Monday with the Maechners: How come they never teach you this stuff?

Relationships 101.  

Where do they teach this class?

How come we spend 4 or more years in college to prepare for a job, but get almost no prep for the relationship that will hopefully outlast your career.  

So, here come the Maechners, the crazy family with me, my hottie wife, and 5 little ladies.  We want our kids to buck the trend!  So, each Monday evening we teach our own Relationships 101.  

Sometimes it's about friendships or dealing with sisters.  We watched Frozen in segments and talked about the goods and the bads in the relationships there (i.e. it is quite shocking just how bad Anna and Elsa's parents were at parenting, by the way!)

Other times we teach them about differences between guys and girls.  It's working too!  It's not uncommon for them, when they want something from me, to ask, "Mommy, is Daddy focused right now?" :D  This is all because Beth has explained how guys only focus on one thing at a time!  

We love that we can give our kids relationship tools.  Beth and I have sought out tools for ourselves too in lots of different ways, but one huge one is: books.  

We read relationship books all the time.  It's like our perpetual Relationship 101 course for ourselves.  You can never study too much for making your marriage or dating relationship better.

Here are just a few books that we've loved in recent years

The Birth Order Connection
His Needs, Her Needs
The Queens Code
Keys to the Kingdom
The 5 Love Languages
Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands