When the Glue That Held the Family Together

So much virtually the holidays involves the rituals our families have in identify to celebrate these annual events.  Who is included, what food is served, where the meals have place, when meals are eaten, and how you find time for your nuclear family to be together are just a few of the traditions families cherish.

These customs typically have the strongest emotional zipper when people reminisce virtually their childhoods.

The Details of Rituals

By building family ties, rituals counteract the forces in our contemporary civilisation that pull families apart, such as divorce, frequent geographic dislocations, distance from extended families, long work hours, and overloaded schedules.

What Makes a Ritual a Ritual?

To exist considered a ritual, the activity must be:

• repeated,
• coordinated,
• have special meaning to the family.
• exist predictable, which offers the family unit a sense of regularity and order.

Encouraging connection among members, rituals strengthen family identity so it is clear what is unique nigh the family. They give the family a style to implement its values (such every bit customs service, family unit closeness, business about elderly relatives, religious identity, etc.)

For case, you tin hear children proudly telling friends, "In our family, nosotros have big Christmas dinners every year and all my cousins come from all over the country."

This increases self-esteem in children as they see the positive and special ways that their family unit celebrates and connects.

Rituals can Occur throughout the Twelvemonth

To increase the meaning and importance of life and to create a sense of family identity, parents can consciously create these established formal practices throughout the yr.

They can exist established effectually special occasions acknowledged in unique ways including:

• birthdays.
• Mother's Twenty-four hours.
• Father'due south Day.
• graduations.

and as life cycle celebrations such as:

• weddings.
• communions.
• Bar/Bat Mitvahs.

These tin accept place non just around the holidays, but through small-scale everyday customs such as:

• a weekly family repast when everyone eats together.
• breakfast out every Sunday morning.

Rituals can even be congenital around an almanac family vacation or a monthly trip to the local nursing home to requite a helping hand.

They can involve the whole family, or sub-groups such as Mom and the girls; Dad and the boys; or other combinations.

How Rituals Course

Often times, rituals are passed down from our parents and we repeat what nosotros experienced during our childhoods.  In this style, parents pass on a family unit legacy to their children, thereby connecting their family'due south by to its time to come.

When people marry, they need to blend the rituals from each of their childhoods so that over time they create their ain way of doing things that reverberate the family unit they are raising.

There are no correct or wrong rituals; each family uses their own history, values, religion, beliefs and culture to create the traditions that are meaningful to them.

Creating Rituals

Sometimes families either don't have any rituals or want to consciously create new ones based on their family unit'due south values and interests.

For example, maybe you feel that customs service is an important value you desire to pass on to your children.  You lot can starting time going to a soup kitchen with your children in one case a calendar month, and involve your children in deciding what food you volition donate.

In that location are times when an activity becomes a ritual "by accident."

For example, one year, you take your children to a cabin in the mountains.  It is and so much fun that you exercise information technology the adjacent twelvemonth and the yr after that.  Suddenly, you lot realize that everyone looks frontward to the outing. The children are expecting that "of course we are going to the mountains this yr." It provides a special fourth dimension when your family is together without the interruptions of everyday life.

You have created a new ritual!

Irresolute Rituals

Rituals tin exist fluid events that evolve over time. Sometimes, the specifics stop working for us and lose their significant for i reason or another – family dynamics change, children abound up, family unit members move, new family members are brought in.

When the Ritual Doesn't Work

People can feel pressure to continue family rituals even when they are causing more stress than comfort or enjoyment.   There is no need to exist wedded to a ritual just because "that's the style it has ever been done."

For instance, this tin can happen if the hosting of a holiday commemoration becomes too exhausting for a family member or when children get more independent of family as they enter the teen years.

A little scrap of flexibility, creativity and accommodating family members' needs can get a long way to maintaining family traditions that piece of work for every ane and maintain the family bonds.

Since change can be difficult, it is best to make changes slowly and to involve all family members in the development of a new or modified tradition to ensure "buy-in" from them.

When You Want to Add to the Ritual

People also add to a ritual that already exists to make it more enriching.  When I was growing up, my family unit had a minor Thanksgiving dinner.   With my own family, over the years we have gradually added elements that have increased its meaning:

• many more family members from far and wide.
• a family cookbook.
• an annual video and notebook where people tin can record their reflections.
• a formal time when people can update the group most their lives.
• a 'talent' show put on by the children.

Summary

By purposely disposed to your family unit's rituals, you can strengthen ties that volition:

• increase a sense of cohesion,
• buffer your children from the forces in our civilisation that pull them abroad,
• and create great memories that your children tin deport into the adjacent generation.

With life beingness so hectic these days for most families, I can hear parents groaning about yet another matter they 'should' be doing – creating rituals.  Just the good news is that some of the things you already are doing need but be tweaked a little bit for them to take on the feeling and give your family unit the benefits of a ritual.

Y'all are most probable feeding your family unit anyway; why not take one repast a week (or ii) when you all sit down down together, add some candles and nice dishes, have conversations that encourage people to share their thoughts, and voila! –  Y'all have the makings of a cute dinnertime ritual!

By Audrey Krisbergh, Certified Parenting Educator

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Source: https://centerforparentingeducation.org/library-of-articles/places-to-go/rituals-glue-holds-families-together/

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