Cody Giauque's personal blog

 Welcome back. This week's topic is about how to communicate effectively. This is an incredibly important skill to have. It becomes very helpful when working with other people and it can also keep the feelings of peace and happiness in a home when people can communicate. There are many different ways to communicate. I'll be focusing on one way to communicate that stood out to me. There are 5 steps. 1. The Disarming Technique: Find some truth in what the other person is saying. 2. Empathy: Try and see things from their point of view.       - Thoughtful Empathy: restate what they are saying.       - Feeling Empathy: Acknowledge their feelings. 3. Inquiry: ask questions to better understand where they are coming from. 4. "I Feel" statements: Talk about how you feel with statements that don't start with focusing on them. 5. Stroking: Point out something about them that you like and appreciate about who they are. I'm currently working on practicing using this commu

 There are many different situations that can cause a family to be in a state of crisis. I don't believe any situation is exactly the same. The way we can work through crisis situations can be in a form the same though. In Chinese there are two symbols put together to make the word crisis. One is danger and the other is opportunity. This can help us understand that crisis can be taken one of two ways. It can be seen as an opportunity, or it can be seen as danger. Both of which are correct, but whichever one we focus on will determine the outcome.  I'd like to offer some advice on ways to keep a family intact. Especially during a crisis. One of the most effective ways is to have consistent family time together. This will help the family continue to hold the bond they have created. I hope you enjoyed reading this weeks post. As always, I invite you to go and study this for yourself.

 This post will be a short one, but I believe this is a significant one. When it comes to marriage there's always the question of what kind of relationships can be had outside of the marriage? Is either spouse allowed to have friends outside of the marriage that are of the opposite gender? What can lead to adultery and how can it be avoided? I don't think there's a clear answer on what kind of relationships can be had outside of a marriage. I do think there should be complete transparency in a marriage about friendships. In order to have a successful marriage, it is important to put your partner first before any outside relationships. It is still healthy to have relationships outside of the marriage though. No one wants to get bored of the same person in a marriage. The more burning question is What can lead to adultery? There are many different paths that can lead to adultery, but the common theme within all of them is our thoughts. Every single path begins with our own th

 This week my studies took me to research what counts as dating. What I found it pretty interesting. Going on a date means is has to be planned, paid for (if applicable), and paired off (knowing who's on the date with who).  There's a TTT rule that comes with dating as well. The first T stands for Time. The second T stands or Togetherness. The last T stands for Talk. These are 3 rules that can be applied to dating someone specifically. It's important to talk with someone to get to know them, have experiences together to create a good level of togetherness, and to let time take its course. Time will always be able to tell if a relationship is going to work or not.  These are 2 things I found while doing my research about dating. Hopefully this was helpful to anyone who reads this. Just remember to do your own research as well if this is something you're interested in looking into. Thanks for reading.

 Welcome to another controversial blog post. Please keep in mind my intent is not to offend anyone. It's simply to share what I have found through some of my studies this week. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or comments. There have been multiple studies done about the characteristics of males and females. The majority of these studies were done at a young age and were done by observation. What was found is the majority of girls have characteristics that were more nurturing, cooperative with others, creative, were more aware of multiple things at a time, had communication skills, attentiveness to detail, and an ability to read emotions and nonverbal cues. The majority of boys have characteristics that were more aggressive, competitive, protective, a desire to provide, startled easier, and were good at spatial orientation. Not every boy and girl exhibited these exact characteristics, but the majority of them had some of these characteristics based on their gen

 My studies this week turned towards the effects that social environment can have on families. Have you ever noticed that people tend to mimic who they are around if they are around them for a long time? Well, the same principle applies with families. The longer anyone in a family is exposed to something, the more a part of the family it becomes. For example, if a family rarely spends time together then suddenly the parents decide to spend more time as a family. It will be awkward and feel weird at first. The children may talk about how they want to hang out with their friends or how it's stupid to spend time as a family, but as the family continues to spend more time together it will become more natural. Eventually it will be an integral part of the family to spend time together often.  Another aspect I studied was the effects of social class on the family. Surprisingly there is a large effect on families in different social classes. The families that tend to be closest are the mi