Thursday, September 22, 2011

Dr. Love

USU to help families with radio program
By Lacey McMurry Uintah Basin Standard
RANAE BANGERTER, VERNAL EXPRESS
Utah State University Uintah Basin professor David Law speaks during his weekly radio program, The Marriage & Family Show, which is broadcast each Thursday at 9 a.m. on AM 920 KVEL.

A new partnership between Utah State University Uintah Basin and a local radio station is making it possible for area residents to benefit from the expertise of a professor with just the flip of the dial.

The Marriage & Family Show, presented by professor David Law from USU Uintah Basin, is now airing each Thursday from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m on AM 920 KVEL.

Station manager Steve Evans said the idea of offering content from continuing education courses via the radio came about after multiple discussions with officials from USU Uintah Basin. In the future, he said, the station might consider forming additional partnerships with other USU professors after gauging public reaction to the new show.

“We wanted to start out with the subject of marriage and family because it’s something everyone can relate to,” Evans said. “Attitudes towards marriage and family relations seem to be changing for the worse. We’re hoping to provide a positive perspective.”

Law, an associate professor in family, consumer, and human development at Utah State, said the radio show will discuss timeless issues that appeal to a variety of listeners.

The show will air 14 times, ending Dec. 8. Law will focus on marriage through the end of October. The final five weeks of the show will discuss the development of healthy parent/child relationships.

Eventually, Law said, listeners should also be able to call in to ask specific questions and address their concerns.

During each weekly lecture on marriage, Law will focus on a principle from the book “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work” by Dr. John Gottman, one of the nation’s foremost researchers on marriage and parenting.

“We won’t be able to scientifically gauge if this show in and of itself is helping couples make changes in their marriage,” Law said. “What we can say is that we’ll be giving our listening audience the same type of material couples get when they go through counseling or take workshops, and research has shown that many of those couples were able to significantly improve their marriages.”

This week, for example, Law’s program will focus on Gottman’s principle of “love maps.” Over the course of a marriage, Law said, many couples have the tendency to drift apart and stop having conversations about the things that are important to them — or even just the things they spent time thinking about during the day.

“The idea is to get couples more familiar with each other, like they were in the early days of their courtship,” Law said. “It’s easy to take each other for granted. You have to look at marriage the same way you would at a plant.

“If you put the plant in the windowsill and only remember to water it occasionally, it will wilt,” he added. “The message is we need to treat marriage as a living organism.”

During the final weeks of the program, the shows that zero in on parent/child relationships will be based on the book “Love Limits and Latitude.”

“We’re hoping we’re just going to be able to give people a little bit of insight,” Law said. “Then, we can direct them to where they need to go for further details.”

2 comments:

Dianne said...

That sounds like a neat program,congrats Dr Law!!!!!

wendi said...

That's awesome. Thanks for sharing.