BYU education week

I went to BYU on Friday for a day at eduction week. I went last year too. I went by myself and had a great day. I thought I would share a couple of things I learned. I went to 3 different classes, two marriage classes and one on parenting. Here are a few things I learned from the marriage classes. The teacher gave three principals to make your marriage better.

1. Know and fulfill each other's needs.

2. Respect each other as equal partners

3.Look to the 3rd companion, God (she drew a triangle with God at the point and husband and wife on the other points.

*women and men think differently, (I already knew that) men focus from one task to the next, while women are multi taskers and can think and do a lot of things at once, therefore making them superior, okay, so I added that part.

*men and women also bond very differently, women bond verbally, talking. Men bond through physical activity and shared activity. I remember Dave telling me that the way he feels close with other guys is if they play basketball together or go biking.

* women use talking to: share feelings, for entertainment, seek and extend support.
men use talking to: do practical logical things, more like for business reasons, solve problems.

*Then she talked about how men and women go through different stages in life.
For women there are 3 stages according to 3 main hormone stages that women go through. 1. IT is all about him, this stage is when you are dating and for a time after marriage. 2. Baby stage, nurturing, the woman's main focus turns from the man to taking care of the baby. 3. achievment stage is after the kids are raised and your focus then turns from the kids and your husband to just wanting to be your own person and personal acheivment. She related womens hormones to a squiggly line always going up and down, while men are more like a straight line.

*Here are the men's different stages. stage 1. win the woman. stage 2. career. stage 3. other callings like maybe establishing your self in your church calling. stage 4. (40's and 50's) they become more gentle and sensitive and just want to focus on their marriage and family more.

Then the teacher talked about men's most important needs, verses womens. She also recommended a book, His needs hers needs. by Willard Hartly.
Men's most important needs. 1. physical contact. 2. recreational companionship (biking or playing tennis with spouse)

Women's #1 need, Verbal interaction. 2. need for affection (flowers, nice emails, little surprises, doing dishes) The teacher then talked about Edward (twilight) and how Edward was every woman's dream, but indeed was created by a woman.

Advice she gives to men. Let your wife develop her own talents and gifts and be her own person. She used President. Hinkley as the shining example of this. His wife said he always gave her wings to fly and just be who she is and develop herself as a person. President Hinkley said of his wife after she passed away that, she was still, " the girl of his dreams."

As you can see, these stages are off from one another, like in stage 4, when the man is just getting more gentle and caring, the woman is supposedly wanting to be her own woman and suddenly does not feel as strong of a need to just take care of everyone else. This may seem like a cruel trick, how different men and women are. Then she showed a puzzle. Each peice is different, but they need to be in order to fit perfectly. It is intended that we are different and do think differently, that is how it works best. She also said not to worry women if you go for a time without much of a sex drive and for men to be patient (this is usually during child rearing years) and that if you had a sex drive once before it will probably return.
I learned a lot of great things at the parenting class as well, but don't have the time now to post about it all. Here is one thing I heard that I really liked. Rules with out relationship = rebellion. In other words, it is important to have a good relationship with your children, spend time together as a family having fun, not just working all the time. If you have a good relationship with your children, they are more likely to follow the rules and less likely to rebel.