Everyone has a story. We are all central characters in our own lives. Much of the human personality is made through socialization. Our rising generation is worthy of our best efforts to support and strengthen them in their journey to adulthood. As an institution, the function of the parents is to develop children into competent, moral, and self-sufficient adults. Parents socialize their children for membership in the larger society. In the process, of course, parents also become socialized. Relationships within the family are intimate, intensive, relatively enduring, particularistic, and diffuse. This is why the socialization that takes place here is usually the most pervasive and consequential for the individual. It is also the first socialization context that most of experience—the place where we develop our initial sense of self. The family, in contemporary society at least, is a relatively simple structure, usually composed of father, mother, and a few children. The parents generally have considerably more power and authority than the children (although the power disparity decreases as the children get older). Perhaps the most powerful thing you can tell your family is that you love them because it lets them now that they are not alone and you care. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9

There is a wide range of process and outcomes of socialization within the family, especially for the child. It is the context in which the child’s initial sense of self develops and basic identities, motivations, values, and beliefs are formed. A good deal of the socialization that takes place in the family involves learning appropriate role behavior associated with various family positions. For the children gender and age roles are very significant because of the consequences that they have for self-conceptions. They are sources of major identities that individuals hold. As such, they are sources of motivation (wanting to act in accordance with role requirements), values (having a beneficial or negative feeling toward the identity), and, perhaps most important, they engender relatively unshakeable conceptions of reality. They also develop very early in the socialization process, shortly after the acquisition of language. Not long after the appearance of reflective thinking (that is, the ability to view the self as an object), the child, in categorizing its World and constructing its reality, categorizes itself as boy or girl. This becomes a statement of fact, not subject to opinion nor negotiation—just as the identities of brother, sister, youngest child, and becomes statement of fact as the children forms. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9

The behavioral consequences of age and gender roles for boys and girls—that is, the role behaviors considered appropriate—take a long time to develop and are negotiable. Through a process of reinforcement from parents and others, through identification with various role models, through countless parental admonitions and instructions, the child is socialized into the specific behavioral expectations associated with these roles. Girls generally learn gender-appropriate behavior through identification with their mothers, whereas boys learn it through identification with a culturally defined masculine role. This difference in processes involved in gender-role learning is a function of the traditional division of labor in the home. As a result, the process of gender-role learning for girls is through observing their mother and modeling her behavior. However, since, generally speaking, the father is often less visible, the process of gender-role learning is more complicated for boys. Their problem is to determine, on the basis of various sources of information (such as mother’s sanctions against unmasculine behavior, males portrayed in the mass media, and observation of men in various circumstances), what constitutes appropriate masculine behavior and to use it as a standard for one’s own conduct. This involves abstracting from a number of diverse sources of information a general model of masculinity.  #RandolphHarris 3 of 9

Many of the youth are remarkable in their spiritual maturity and in their faith. However, even the best of them are sorely tested. And the testing will become more severe. Children learn at a young age that there are distinct expectations for them based on their assigned gender. We must put family first and identify specific ways to strengthen our youth. Studies show that children are aware of gender roles by age two or three; at four or five, most children are firmly entrenched in culturally appropriate gender roles. Parents often supply male children with toy trucks, cars, action figures, robots, balls, sports toys, and books. Female children are often given dolls, doll houses, baking sets, books, balls, sports toys, and stuffed animals. Most children will choose to play with gender appropriate toys even when cross-gender toys are available, because parents give children good feedback (in the form of praise, involvement, and physical closeness) for gender-normative behavior. Our rising generation is worthy of our best efforts to support and strengthen them in their journey to adulthood. Make your family feel appreciated and acknowledged. People who show gratitude feel better about their lives, are more optimistic and in better health than people who are not. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9

In out routine of life, we often take our families—our parents and children and siblings—for granted. However, there is no question that what we care about most is our families. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose. Parents are not the only agents within the family important to the child’s gender-role learning. Siblings also have an effect. In a study of gender-role learning in two-child families, children who have a sibling of the opposite gender have more personality traits of the opposite gender than do children from same-gender sibling system, and this effect is greater for younger than for older siblings. Furthermore, this process of mutual influence is asymmetrical in the sibling order. Older siblings, because of their greater power and competence, have more influence over younger siblings. Identification as a process of development of gender-role identities is important in the formation of other aspects of self-concept, also. We develop a sense of who we are by identifying with and differentiating from others. By showing vulnerability, you can help a relationship feel more equal and bring you closer to your family. Kids do better when they ask for help. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9

In the name of tolerance, the definition of family has been expanded beyond recognition to the point that family can be any individuals of any gender who live together with or without commitment or children. Parenting styles and socialization outcomes are a product of roles, values, norms, and beliefs that are the main cultural contents transmitted from parents to children, more or less intentionally, in congruence with general socialization goals that parents hold. Much of the child’s family socialization is of this kind. However, it is inadvertent, unintentional, and often unconsciously produced by parents. Styles of parental behavior are more likely to be relevant to this aspect of the socialization process. Families, and especially children, a sacred privilege that will teach us to become more like God. Most parents throughout the World continue to know both the importance and the joy that are attached to families. Many parents want to be a bigger influence on their children than the media and the peer group. They want their kids to be functioning members of the community, and to treat people with love and respect and be loved and respected as well. In this culture of super competitive sports and pressure to achieve, tell you children how much you enjoy him or her doing the sport they love.  #RandolphHarris 6 of 9

Parental support combined with inductive or authoritative (as opposed to authoritarian) control have the most favorable socialization effects on the child, that is, development of high self-esteem, sense of competence, conscience, internalization of adult standards, and high achievement motivation. Because the family is the basic unit of society, of the economy, of our culture, and of our government, the family will also be the basic unit in the celestial kingdom. A reason for the efficacy of these parental behavior is that both modeling and identification are affected by them. The most contagious models for the child is likely to be those who are the major sources of support and control. Furthermore, a strong affective relationship between parent and child facilitates the child’s identification with the parent (and the parent’s with the child). In short, parenting styles that result in a warm, supportive, reasonably constricting family environment produce a child who is readily socialized to adult standards. On the other hand, cold, rigid, and coercively-restrictive family environments produce children who are rebellious, resentful, and insecure. Accepting responsibility and owning up to our mistakes is one of the most important things we can do with family members. It is a way to mend relationships that are problematic.  #RandolphHarris 7 of 9

Sometimes it is difficult for us to tell the people we care about most how much they mean to us. Since the relationship between parent and child is highly reciprocal, parents are also affected in the process. In fact, in the initial confrontation between parent and offspring, the parent is much more influenced by the infant than vice versa. By means of the cry and the smile, infants are very effective at shaping parental behavior. Socialization into the parental role is largely a matter of on-the-job training, with the child’s responses to the parent one of the major processes involved in the role definition of parent. Family-centered perspective will make people strive to be the best parents in the World. It should give us enormous respect for our children, who truly are our spiritual siblings, and it should cause us to devote whatever time is necessary to strengthen our families. Indeed, nothings is more critically connected to happiness—both our own and that of our children—than how well we love and support one another within the family. There can be no genuine happiness separate and apart from the home, and every effort made to sanctify and preserve its influence is uplifting to those who toil and sacrifice for its establishment. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9

Perhaps the greatest gift we can give someone is to let him or her know how their actions affected us—how something they did made us happier, stronger, and well. Heavenly Father, please shine your light upon our family. Give us strength to overcome all of the difficulties that we are dealing with and protect us against any and all problems we may encounter in the future. Lord, please bring us together as we are meant to be. May the love that binds us only grown stronger as we fulfill the destiny you have laid out for us. Grant our family forgiveness for any sins we have committed. May we also forgive one another, Lord. Provide for all of our need and protect us from harm and evil. God, thank you for blessing us with our families, and please lead us to the perfect truth. Family will be even more important when we leave this life and enter into the spirit World. Surely the first people we will seek to find there will be father, mother, spouse, children, and siblings. God reveal yourself to us and let us come into agreement with you. Grant us compassionate hearts.  #RandolphHarris 9 of 9

The Winchester Mystery House

On a spirit quest, a paranormal investigator faces some fascinating and terrifying experiences while working in The Winchester Mystery House. She gets entangled in a web of demons and evil entities she never expected. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/