Sharing and Defending Family Proclamation Principles

"The time will come when only those who believe deeply and actively in the family will be able to persevere their families in the midst of the gathering evil around us." (Spencer W. Kimball)

While our own families are our most important responsibility, every family of the earth is in need of the vital blessings that come from living proclamation principles. "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" should motivate us not only to apply true principles to protect our own families, but it should also move us to share these principles with other. As we share the principles of the proclamation with others, we can fulfill that directive to preach and warn our neighbors, helping them strengthen their families. The proclamation is to the world, but we, as Latter-Day Saints, are the messengers that take its truths to our friends, associates, and family members who collectively constitute the "world"; we are the mild and meek warning voice.

I encourage you to initiate share and defend experiences with friends, family members, colleagues, and acquaintances both near and far. This might end up being an exercise for you, but if you really truly develop a sincere effort to reach out you will be blessed to have the spirit by your side. And the Holy Ghost will guide you as you teach others about The Family Proclamation. Even if they do not agree with the idea, you have planted a seed that hopefully someday will grow.

I would just like to end on this note. I am a child of God. I am will defend the honor of families and the importance that they have or should have in this world. What a beautiful gift God has given us to have families and to be a part of them. I love my family as imperfectly as it is. And I know that each of the members of my family are great and each of them has a beautiful gift to offer this world. They are talented in their own ways and have light of Christ is them. We are not a perfect family, but we sure as heck are trying to be.

Parenting in Gospel Context: Practices Do Make a Difference

Diana Baumrind's long-appreciated and empirically supported parent model, in which she define authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative forms of parenting. In addition to these typologies, a fourth, the uninvolved/disengages parent (who is neither loving nor demanding), has also been added. Of these four forms of parenting, empirical research has generally found that authoritative parenting is ideal in supporting positive child and adolescent outcomes. Here is a chart that might help you to better understand the different parenting forms.

Parenting styles have been defined as "constellations of behaviors that describe parent-child interactions over a wide range of situations and that are presumed to create a pervasive interactional climate. Authoritative parents are presumed to create a positive interactional climate bases on an optimal balance of high warmtjh and high expectations, which environment in run leads children and adolescents to be most receptive to parental influence. 

"The Key to strengthening our families is having the Spirit of the Lord come into our homes." (Robert D. Hales)

In essence, authoritative parenting creates an interactional climate that not only promotes positive parent-child relationships but also invites the Spirit of the Lord.  

The Eternal Family: A Plain and Precious Part of the Plan of Salvation

"The family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children...In the premotal realm, spirit sons and daughters knew and worshiped God as their Eternal Father and accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize their divine destiny as heirs of eternal life."

 From the beginning, God organized the human family and revealed that marriage and family relationships are intended to be eternal.

In addition to the Creation, Fall, and Atonement being literal historic events, each are doctrines that have direct application to our personal lives. We each have experienced the Creation both spiritually and physically. Our heavenly parents created our spirit bodies in the premortal realm. Our earthly parents provided our physical bodies and we were born into mortality, Each of  us experience the Fall as we are born into a fallen world and are separated from God's presence. We also experience the Fall as we face the realities of our fallen natures and suffer the consequences of our own sins and mistakes, as well as those of others. we learn of and receive the blessings of the Atonement of Jesus Christ  as we repent of our sins, are healed from our infirmities, and eventually experience the resurrection of our physical bodies.

The doctrines of the Creation, Fall, and Atonement can also serve as metaphors as each can have interpretive application to many of the significant events in our lives. Each of us experiences periods of  creation, such as the beginning of a marriage, the birth of a child, beginning a new school year or semester, receiving a new Church calling, starting a new jog, or beginning an other important process. These periods of creation are generally times when we are optimistic and hopeful concerning the future. Times of creation are generally followed by times when we experience a"fall" as we are confronted with adversity, affliction, and opposition. Our optimistic idealism about the future often turns into recognition of the difficulty reality of the present. It is important to remember that these difficult times of fallenness can be followed by experiences of healing and reconciliation as we come to understand our need for a Savior and embrace the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

God and His plan are eternal. He instituted marriage and family in the beginning, God created the earth, the garden, and our first parents in order to created families for all of His children to be born into and experience mortal life - especially moral family life. The Fall occurred because Adams and Eve chose to obey God's commandment to multiply and replenish the earth and thus create the first family. The Savior completed the Atonement in order to reconcile God's children with the Father and with one another. Thus, the great plan of happiness is God's plan for happiness in time and in eternity.

The Meanings and Blessings of Family Work

Prosaic Work Connects People and Changes Hearts

Family work is prosaic work - commonplace, even tedious or dull. But these small, everyday events combine to form the character of a week, a month, a year, and eventually a lifetime. Few things in life are as small, simple, or of seemingly little value as the everyday tasks we do for family members.

From a spiritual perspective, work done with a minimum of concentration leaves our minds free to focus on one another as we labor. Unlike play, which often involves significant mental activity, sharing an everyday task can dissolve feels of hierarchy, inviting lighthearted or intimate conversation that binds us together.

Two students talked about the importance of work to them:

"Some of the best times with my dad were when I would help him do yard work... we'd have some of our best talks about life as we raked leaves or hauled wood."

"I think picking strawberries and string beans was especially productive as a family because the work was long and mundane. The quiet, almost mentally effortless work is fertile soil for conversation. I sometimes miss those days."

Family work thus reveals a profound potential to strengthen and heal relationships. Performing mundane yet essential tasks for those who cannot do so for themselves can create, in the absence of price, a precious connection between giver and receiver. As we figuratively touch each other at the simple level of everyday a need, routine acts of service begin to mend feelings and foster unity.


The daily work of feeding, clothing, and sheltering others has the power to transform us spiritually as we transform others physically.

Repentance and Forgiveness in Family Life

Repentance and forgiveness  are two sides of the same coin and are frequently addressed together. In families, repentance and forgiveness blend into an interactive process that is strengthened by family members' commitment to each other. The term "interpersonal transgression" implies the involvement of a victim and an offender who are, at the time of the offense, connected through an ongoing relationship.

With families we often feel that we cannot forgive because we feel that we are hurting too much. But what if you flip the coin and look at them and think about how they feel inside about the situation.

Factors associated with forgiveness

• Situational factors: Intention of harm, repetition of offense, severity of the consequences, cancellation or not of the consequences, presence of apologies, and/or compensation from the offender
• Relation factors: offenders identity and his of her proximity with the victim, his or her hierarchical status, his or her attitude after the offense and environmental pressures.
• Personality factors

Why Repent and Forgive?

Repentance and forgiveness have historically been regarded by social scientists as religious issues only. However, mental health experts acknowledge that it is impossible to address emotional and physical well-being without considering the relevance of repentance and forgiveness. 

Here is a video of a man who could have easily been so angry and everyone would have agreed with him and allowed to feel angry for what happened in his life. But instead he turned the other cheek and found a way to forgive.

How to forgive?

1. Recall the hurt. It is human nature to try to protect ourselves from pain. Too often we try to deny or forget the pain of the offense and avoid the discomfort associated with addressing that offense in an interpersonal relationship. In order to forgive, we have to be clear about the wrongdoing and acknowledge the injury.
2. Empathize. Empathy involves borrowing the lens of another person so we see something from their point of view. In order to forgive, it is important to understand the transgressor's feelings. Was the offense committed knowingly or was it an honest mistake? What were the pressures that influenced the offender to commit the offense? Is there an understandable reason for the offender to disagree with the victim regarding the seriousness of the offense? In what ways may the offender have been victimized in the past? What pain might the offender be experiencing associated with guilt and remorse?
3. Offer the altruistic gift of forgiveness. Forgiving with altruism is easier when the victim is humbled by an awareness of his or her own shortcomings and offenses, with special gratitude for those occasions when he or she was freely forgiven.
4. Commit publicly to forgive. The victim has a better chance of successful forgiveness if he or she verbalizes the forgiveness commitment to another person (for example, telling a friend or counselor about the decision). Some victims have formalized their decision by writing a letter, making a journal entry, or creating a certificate of forgiveness.
5. Hold on to forgiveness. After completing the forgiveness process, victims may still be haunted on occasion by the pain of the offense, during this stage it is important to move forward. When thoughts revert to the painful injury, the victim is reminded that the decision to forgive has already been made. He or she does not have to repeat that process. Also, it is important for the victim to remember that having forgiven, he or she has promised that there will be no paybacks or grudges. Although painful memories are not necessarily replace by forgiveness, the pain should be a reminder to move forward with ones life instead of revisiting the transgression committed against him or here. Deliberate efforts to stop unwanted thoughts are often  unsuccessful. Instead, when victims have successfully reframed their thought processes, it is probably because they have replaced the unwanted thoughts with something more meaningful or important.

Scholars do not know exactly how forgiveness takes place, but when genuine forgiveness is achieved, thoughts, emotions, motivations, and behaviors are changed.

Faith in Family life

Joseph Smith stated that faith is not only a belief, but as "the principle of action in all intelligent beings."

There are three dimensions frameworks that are researched-bases connection between faith and family.

Dimension One: Religious Community and Family

There's an old African adage, "It takes a village to raise a child." Our congregation is the village that we have chosen to focus our energies on. When we work with people, it helps us to keep our own struggles in a better perspective and they don't become a burden, just a part of life. People are at their happiest when they are serving others. Service in the church is bases on doing things for other people, going outside yourself.

The dimension of religious community encompasses and includes support, involvement, and relationships grounded in a congregation or less formal religious group.

Dimension Two: Religious Practices and Family

"Praying together as a family and reading the scriptures together is probably the best thing we do to pull us toward Heavenly Father and each other. It feels right. It feels good, I'm grateful to be able to do that, If my family that I grew up with ever would have done that it would have been a fond memory that I would have hel but we never did. Our family now should pray more, but when we kneel together and hold hands as a family, it brings the Spirit into our home and make the children feel right and teaches them that this is what they need to do with their families -- I am sure they'll remember it. It's special."  (Shana, Latter-Day Saint mother) 

Religious practices are outward observable expressions of faith such as prayer, scripture study, rituals, traditions, or less overtly sacred practices or abstinence that is religiously grounded. 

Dimension Three: Religious Beliefs and Family

"There is  something that when as a family your hearts are pointed together toward the same thing, and it's God, then parenting and economics and space and good and disagreements and hassles and joys and celebrations and all that other stuff it works different, it seems different, it feels different. Our family is all oriented in the same way. Christ is king, He's the center, He's what it's all about. Our faith informs our relationships and everything about us." (Joseph, non-denominational Christian father)

It's close relationships with the second dimension of religious practices-particularly in connection with marriage and family life. Religious beliefs include personal, internal beliefs, framings, meanings, and perspectives which can, and often do, influence family life. 

Polls and surveys have indicated that 95 percent of all married couples and parents in the United States report a religious affiliation, and religion is the single most important influence in life for a substantial minority of Americans. 

Parenting in Love, Limits, and Latitude: Proclamation Principles and Supportive Scholarship

LOVE

Love is the first of three characteristics of authoritative parenting. President Gordan B. Hinckley said:

Every child is entitled to grow up in a home where there is warm and secure companionship, where 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.

Children are less aggressive and more sociable and empathetic if they have parents who are more loving, patient, playful, responsive, and sympathetic to children's feelings and needs. Children are less likely to push limits and seek attention through misbehavior when they feel that they are a high priority in their parents' lives.

LIMITS

Finding ways to effectively help children learn how o regulate their own behavior in noncoercive ways is one of the most challenging parts of authoritative parenting. Determining how and when to tighten or loosen the reins requires considerable creativity, effort, and inspiration. In all cases, discipline or correction should be motivated by a sincere interest in teaching children correct principles rather than merely to exert control, exercise dominion,or vent anger.As they apply limits to a child's behavior, authoritative parents must again make a conscious effort and use good judgment by taking into consideration the developmental level of the child and the child's individual temperament.

LATITUDE

The third component of authoritative parenting is latitude, or autonomy. Children benefit from being given choices and appropriate levels of latitude to make their own decisions in a variety of domains. Children learn and grow by learning how to make choices within limits that are acceptable to parents. (Example: allowing a child the option of taking the trash out in the evening or in the morning before school; asking whether he child would prefer hot or cold cereal.) Whenever possible, supporting children's autonomy in this manner helps children view adults as providers of information and guidance rather than as deliverers of messages of control. When children have been taught principles of truth, internalize correct principles, and have many opportunities to make choices within an environment of love and concern, they are more likely to learn to choose wisely.

Marriage in the Late Years

Here is a section from the book Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom:

Morrie: "I've learned this much about marriage," he said. "You get tested. You find our who you are, who the other person is, and how you accommodate or don't"
Mitch: I there some kind of rule to know if a marriage is going to work?
Morrie smiled. "Things are not that simple, Mitch."
Mitch: I know.
Morrie: "Still, there are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage. If you don't respect the other person you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don't have a common set of values, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be alike."
"And the best one of those values, Mitch?"
Mitch: Yes?
Morrie: "You're belief in the importance of your marriage."

Whether a couple is newly married or celebrating a 50th wedding anniversary, creating and maintaining a mutually satisfying, stable, vibrant marital relationship takes time, effort, and a shared commitment about the importance of marriage.

Principles Underlying Successful Marriages

• Personal commitment to the marriage covenant
• Love and friendship
• Positivity
• The ability to accept influence from one's spouse
• The respectful handling of difference and the ability to solve problems
• Continual courtship throughout the years.

Challenges Facing Mid- and Later- Life Couples

Empty Nest - The natural process of launching children can cause strain and uncover marital difficulties for many couples because they have allowed distance and differences o grow over time. 

Retirement - Retirement struggles are often more linked to men . Retirement may represent bigger obstacles for retiring men, particularly those with little day-to-day household labor. 

Physical decline - Gordan B. Hinckley said, "More and more we are living longer, thanks to the miravle of modern science and medical practice. But with old age comes a deterioration of physical capacity and sometimes mental capacity. I have said before that I have discovered that there is much of lead in the years that are called golden."

Caregiving - Whether for a parent or a spouse, is truly tension of opposite where a person can feel isolation and connection, burden and joy, sorrow and peace. 

Here is a video of a couple that have severe disabilities but they push through together with smiles on their faces. 

The Loss of Loved Ones - Loss of loved ones can pose problems for mature couples. Mourning, grief, and suffering are natural by products of a loving relationship severed, although temporarily by death.

Addressing old wounds - Elder Hugh W. Pinnock shared the following story

A couple... married later in life; the wife had been married before, but it was the husband's first marriage. After several months of marital bliss, a serious disagreement erupted that so hurt the husband emotionally that he could not function at his daily tasks. As he reeled from the impact of this confrontation, he stopped to analyze the problem and realized that at least a part of the problem had been his. He went to his bride ans stammered awkwardly several times, "I'm sorry, Honey." The wife burst into tears, confessing that much of the problem was hers, and asked forgiveness. As they held each other, she confessed that in her experience those words or apology had not been used before,and she now knew that any of their future problems could be worked out. She felt secure because she knew they both could say, "I'm sorry"; "I forgive"

The Warm, Happy Marriage: Cold, Hard Facts to Consider

Benefits of Marriage

• Married adults are healthier than their non-married counterparts.
• Lower rates of morbidity and mortality
• Their health benefits persist even with factors such as race, income, and health status prior to marriage are taken into account.
• This means that married couples living in poverty have better physical health, compared to other low-income unmarried people, and their marital health benefits extend across all major ethnic groups.
• A man's or woman's marital status at age 48 strongly predicts his or her chances of surviving to age 65, with those not married more likely to die prematurely. 
• Divorce men experience health risks akin to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, while a woman's risk of dying prematurely decreases with the duration of her marriage.
• Married people are generally happier with greater life satisfaction, lower risk for depression, and greater economic stability; all contributing to better mental health. 
• When young adults marry, they experience an immediate reduction in depressive symptoms, and higher life satisfaction level hold true for the married across incomes, ethnic groups, and gender. 

Honoring Marital Vows with Complete Fidelity

There are different kinds of infidelity. Infidelity can be categorized based on the type of involvement (emotional or physical) and the level of relational attachment (attached or detached). Based on this information there appear to be four types of infidelity: fantasy, visual, romantic, and sexual.

Type of Involvement

Type of Relational Attachment	Emotional	Physical
Detached	Fantasy	Visual
Attached	Romantic	Sexual

Fantasy Infidelity

Fantasy infidelity is emotional/detached and is characterized by having an emotional affair with someone who has no knowledge about what is taking place, or with someone who is anonymous (such as a person in a chat room) or will likely never be encountered in person (such as a celebrity), or all three. This type of infidelity involves fantasizing romantically about someone other than our spouse. 

Visual Infidelity

Visual infidelity is detached/physical. Pornography is perhaps the most common type of unfaithfulness. And the physical aspect of pornography involves the common practice of self-stimulation while viewing pornography. 

Here is a quick video illustrating what can happen to a family because of pornography.

Romantic Infidelity

Romantic infidelity is emotional/attached. It occurs when an individual becomes emotionally involved with a specific person other than his or her spouse. Romantic infidelity is characterized by a "second life" and commonly is a result of trying to escape the monotony of everyday life.

Sexual Infidelity

Sexual infidelity is physical/attached. It occurs when a person engages in sexual acts outside the bonds of marriage with or without emotional attachment. In some instances, sexual infidelity can be detached, such as infidelity with a prostitute. In some instances visual affairs or fantasies will lead a person into committing the more serious sin of physical, sexual infidelity.

"Infidelity is a subtle process. It does not begin with adultery; it begins with thoughts and attitudes. Each step to adultery is short, and each is easily taken; but once the process starts, it is difficult to stop." (Veon Smith, professor and marriage counselor)

THERE IS HOPE!

Infidelity is easier to prevent than to remedy. 

1. Boundaries: Be on Guard
2. Fiercely Loyal

Repairing Marriage after infidelity

1. Rebuild Trust
1. Become Accountable
2. Establish Boundaries
3. Rebuilding the Trust Bank Account
2. Gain Perspective
3. Repentance and Forgiveness
1. Confession
2. Forsaking sin
3. Finding Forgiveness
4. Forgiving and Unfaithful Spouse
4. Overcoming Addiction
5. Making the Choice to Stay Together
1. Healing the Past
2. Strengthening the Present
3. Enriching the Future