." (p145) 

To Protect 

Fathers have the job of preparing children  to independently take on adult challenges in the world outside the family.  The context of preparing a child and instilling a child with needed skills and knowledge sets up yet another fundamental principle of fathering, to protect and equip him or her to both avoid and manage life challenges." (p146)

To Preside

"By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness." 

 (p 141)  Family Proclamation

• Fathers are directed to take the responsibility of spiritual leadership
• A father's responsibility to preside is his first and foremost duty.
• Fathers are to guide in love and righteousness, appropriately.

The following information is compiled from a thesis 

"Father Absence and It's Effect on Daughters by Lisa Mancini 2010 

http://library.wcsu.edu/dspace/bitstream/0/527/1/Final+Thesis.pdf

Fathers are Important

• Fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school as their classmates who live with two parents. 
• Children whose fathers are absent consistently score lower than the norm in reading and math tests.
• 75% of teen suicides occur in single-parent families. 
• 
Children who live apart from their fathers experience more accidents and a higher rate of chronic asthma, headaches, and speech defects. 
• 80% of the adolescents in psychiatric hospitals come from fatherless homes.

• Daughters of single parents are 164% more likely to become pregnant before marriage, In a comparison of girls raised in homes with both parents,
• 53% more likely to marry as teenagers, and 
• 92% more likely to divorce their husbands. 
• Rape and sexual abuse is 900% more prevalent in the absence of a biological father.  ”most of them committed by stepfathers or mother´s boyfriends"
• AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) infections is highest in female teen without fathers in the home. Many are dating boys and having sex at 12 or 13 years old with multiple partners older than they, 19 or 20 and many of them use drugs. They are looking to fill that father void. The studies have confirmed they come from poor families, and they haven´t a father growing up with them”.

Chapter #6: Family Counseling as God's Council on Earth

Resource:  Successful Marriages and Families, Hawkins, Dollahite, Draper. "Chapter 19, Sanctification and Cooperation," Lambert, Nathan M. 

Councils are the Genius of God's Government

Elder Ballard, in his book, Counseling with our Councils: Learning to Minister Together in the Church and in the Family,  "Come now,” said the Lord in an earlier dispensation through the prophet Isaiah, ‘and let us reason together’ (Isa. 1:18). And in this dispensation, He repeated that admonition: ‘Let us reason together, that ye may understand” (D&C 50:10)’.”  

In my reading for this week about counsels I heard several points that resonated in my heart about family, ward and auxiliary counsels and I wish I had incorporated them thirty-five years ago.

------------------------------

“Being able to learn the genius of God’s government when a couple is young and before the couple has formed habits can help them be prepared to handle the challenges that come instead of leaving them wondering what needs to be done.”

Background:  

VIDEO:  Elder Skousen  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtwpPT1QQQE mentioned the miracles of counsel of the Founders of the US Constitution.  

I therefore beg leave to move, that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of the City be requested to officiate in that service.Mr. Sherman (from Connecticut) seconded the motion.

• Begin family councils with prayer.
• Do not dictate—let God be the authority.
• Identify the problem – Solicit responses
• Approaching the problem in free and open discussion-frankly.
• Listen to one another
• Listen to the Spirit
• Garner suggestions, asking for insight and input.
• Invite participation and learning.

Elder Eyring's testimony of councils from that video moved me as he looked at councils with his "Harvard, Stanford eyes."  As he spoke of the sanctity of including God I was touched by the Spirit.  

Then I listened to Elder Ballard speak of the strength of councils.  He said, "Thankfully, most of our fathers and priesthood officers lead with love, just as most of our mothers and auxiliary leaders do. Leadership based on love brings incredible power. It is real, and it generates lasting results in the lives of our Father’s children."

“Being able to learn the genius of God’s government when a couple is young and before the couple has formed habits can help them be prepared to handle the challenges that come instead of leaving them wondering what needs to be done.”

Neal A Maxwell  says that “in the little kingdom of a family, each spouse freely gives something the other does not have and without which neither can be complete and return to God's presence. Spouses are not a soloist with an accompanist, nor are they two solos. They are the interdependent parts of a duet, singing together in harmony at a level where no solo can go.”

Citations:  

Ballard, Russel M., "Counseling with our Councils," (April 1994), 

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1994/04/counseling-with-our-councils?lang=eng&query=ballard+counseling

Ballard, Russel M., "Strength in Councils,"  (Oct., 1993) https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1993/10/strength-in-counsel?lang=eng

Overview of Elder Ballard's book:  https://mormonmissionprep.com/prophetic-word/counseling-with-our-councils/

Chapter #5: Foundations of an Enduring Eternal Marriage

Based on Chapter #3 of Successful Marriages and Families, Hawkins, Dollahite & Draper, Foundational Processes for an Enduring, Healthy Marriage

Marriage can be more an exultant ecstasy than the human mind can conceive.  This is within the reach of every couple, every person.  Spencer Kimball

#1   Commitment to a Marriage Covenant

#2 Love and Friendship

#3  Positive Interaction

#4  Accepting Input from One's Spouse

#5  Respectfully Handling Differences and Problem Solving

#6  Continuing Courtship