Teaching Self-Government in Marriage
I was introduced to your program at a conference last year & fell in love with it. It’s for adults as well as kids! Would you be able to offer me some advise on how a husband might use this to help his wife? My son has been married for 3 years to a lovely girl. In these last 3 years he as discovered that she has very little ability to motivate herself to do much of anything.
She grew up with divorced parents who didn’t pay much attention to raising her. She was never given any chores to do as a child, nor required to do school work or be accountable for anything. So she has few life skills & no motivation to develop them. She admits that she needs to start learning, but can’t get herself to do much of anything. She can hold a job & has a church calling, but won’t clean, do laundry or grocery shop by herself. Nor will she make her own doctor’s appointments or handle other responsibilities of day to day living - paying bills, renewing her medication prescriptions, making doctor’s appointments.
Do you have any suggestions as to how my son could implement or adapt your “teaching self-government” techniques in their lives?
My 36yr-old daughter is such a super Mom. We are LDS in CA (a not conservative state). She is also in the Stake YW’s and is sooo good with the teens…especially the difficult ones. I marvel at her insticts. Her 4 kids attend public school but she is very envolved (being a stay-at-home mom) and they learn very important lessons about what not to do or how to act. Her 14year old daughter is always modest and yet very fashionable (in Jr. High her nick name-which she hated-was Barbie…because of cute outfits and assessories not just jeans a t-shirts). When her children fight with eachother they are required to go to their rooms and write a letter to each. They must tell their sibling that they are sorry for being disrepectful, 5 things they admire or like about their sibling and that they love them. She feels it serves many purposes like improving writing skills and gives the sibling a treasured letter forever. She says the kids always end up hugging. She also really knows how to desifer teen music (she picks music for stake dances) she tells me there are hidden messages that the kids understand and adults don’t so parents have to be proactive. She uses the web site urban dictionary to understand the meanings….just the word “Superman” someone is so gross it is unbelieveable….but the average adult would never know. When I saw the article on ldsmag.com I called her and told her to read…we can learn from eachother. If only more children were blessed with parents that really studied to be a good parent. Andrea is always an adult when dealing with teens yet it is heart warming to see the comments on her facebook pg from teens in the stake that truly love her and have requested she be their friend. She has always operated on the self-government principle even though I don’t think she put a name to it…personal responsibility might be it too. Keep up the good work soooooo many parents in the church need this info as well as many confused persons elsewhere.