Title: Positive Parenting - Traditions and Holidays
Category: Positive Parenting
Regarding non-holiday traditions, the first one that
comes to mind is our family bedtime ritual.
My wife established early on a ritual of family prayer with each child
giving thanks for their blessings of the day and each family member contributing
to the overall family prayers.
Studies show that the last 15 minutes of the day is repeated in our
dreams about 10 times. This compares to three repetitions for all other activities
of the day. For this reason, it is
especially worthwhile to spend the last part of each day tucking each child in
and having a nice calming bedtime routine or family ritual.
This helps to engender better dreams and positive happy thoughts through
the night. In our family each child
had a special nick-name and a special bedtime song which my wife and I sang to
them each night while tucking them in until they were about eight years old.
It's amazing how fondly they remember both the songs and the nick-names.
Another family tradition which my kids tell me means the world to them is
summer vacations shared together. We
have gone to a special camp in Bull Shoals, Arkansas for the past 11 summers.
Whether it's four days or two weeks, the excitement of planning that
trip, seeing familiar friends and doing all of our favorite things summer after
summer continues to motivate our children.
I believe they will quite likely follow the same tradition with their
children when the time comes and share many of the same fun activities and happy
memories over and over again. The
family who has the house next door to ours is on their fourth generation of this
same type tradition.
Traditions and rituals can be whatever you want them to be.
I know a family who has a week-end ritual of always going to the movies
as a family after Sunday mass. They
go to mass together and then they go to lunch at a local restaurant, and then to
the movies. I think this is a great
tradition and I know that the children in this family miss it whenever there is
a conflict.
Whether you are a camping family, a soft ball playing family, a water
sports family, or a bird watching family, the important thing is that you share
the activities, rituals and traditions together, as parents and children.
These activities, which start out simple, can over a lifetime become some
of the most meaningful shared memories in your children's lives.
There is something special about sharing that off time together when
there is no pressure from work or school that draws families especially close
together.
Holidays are certainly a natural time to establish family traditions.
In our family, two of our children's favorite holidays are St. Patrick's
day and Mardi Gras. This is largely
due to their Irish Catholic mother from New Orleans who loves these holidays
with a passion. On St. Patrick's
day the kids awaken to green cellophane hidden outside where the leprechauns
have left it followed by green eggs and ham for breakfast, bright green stickers
for school and work, and a neighborhood party with Irish soda bread, lentil
soup, and corned beef and cabbage for supper.
They just would not know what to do if this didn't occur every St. Pat's
Day. For Mardi Gras, costuming and
planning get togethers with family and friends and parades is so important that
they begin planning their costumes months in advance.
Regular family rituals and traditions build happy memory tapes for all
our children. This is one more way
to keep families close through the generations and keep the kids coming home for
holidays and special occasions. Certainly
this is a worthwhile goal in our fast paced society where nuclear and extended
families scatter across the country and the world.