Incledible Genogram

To complete the homework, Genogram, I have spent a lot of time online chatting with my parents, to get as much information as I can. From these, I have understood our family structures, functions and found out that the structures are kind of simple. No divorce involved yet, no premarital sex. Their emotional relationship not really closed though it is supposed to be. At my generation, my family members usually have only one kid. Through the genogram, I learnt more about all the family members. What had happened to them, when were their marriages. Overall, I think that this class is really awesome.

Confused

I apparently missed the blog that was due last week so this is my first one and I am not sure at all what were are supposed to blog about. But just looking back on the class I am really enjoying it. Our professor does a great job of setting a comfortable teaching atmosphere and I don't think I've ever felt this comfortable to speak out in this large of class. I can easily understand the concepts and his examples of things like letting us watch that part of My Big Fat Greek Wedding in efforts to help us understand family processes. I do feel like I'm learning a lot and I actually enjoy coming to class!

Class Review

I have previously taken this coarse before and the reason I didn't do the best in the class was because of the teacher. I just wanted to say how PLEASED I am with the teaching system that is presented in the classroom. I appreciate the class involvement and a teacher that doesn't show/reflect a certain point of view. I understand that through college there are going to be some teachers that don't meet my specific criteria but there is absolutely no need for personal comments to be made about the way I was raised. I hated going to her lecture classes because I felt like I was constantly disagreeing with her and was so agitated that I eventually quit going. I actually look forward to class this semester because the criteria discussed is mutal and the feedback from classmates is informative. The grade that I will reflect at the end of this semester will be dramatically increased because of the ever desired teaching style that is expressed in this coarse.

Family

I have never really been close to one of my 19 year old brother. Although I have never remembered a time with out him always around. Lately it has hit me what an important relationship we have together. When we were younger, our parents were NOT the best at keeping us from fighting and we had favoritism from our parents. When I was 11 and he 8 our parents had a baby. Which made my now 19 year old brother no longer the baby. Our worlds changed completely as you can imagine. The older two, as we are commonly referred too, got worse in our fighting. I got along much better with baby brother when he was old enough to understand what was going on in the world. I then went away to college and started to get along better with the 19 year old, but worse with the baby. Today I got a phone call from my 19 year old brother and didn't realize how close we have become over the last 4 years. I really do think not living in the same domain has helped our relationship. It surprises me it took 22 years to understand the importance of the relationships around me. I probably owe this class and the family strength exercise to thank for me finally realizing what strong family relationships mean. I didn't realize how supportive my family was until we did that exercise. It has opened my eyes to no long judge my family and compare us to others around. I love my family and now appreciate them more than ever!

Support System

Last night I was sitting in a church service next to one of my friends. My youth pastors and their kids, who are my friends, were standing up front talking to the guest speaker, and I couldn't help but feel a little jealous. Not jealous in bad way, but jealous wishing that I had what they had sometimes. Don't get me wrong, my family is great, and they are my biggest supporters, but my youth pastors have THE best relationship as a family that I have ever seen, and sometimes I wish I had that. My friend and her brother are really close and it's wierd because I would never think of hanging out with my brother like they do all the time. My youth pastors are like my second set of parents. They are two of the most amazing people I have ever met in my life, and I feel lucky to have them in my life. We all call them "mom" and "dad" even though we all have our own parents. They are just like another set of parents though. They keep us all accountable and love us like we were all their own kids. I would never give up the life I have right now, but sometimes I wish that I had a family like theirs for just one day to see what it's like.

I feel like even though they aren't a part of my family, they are still my support system. They build me up and make me feel good, just like my actual family.

So some of my close friends are dating and I had never really understood some of the things that went on in their relationship when they would come to me. I was sitting in class the other day and it just hit me, it's because of their families. I didn't realize that the way you were treated within the first 2 years of your life basically helps to shape the person you are today. I hadn't really thought about the amount of love and affection in a family could really affect an individual later on in life. Some of the issues in their relationship deal with the amount of love and affection that is expressed in one family and really not there at all in the other family. One of them wonders why the other doesn't express their feelings towards the other as easy as they do, but in reality it is because their family never showed them how to while growing up. One of them seems to have no idea what they are doing sometimes and almost seem socially/relationship awkward but their parents never really expressed a healthy relationship in front of their kids so the kids aren't really sure of what a good relationship looks like. I think this class is so interesting because I feel like all of those questions I have wondered all my life about why this person does this or why don't they do that...it really is because of a heavy impact of their family. I love learning all of these new things.

Hello. So I love this class and how much it helps me to understand my family. When we talked about how families deal with a crisis I thought of the most recent one my family has gone through. My family is made up of my dad and mom, my older sister, me and my younger brother. My family and I have always been really close so a couple of years ago when my sister got married and never told any of us it was very difficult to deal with. At first my parents question what they did wrong but I was able to see it bring our family closer together in the end. I saw me and my brother comfort and support our parents. Also my parents supported my sisters decision after they got over the shock. It really showed how close my family really is when my sister disappointed all of us but we were able to forgive and support her decision. It was just hard because we never saw it coming. My sister was never the type to do something like this, she always had things planned and for the most part she was very open to all of us. Our family has always been very close though and that was what helped us all get through it. Through reading our book it talks about the different stages when dealing with a crisis: Stage 1 Onset, Stage 2 Disorganization, and Stage 3 Reorganization. Reading this helped me to understand the process my family went through during our crisis. I've realized that my family is definitely close enough to handle any crisis that might come our way and it's very comforting to know this.