...Blended Families Kendra Harmon ENG121: English Composition I Elizabeth Myers February 2, 2015 I am the fifth child of seventeen children. This has happened because I have a blended family, my father remarried and my step mother had five children from a previous marriage, and my mother has remarried to my step father who has seven children from his previous marriages. My parents divorced when I was thirteen years old, and have now remarried to spouses who have children of their own from previous marriages. By working as a family unit on both sides, mother and father as well as stepmother and stepfather, the family can stay strong and become a big happy family instead of two separate families. Having a blended family takes a lot of work from both the sides of both the parents and the children because of the hardships on the family when the mother and father divorce, then meeting and getting to know the new family members, and learning to work with the new family members as one whole family unit instead of two separate families. The hardships on the family when the mother and father divorce can hurt the family structure but as long as everyone works together it can be rebuilt to be a healthier relationship for everyone involved. With my family, we had a rough divorce process and we had a lot of hate within the family. My brother, sister, and I grew closer together when the divorce happened and our bond was strengthened as we were unsure of what was to come but with hard work...
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...when counseling blended families by focusing on the family dynamic system. Blended families or step-families are becoming more prevalent in the United States each year. The number of divorces has continued to rise in the United States, which has caused the rate of couples remarrying to increase as well. Blended families usually result from different life circumstances such, as past relationships, divorces, deaths, and separations. At times blended families are faced with many challenges, and these challenges can cause significant problems within the new relationships. Some of the problems are due to different parenting styles. Children are having to readjust to a new lifestyle and getting along with stepparents or siblings can put an obstacle into the new relationship. Family counseling provides blended families with an opportunity and a platform for voicing their feelings and learning ways to accommodate each other within the family. Keywords: Blended families, counseling, divorce, remarriage, children, separation, parenting style, step-siblings, and widowing. Blended Family Counseling Introduction Blended families are becoming accepted in today’s society, and many families are merging together as one. Gonzales (2009) defined blended family as two couples coming together into a new relationship with one or more children from a previous relationship. Customarily, the primary family structure consisted of a two-parent household. The head of the family was led by a husband...
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...Summary Ron Deal wrote “Dating and the Single Parent”. He starts his book with a foreword, as most books do. However, this is one of the most powerful portions of the book because it gives the reasons for the book. While the content will be summarized, many people (especially the church), have not been dealing or addressing the blended families that are in need of help because the single parent is so prevalent and many people are not going into marriage of blended families with an awareness of how to do this effectively. Here are some shocking, but not unbelievable statistics: 1. “Forty two percent of adults are in a step relationship of some kind. 2. Thirty percent of marriages to attend Family Life’s Weekend to Remember marriage getaways are in blended families. 3. Two-thirds of marriages where one or both partners brings children into the relationship end in divorce” (Deal, 2012). He continues to explain upfront that many of the issues are understanding the difference between “coupleness” and “familyness”, and that the latter is what will create a legacy. The book chapter’s attempts to guide both the single parent and the person interested in dating the parent advice and guidance in the process. The first portion of the book consists of five chapters and it titled “Getting Pas the Butterflies and Warm Fuzzies.” The first chapter “Dating in a crowd: Dating with purpose” (pg. 29) starts off the book with a reminder that when one dates a single parent...
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...Fonda. The story is about a blended family. Frank (Henry Fonda) and Helen (Lucille Ball) are both widows struggling to raise their children. Frank has ten while Helen has eight. After crossing paths in the store, they realized their situations were similar. Of course, they did not think they should begin a relationship, but they did. To their advantage, they married and became a family. Eventually, Frank (Henry) and Helen (Lucille) borne a child. This article, Yours, Mine, and Ours: How Families Change When remarried Parents Have a Child interest me because I too are a part of a blended family. There are many dynamics – pain, confusion, hope, anger and of course love. When my...
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...options when it comes to online or traditional education degrees. The platform offers everything from certificates and diplomas to more advanced degree options such as an associate or bachelor’s degree. With constant changes in technology from all different degree programs, let’s take a look at the advantages to an online versus traditional education and examine how each type of education impacts you as a student. Online vs. traditional education: flexibility One of the key components to consider when weighing the options is the amount of time you have everyday to work on your degree. Are you willing and able to attend college full-time or do you need more flexibility for your busy schedule? Flexibility was a major concern for Casey Horton, a graduate of sociology and psychology from Ashford University. Horton, a working adult, needed an online program because of the convenience it offered. “If you are raising a family, working and can't find a job that [offers] a flexible schedule, then online is the best way,” Horton says. Online education: A benefit to taking online courses is that they offer flexibility to the...
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...Family is a common dominator for everyone, family is known to be a powerful element in life. The traditional type of family is husband and wife, children, with the possibilities of other sibling’s. There are other types of families, ranging from blended, to mixed, step, adopted, too in-laws. No matter the underline root of family, or what makes people family at the end of the day that is all one may have. Family is very precious and important, value as equivalent to a golden ticket. Over the years and time have changed the family structure, altered values and viewpoints, which is clearly evident in the United States from a socialization process. To begin, family is a title that is giving to those that share blood, common relatives, adopted, or in laws which is by marriage. In modern society, some families have been labeled nuclear family that have two parents and their children; and extended family are grandparents, aunties and uncles, and cousins (Jones, 2003). As stated earlier, the family tradition has been the same until modern society have redefined what they think is families. In fact, this is not something that can just be thrown under the rug this prompted social problems in the United States....
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...Getting on the degree path that’s right for you is a big decision for many—and not something to take lightly. As employers demand more skills from employees, the demand of online degree programs has increased inpopularity. In fact, within the United States, 6.7 million students enrolled in at least one online course in fall 2011—an increase of more than 500,000 students compared to 2010. What is the big difference in online versus traditional education? “Each student learns differently and in today's era of increasing technology, the question will not be whether to offer classes online, but rather how to implement them,” says Allison Hiltz, a former online and traditional education student who writes for The Book Wheel Blog. There are several options when it comes to online or traditional education degrees. The platform offers everything from certificates and diplomas to more advanced degree options such as an associate or bachelor’s degree. With constant changes in technology from all different degree programs, let’s take a look at the advantages to an online versus traditional education and examine how each type of education impacts you as a student. The job market has become much more competitive in the last few years. As companies cut back on labor to stay in business, education has become extremely important for employees who want to be more competitive in their current positions or want to transition into a new career. The level of competition for good jobs has made...
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...Families created out of second marriages often begin with high expectations. Parents hope to avoid or to fix the mistakes made in a previous marriage and to find the love or security that has been missing. Some hopes maybe little more than fantasies, but any that goes unfulfilled cause stress. In a structural-functional approach, the family is viewed as an organization arranged in a structure with a hierarchy that enables it to perform necessary functions. The family is organized into smaller parts, or subsystems. Some concepts relevant to this framework are values, boundaries, roles, hierarchies, and interactional style. (Smith ,Maurer 2009, p.336). Regarding values the couple must put their marriage first. Spend time with your new spouse, and make his or her status in the family clear to your children. For instance, fathers could say something like this to their children even before they remarry: “I love Anna, and she will be my wife. I know you will be polite to her.” For roles each child must be given household chores, a seat at the table, and a space of their own in the home. This includes those who may stay with the new couple only part-time. Each member of the family must know their boundaries. Boundaries represent rules that define participants in a subsystem and regulate their behavior. Families with clear and age-appropriate boundaries are believed to function better than families with rigid or ill-defined boundaries. Parents can avoid creating many rules or changing...
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...Family refers to two or more individuals who identify themselves as family and manifest some degree of interdependence in interactions with each other and their environment in meeting basic human needs for affection and meaning. In today’s world there is a variation of single-parent, stepfamilies or blended families, dual-career families in which both parents work, married couples without children, cohabitating couples, and gay and lesbian families are more typical of the diverse family patterns today. For this assignment I chose a blended family, this is a family consisting of a couple and their children from this and all previous relationships. In this case, the father and also the step parent is thirty five years old and the mother is thirty two years old. They have an older male child who is the son of the mother from a previous marriage and is ten years old and the smallest child is a girl from this current marriage who is six years old. All four of them are white in race and Hispanic in ethnicity. In the family that...
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...Maintaining Marriage Quality in Stepfamilies Remarried family numbers are growing. In a nationwide Pew research study released recently, forty-two percent of 2,700 adults polled said that they had at least one step-relative. Three in ten have step-siblings or half-siblings, eighteen percent have a living stepparent, and thirteen percent have at least one stepchild. More of these newly constituted families also come from single adults with children who had previous relationships but never married. About twenty percent of all American families are stepfamilies. “Of every ten couples who remarry, buoyed by love and renewed hope, six divorce yet again (Wisdom and Green 2). In the traditional marriage, much like the song says, “First comes love, then comes marriage, and then comes the baby carriage,” well the exact opposite happens in the stepfamily marriage. Stepfamilies have been re-categorized into two types. One is simple stepfamilies which include children from one parent, and complex stepfamilies which include children from both parents. Research indicates that the more complex blended family structures are the more difficulties and challenges they face. To give yourself the best chance of success, it’s critical to start planning how a stepfamily will function before the marriage even takes place. Now that you and your partner have decided to take the next step to make a life together you will need to include the children from one or both of your previous relationships...
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...Marriage & Family Changes: American Society DeVry University April 11th, 2014 Spring 2014, Session II Changes to Marriage & Family: American Society The American society has had very dramatic changes in the ways that certain aspects of our modern culture are shifting the traditional American family. These changes bring a new different perspective to the rise in divorce rates. Cohabiting relationships rather than traditional marriages has brought a new way of viewing relationships. Blended families of both gay and heterosexual design surface new issues. And children being born out of wedlock and its normalcy in today’s society. High Rise in Divorces The American society has been demonstrating signs and symptoms of change with the rise of technology. Marriage has long been recognized as a fundamental social institution but with the rise of modern economies and the associated individualism, many functions once confined to marriage now take place outside of it (Musick & Bumpas, 2012). Divorces has several factors that contribute to the high incidence in our modern times. Many parents use the media as surrogate parents, allowing the internet and social media to be the child’s main support, instead of dedicating personal quality time to their children. In change, these children have grown up in the last decade young marriages tend to dedicate more time to their social platforms rather than spending one on one time with their spouses. Social media also affects...
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...Patrick Williams English 111 16 October 2014 Family Value and Truth Family in society is a social structure. Family plays a key role in human life because it can give people a sense of home, or a loving and supportive group. In most cases when people think of families they think of having a mom, dad, brother, sister. However, nothing in life is perfect. Today, we have separated , same sex, extended, and blended families. Society tries to explain these more contemporary families but has a harsh way of doing so. In the essay, Stone Soup, by Barbara Kingsolver, she discusses how society views families and in the essay, Family Values, by Richard Rodriguez, he talks about American family values. Both essays express the view that family should be valued regardless of differences. Kingsolver breaks down what it means to be a real family while Rodriguez emphasizes the value of family; both authors show the importance of having family. In the introduction of the Kingsolver essay, she talks about a young boy’s soccer game. She talks about how the young boy, whose name is Andy, has a blended family. Kingsolver writes, “He’s Andy, my best friend’s son. The cheering section includes his mother and her friends, his brother, his father, and stepmother, a stepbrother and stepsister, and a grandparent” (147). She uses her friend’s son as an real life example of what kind of family would be considered a broken family by society but is not. Andy’s family is supportive of him and loves him enough to come and cheer for him regardless of ...
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...A fraternal twin’s higher education choice can be influenced by family values, social economics, environmental and instructional decisions. For centuries, traditional education can be characterized by using direct contact between an instructor and student. Immediate feedback and increased social interaction may be formed during a defined period in classroom instruction. Distance learning, now considered a new term, has been around for over a century. Correspondent courses started in Europe and remained the primary means of distant learning until the middle of the twentieth century (Imel, 1996). Distant and online education offer many of the same characteristics along with distinct features, of indirect contact with faculty and classmates through technology driven methods such as discussion forums and synchronous or asynchronous communication. (Mahmood, Mahmood, & Malik, 2012). Distant learning allows students to learn and study at their preferred learning style and own pace. Similar to the unique characteristics of fraternal twins, nontraditional and individual needs students may require the adaptability and flexibility of distant education to fulfill their academic and professional goals. Distant and traditional education use many of the same pedagogical techniques the online learning format enables students increased opportunities to suit their skills, interests, and profession. One Twin’s View on Traditional Education The long established delivery system for traditional...
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...goal. Therefore, blended learning has been hailed as a possible answer to the current limitations of the current system. In this paper, the writer examines the current literature on blended instruction, its benefits, and challenges, as well as, the current evidence on its effectiveness. However, there is no conclusive evidence that blended learning is effective in promoting academic success. These results could be attributed to the lack of consensus on the actual definition of blended learning and its composition. However, the transition to blended learning is inevitable. The review concludes by examining how school administrators can adopt and promote change within their jurisdiction concerning the adoption of blended learning. Blended Learning: Possibilities, Challenges, and Embracing Change Introduction and Background Any education system has the purpose of preparing individuals to contribute to the society, while also allowing them to create desirable lives, either for their families or themselves. The world of work has evolved from an industrial orientation to an information age. Despite this evolution, the education sector has not evolved fast enough and is still operating under the same rules that were set up during the industrial age. Today, more than ever, the current status of the American education system threatens to derail the economic prosperity of the state. Disparities on the extent to which the education sector can prepare students...
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...document) titled “Blended Learning in Middle Schools: Possibilities, Challenges and Embracing Change” for consideration for publication for your upcoming issue on technology in education. The article examines blended learning, its challenge, and benefits, as well as, how school administrators can begin the process of implementing the modality. The manuscript meets all your requirements regarding length, originality, form, and formatting. The word document manuscript is 10 pages in length while the abstract is 142 words long. Thank you in advance Sincerely, Name, Salutation Phone Number Email Blended Learning in Middle Schools: Possibilities, Challenges and Embracing Change By (Student’s Name) Institution Date of Submission Abstract From time immemorial, the role of education has been to prepare individuals to contribute to the society, while also furthering their course. However, the disparity in the US education sector is preventing the system from meeting this key goal. Therefore, blended learning has been hailed as a possible answer to the current limitations of the current system. In this paper, the writer examines the current literature on blended instruction, its benefits, and challenges, as well as, the current evidence on its effectiveness. However, there is no conclusive evidence that blended learning is effective in promoting academic success. These results could be attributed to the lack of consensus on the actual definition of blended learning and its...
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