The Value of Building Rituals

On one occassion last year my then five-year-old daughter was upset with me because I had forgotten to say a blessing before dinner. She exclaimed, “Dad, Jesus wants us to thank Him for the food!” I was stunned at the passion in her voice.

But if we consider the world from the standpoint of a five-year-old girl, it makes perfect sense. Meg rises in the morning and isn’t always sure if she’s going to school or not. She’s not quite sure of which clothes she should wear, and she’s not always sure who she’ll be spending time with each day.

In other words, she lives with a lot of uncertainty and to a certain degree percieved insecurity in her life. Having family rituals creates an opportunity for your kids to feel secure and to feel equal in the family. It’s a time in which nobody will tell them what to do and everyone knows their responsibility. It represents reliability and certainty for kids who live in a world of uncertainty, doubt and mixed messages.

It’s not unsual for families to drift toward falling apart,” says William Doherty, head of the Marriage and Family Therapy program at the University of Minnesota. “Rituals combat that entropy and help hold families together. Whenever you do a ritual, you are saying `No’ to other activities or people, and becoming an on-purpose family. Most of us just drift into habits, doing what is most convenient. But ritualizing means to take a hold of activities and ask: does this meet the needs of our family? If it’s something like sitting, absent mindedly and detached, in front of a TV night after night for dinner, then the answer should be `No.’”

Whether your kids are toddlers or teens, make sure you’re holding and creating rituals which have meaning for your family. Family dinners, weekend trips, or geocaching in the local park on Sunday afternoon can all have an important impact on your family. Your kids will remember these ritual and regular activities for the rest of their lives and will likely pass them on directly to their own children.

Remember that rituals can mean a lot more to your kids than they do to you! One of your jobs as a parent is to create rituals that hold meaning for your family.

Here are some suggestions:

Set aside time each week to do a family chore together and then order take-out.

Plan a “recreation time” for your family at the same time every week, and rotate who chooses the activity

Create your own special activities on established holidayson Thanksgiving Day, bring food or clothing packages to families who may need them.

Have a regularly scheduled family meeting in which you talk about problems, negotiate solutions, plan fun activities, and acknowledge each other. Make it sacred. Turn off the phone and make it happen.

Make sure that you include your kids in planning the rituals. The more invested they are in creating it, the more meaningful it will be.

There’s a tendency for parents today to throw up their hands when “together time” with the family is mentioned. With dance lessons, baseball practice, piano lessons, and homework getting in the way, there may seem to be little time left for the family. Those in the middle of a chaotic family schedule seem to have lost the choice along the way.

And while it’s inevitable that family life will be busy these days, parents can never afford to overlook the choices available to them. Ultimately the very “essence” of your family is portrayed in meaningful rituals that parents choose to undertake.

It may be hard to decide against the extras like guitar lessons, or karate, or football. But by doing so, you’ll teach them a lesson that’s far more important than the ones they’ll learn from these other activities.

You’ll teach them that their family always comes first. And as their parent, it’s your responsibility to make it happen.