Preventing and Healing from Abuse!

the word abuse is kind of a hard word to put in the title of a post on my blog becasue I feel like i automatically loose the atention of some of my readers but hear me out, this is talking about more than what our minds first go to when we think abuse, this is talking about the emotional, spiritual, and physical abuse that happensin our families, not just the domestic violence abuse we hear about on TV. Something that Ive learned in this class that both scares me and prepareds me is that it is in our home that we will be the most hurt and do the most hurting. I can definatly understand that becasue its in our homes that we instill the most trust in our spouses in our children in our parents and siblings. They are the ones that know our best qualities, our strengths, talents, triumphs and our potential. theay also know our insecurities, our fears, our weaknessses and our mistakes. that gives them a power to chose to help and uplift or to use the knowledge to bring us down and hurt our spirits. We talked alot about what characteristics need to be practices within a home in order to uplift our family members and see them how the Lord does.


RESPECT is, I think the most important principle you can teach and practice in the family as far as preventing hurt within family relationships, its the most basic for of love you can offer someone. Evryone (even non-family member) and family alike deserve it so its easy to understand why it would be so important to have it taught and practiced in the home from a young age. I think a HUGE part of respect come from understanding the roles that each family mamber plays. In the 6th and 7th paragraph of the Proclamation it states that the divinely appointed duties of a spouse include "to love and care for eachother....to honor marital vows...and to fulfill thier respective responsibilities as parents and equal partners." Equal in worth. Our heavenly father loves us all equally and wants everyone of children to feel that love. In our book it says "DevelopingChristlike beliefs of equality between spouses, individual agency, charity, and humility are powerful means to prevent becoming abusive. I know that as we find that equality in our families the Lord will allow us to be instruments in his hands to help him let our family feel His love through us! Thats such a special ability that he has given us if we allow Him in. We can get to know our heavenly brothers and sisters so well and understand them on a higher spiritual level, allowing us to love them on a higher spiritual level.




I would love to say that respect was as easy to learn as the alphabet but its often put aside and is not only neglected in the family but between the bonds of husband and wife, where it is so crucial! some of the mainsteps that we talked about is to insure strong respect within family relations are as follows:



1.Maintain Open Communication



2.Foster Relationships with Love and By Example



3.Learn and teach Christlike Skills



4.Respond Quickly to Warning Signs and Preconditions of Abuse



5.Trust in the Lord and Follow His Guiance



Each tool has so many things involved in it that require so much work and commitment so its important that everyone in the family understand why these attributes are important to develope and practice in the home. I think its also important to know that if your not in an abusive relatioship no matter how mild or severe you probably know someone who is. Its important that family and friends look for signs of abuse and be available to help. Some of the resources our group came up with to help where to first talk to them about informing thier bishop, when a bishop is involved he can help bring the spirit back into the relationship and that alone helps any issue. Something I have used before that has proven to be very effective is lead through examples, go on double dates, be sure to plan actiivities that would allow them to see eachothers good qualities. Its so good to create situation where the husband and wife can see and eachothers responsibility in action, so that they can really appreciate eachother.

I know that in a family, its only a matter of time before someone gets hurt but there are ways to prevent it and ways to heal from it, I know that respect is a learned concept and even in the best of marraiges, its something that has to get worked on over and over but I know that its a true understanding of that, that will prevent any abuse from occuring.