Teaching Children About Intimacy

Teaching children about intimacy can be a sensitive topic. For many people, its hard to talk about because it can make you feel uncomfortable. Some people might even put off these types of conversations because we want to keep our children innocent and pure. With the way our world is heading, it is becoming more and more important to teach our children about intimacy and sex at a young age. In California, a law was passed saying that gay history must be included in the curriculum. And that's not all. Some schools are starting to teach sex ed at much earlier grade levels. Sexual abuse is something that can so easily occur with young children. Often times, a child will be abused by someone they know as apposed to a stranger. People such as a cousin, friend, aunt, uncle, grandpa, or even parents and step parents could make this offense. So maybe its hard to teach your 6 year old about intimacy and the sacred parts of their body but personally, I would rather teach them myself than have another classmate or even teacher teach them. I would rather teach them than heaven forbid something horrible happen to them and they not know how to handle it. I want to teach my children the sacredness of it all and the importance of coming to their Mom or Dad with any questions or concerns.

In my Family Relations class today, we learned about a tool that can help parents teach their children about intimacy and not leave anything out. Our church's website, lds.org has a wonderful guide called "A Parent's Guide." This guide covers everything you need to know and teach to your children, at what age to teach certain topics, and how to teach these topics to your child. These topics range from intimacy and the purpose of families on earth to changes and feelings in young children's bodies to mature intimacy with courtship and marriage.

I encourage all parents and future parents to read this guide. http://www.lds.org/manual/a-parents-guide?lang=eng

Intimacy In Marriage

So this week in my Family Relations class, we've been talking a lot about sexual intimacy within the bonds of marriage. Now since I'm not married, I cannot speak from experience but I've really come to understand how important communication is in this aspect of a married life.

Before marriage, you need to communicate with your fiancè about intimacy. Many Mormons have been raised to believe that talking about sex is taboo and should be avoided at all costs. We'll your wrong. It's not taboo. If you do talk about it, don't demoralize it. It's a sacred topic. So when talking about it with your soon-to-be husband/wife, there is no need to go into great detail of how everything works. If you have questions, ask someone else. Other things you could communicate about could be patience with one another, how you will get to really know each other in a different way, fears, boundaries, etc.

Another really important thing we learned this week is to include Christ in all parts of your life- even this part. Pray to become closer and to better know and understand each other. If you have problems, pray about them. Christ should never be excluded from any part of your life.

Emotional Coaching Parenting and Empathy

For my Parenting class, I've been reading out of John Gottman's book "Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child." It's a great book and I recommend to everyone- even if you are not a parent. It's good. Anyway, it focuses a great deal on expressing empathy towards you child. Empathy is different than sympathy because with sympathy, you are just feeling sorry for that person. With empathy, you are taking it a step further and trying to understand that person and share the feelings that the other person is having. When interacting with others and showing empathy rather than sympathy, they are more likely to feel connected to you. When we think of empathy, we think of only using it in a sad or difficult situation. However, we need to learn to use it in all situations. An example in the book talked about how a child’s day at school was. If parents try to dismiss conflict and less than ideal situations, the child will learn not to talk about their problems because Mom and Dad don’t want to deal with it. This is wrong. Parents need to share in their child’s joys and problems. Families will always have conflict. We need to listen to those conflicts and offer advice, especially when the child is young. If the child grows up not feeling comfortable talking about their problems, how can we expect our children to be able to talk about their problems with their parents when they’re older or even more importantly, their spouse? Asking how your child’s day at school was and only getting a simple response of “fine” is not good enough. Encourage your child to elaborate and feel comfortable telling how they felt at school. It’s important to teach your child that having sad feelings, or feelings of any kind for that matter, are okay. It is okay to have bad days. If you, as a parent, just dismiss their feelings, it will teach a child that having feelings is bad; feeling upset about something is bad. Again, this is not good for children to grow up believing. Showing empathy to your child allows the child to see you as an ally. Never dismiss a child’s feelings. They are unique and you must embrace that.

I just barely started reading the book but it is great so far. Hopefully I can remember this when I am a parent!

A Marriage More Beautiful Than Your Wedding

Like most girls, I've been planning my wedding since I was 12. I already have the colors and location picked out. I know who my bridesmaids will be so all I need is a groom. We ladies tend to do this. We spend countless hours planning our dream wedding reception but how many hours do we spend planning our dream marriage? How often do we think about the sacredness about the temple and the covenants we will make with our eternal companion on that very special day? While wedding planning is fun and great, marriage planning is even better. While we are engaged, it is important to start learning how to be a couple for eternity.

Here are some tasks that need to be accomplished early in a marriage:

• Learn how to make decisions together
• Learn how to manage money
• Communicate
• Be clear about each other's expectations 
• Establish "us" instead of "yours" and "mine"

What are some other tasks you can think of? 

These tasks that we need to learn to start accomplishing can also coincide with the elements that make a great wedding. Here are some elements to consider:

• Plan the wedding together
• Men, care about the details of the wedding. You should have a say too. Don't just say "yes, dear" and "whatever you want"
• Be practical and realistic in terms of spending and magical wedding wishes. 
• Not everybody needs a huge round of fireworks at their wedding
• Focus on the sealing

The last elements is the most important. Focus on the sealing on the day of your wedding. Many couples these days choose to hold their reception the following day of the sealing. Couples and families of the couples will take the day before the sealing to relax and enjoy each other's company. The day of the sealing, don't go out and do anything crazy or wild. Save that for the day after. Focus on each other and the covenants made. 

**Another point to make:

Keep the reception simple. There is no need to go into debt over a one day event. The average wedding in America costs $27,000. Debt only adds stress to a relationship. Even if you and your spouse are not paying for the majority of the wedding, there is no need to have something extremely extravagant. Think of what's going to matter in the end. Was your wedding the best of the century or did you have a great marriage that will last through eternity? Make sure your priorities are where they need to be.