Profile of a strong family.

Good Communication Patterns
Families are to spend time talking with each other. They are also to listen well to one another, which shows respect. Remember, it takes two to communicate.

Time Together
Spending time together in all areas of their lives;meals, work, recreation, taking interest in each other’s hobbies, ensures togetherness.It is important to structure your schedules to spend time together. Always express desire for more time with your family.

Appreciation
Family members gave one another compliments and sincere demonstrations of approval. They tried to make the others feel appreciated and good about themselves. Say wonderful things to each other. Learn to take pleasure in your family at all times.

High Degree of Commitment
Promoting one another’s happiness and welfare, investing time and energy in each other can also make a family union strong. It is also necessary to make family a number one priority, because when other things take priority over the family, the members will suffer.

High Degree of Religious Orientation
It is essential for family members to worship together. Someone once said that a family that pray together stay together.

Ability to Deal with Crises in a Positive Manner
It is essential that all family members be able to handle life’s blows and emotional crisis maturely without blame or bitterness. Must be willing to take a bad situation, see something positive in it and focus on that.In hoping for the best, always prepare for the worst.

Divorce Proof Your Marriage (Conclusion)

Christian families have become materialistic and have become burdened with debt and plans for getting ahead too fast.You have heard, "If you want something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done." Try it just for kicks! This one "tune-up" won't fix all of your problems, but you will be amazed how far it goes in helping out.

Paul Harvey, the radio news commentator, found these two items in common to long-lasting marriages:
1) A sense of humour in both partners, and

2) Faith in God.

Being married and happy takes work and prayer, even for Christians. Time in conversation with your spouse keeps communication channels open. Communication itself is a skill
that needs to be developed. Mates must allow all conversation to be free, even wild or bad ideas must be free to share.

As long as mates are chatting a lot and sharing everything, the chances of a breakup are slim.

God bless you.

Links

Family and Parenting
EbonnyMommy
WhatParentsShouldRealize
MarriageGodsWay
Fine-Phonics
Parenting Skills

Others:
Channelofhealing
Faith christain counseling center
Manchild
Nijawife
Omodudu
Realities
RefinedOne
Saved By Jesus
SermonAlive
The Nigerian Student
Wits & Wisdom
Nuggets of Gold
NigerianBloggers
NigerianCuriosity
NaijaECash

About

Learn about MumsDadsChildren.

Mumsdadschildren is a blog that was inspired solely by the different unpalatable happenings around homes today. This site is wholly dedicated to issues that could help bring improvement to all who desire the best family life. It is also to inspire, educate, encourage and assist everyone that comes by this blog. Your contributions are also welcome in form of blog posts, articles etc that may be of help to all avid readers of this blog.
Pls visit our links page for more blogs with focus on family and other aspect of life.

Divorce Proof Your Marriage (Part 2)

When that intimacy at home decreases by the day, the husband will look for someone who will listen to his heart. If some woman at the office spends time listening to him, the wife at
home is in danger. One day the husband comes home, declares that he doesn't love you anymore and is initiating a divorce.

What happened?

The woman at the office captured his heart, and the lonely husband feels like this woman at work will listen to him. If the communication problem isn't fixed, the second marriage may
not work out either.

This of course applies to the woman at the office with a listening man's ear.

It's a divorce that never should have happened!

(Do I hear any "Amens" out there?)

Okay. What can be done about this 'communication problem?'

One of the answers is this: Frequent breaks from the daily
routine of taking care of the kids.

(C'mon, guys! How long would you last doing her job?)

Take a weekend a month and have an overnight trip somewhere romantic.Spend some time together undisturbed by the kids.Relieve your wife of stress with these getaways.

Talk a lot.
Share your heart a lot.
Make it so that there are no secrets between the two of you.
That takes courage and time, but is well worth it.

And on occasion, have a weekend of wild sex with each other.

Put these mini-vacations in your budget. They are *very* important.Get away together frequently!

A message to the men is appropriate here: Men, when your wife talks to you, look at her straight in the eye.

Pay attention to her!

You may be able to repeat what she is telling you, but are you really listening?

Treat your wife like your hunting buddy or other true friend.
Forget about bills, work, projects, the to-do list, updating
your bank account -- until you have had a SATISFYING talk (in HER opinion) with her.

This is part of real 'communication' with your wife.

To be continued....................

Divorce Proof Your Marriage (Part 1)

This lovely message was from my friend Olaitan,I will post it in segments for easy read.

Remember a long time ago when your marriage seemed ideal and you
and your spouse had no cares whatsoever?

Did something happen to your lovely marriage?

What was it?

It was a communication problem.

WAIT!!!!!! Don't skip out of this issue yet!!!!!!

What happened?

When you had no children and you were both starting out,
nothing got in the way of you and your adorable spouse.
But as time went on and kids came, things changed.

The wife gets to stay home and take care of the kids (hoo-rah!)
while the husband earns the bread. After a long, hard day with
the kids, the wife doesn't want to have ANYTHING to do with ANYBODY.

It's subtle and will take a period of time to come to this, but
it will happen. This is interpreted by the husband as:
1) A lack of interest in sex
2) A lack of interest in you

Then feelings get ruffled easy and the constant flow of
communication slows down.

Bills come in and it becomes a burden to make ends meet.
Then the husband doesn't want to talk either.

Pretty soon neither the wife nor the husband has that intimacy
that comes from the CONVERSATION they used to have. A husband
really does want to talk - perhaps not as much as the wife,
but he still wants to have a woman who will listen to his heart.

To be continued.....................

Divorce

With the spate of divorce in our society these days it is highly essential that we know it’s effect on our loved ones. Most couple heading for divorce only thought of themselves and not the other lives that may be affected by their decision. Such decisions were made without due consideration for the children involved in the marriage (if there are any).

I have a friend whose husband recently asked for divorce on grounds of incompatibility, fortunately there are no issues involved but then the effect their decision had on us friends was immeasurable. Each of their friends had to decide which partner to remain with as friends because it is not just possible to continue to be friends with both not when they now have different partners.

Here are my views on the effect of divorce on a family.
· Children of divorced parents tend to undergo series of trauma, as evidenced in some research; divorce has negative effects on a child’s psychological, emotional and physical, health and well-being.
· Women suffers more in divorce, they become emotionally unstable and tend to find succor where it does not exist. For example, a woman went back to a once rejected admirer after divorce from her husband, which resulted in another rejection and series of heartbreak. Some take to alcohol, prostitution and so on. The woman is usually stigmatized.Please note that the percentage of women that survived divorce is small compared to those that succumb.

· Children of divorced parents enter adulthood as worried, underachievers and sometimes angry young men and women.
· Children of divorced parents cause a strikingly disproportionate share of discipline problems in schools and fare far worse academically than their peers from two-parent homes.
· Lastly, it has more severe financial consequences for men than for women.

This is important for mums and dads considering divorce or those that are already in the process. Please read these and if possible reconsider the option of divorce, learn to love each other, remember no one is perfect and please for the sake of the children involved STOP THAT DIVORCE NOW.

Parenting

We need to look at what the Bible says about parenting:

• Parents must teach God’s truth (Dt. 4:9; 32:46).
• Parents must lovingly discipline children because they are immature and need guidance (Prov. 22:15; 29:15).
• Parents should not exasperate their children (Eph. 6:4).
• Parents’ wise decisions bring blessing to their children (Dt. 30:19-20).
• Parents who are godly teach their children to obey (Eph. 6:1; 1 Tim. 3:4).
• Parents who faithfully train their children can be confident that their efforts are not in vain (Prov. 22:6).

http://net.bible.org/illustration.php?topic=222

Keys to a Successful family.

A family consists of the father, mother and their children, living together as a group doing things in common and having same traits and often times share common attitudes, interests, and goals. Families are to promote each other’s happiness and welfare, invest time and energy in each other and made family their number one priority. It is important that schedules are structured to allow family members to spend time together and also listen well to each other’s troubles and complaints.
A successful family must at all times learn to:

· Communicate and listen
· Affirm and support family members
· Respect one another
· Develop a sense of trust
· Share time and responsibility
· Know right from wrong
· Have rituals and traditions
· Share a religious core
· Respect each other’s privacy.

Remember that a prayerful family stays together.