Examples of family traditions

Family Game Night. Analog games, from cribbage to Apples to Apples, are a fun and cheap way to bond and have fun together as a family.   Tamp the competition down and ramp the laughter up. I personally can’t wait to play Boggle with Gus and Scout.

Movie Night. Let the kids take turns picking a movie to watch, and do an occasional dad’s choice night as well to introduce your progeny to classics like Back to the Future and Raiders of the Lost Ark while waxing poetic about how movies were just plain better in the 80s. Have fun with the snacks too – come up with dad’s special popcorn recipe or occasionally take the kids to the drugstore and let them each pick out their own candy.

Saturday Football. There’s something incredibly relaxing and comforting about watching college football with your family on a Saturday afternoon in the fall. Pass down your alma mater pride as you cheer on your team together.

Pizza Night. Everyone loves pizza, and it’s nice to be able to look forward to having it on a certain night each week. Skip the delivery now and again and make your own – allowing the kids to decide how to top their own super simple mini pizzas.

Don’t like pizza? How about Taco Tuesday? We love Taco Tuesday around here.

Family Home Evening. Mormons are encouraged to set aside one night per week (usually Monday night) for Family Home Evening. A typical Family Home Evening includes a fun activity and a short lesson or devotional on some virtue or scripture. FHE is usually capped off with a special treat.

The goal of Family Home Evening is to teach your children the principles and values you want them to carry with them as adults, all within an informal and loving atmosphere. FHE can be adapted by families of any religious stripe or even families who aren’t religious. There’s no formula for Family Home Evening. Just corral the kids for 30 minutes one night a week for fun, discussion, and eats.

Family Vinyl Dance Party. AoM contributor Cameron Schaefer shared a fun family tradition in his post on getting started in vinyl record collecting. On Friday nights the Schaefer family gathers in their family room for a Vinyl Record Dance Party. A family member selects a soundtrack for the night, and they all dance until they collapse on the floor.

Special Saturday/Sunday Morning Breakfast. Lots of families have special Saturday/Sunday morning breakfast traditions. For some it’s pancakes or cinnamon rolls, for others it’s a giant breakfast casserole. Dads and breakfasts just go together, so work on coming up with your own specialty.

Breakfast need not be a solely in-home tradition, however. I take Gus to Braum’s every Saturday morning for breakfast. Pancakes and milk for Gus. Sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit for dad. We’ve been doing this since Gus was about 10 months old, and we’ve rarely missed a Saturday. It’s a hoot to see Gus get all excited about “Breakfast at Braum’s” on Friday night.

Dinner & Grocery Shopping. Every Monday we go as family to a grocery store that also has their own little restaurant. We eat dinner there first and then do our shopping. Doesn’t sound really exciting, but we all look forward to it.

Weekly Family Meeting. Your family is an organization. And like any successful organization, you need to plan, discuss issues, and synchronize schedules. Enter the weekly family meeting. I’ll be dedicating an entire post on how to run a successful family meeting in the future. Stay tuned.

Full Moon Walks. A full moon occurs roughly every 29 days. While you may have gotten used to seeing them, they really are a magical sight – especially for kids who haven’t lost their sense of wonder. Whenever a full moon has risen, take a walk outside at night as a family to have a look at it. Get into the woods sometimes if you can in order to experience the awe of nature at night. This is a great way to get your kids keyed in to the rhythms and cycles of our world.

Box of Goals. An important life skill for your children to develop is how to set and work towards a goal. What better way to teach this than with a family tradition? Get a cigar box or fancy wooden box and on the first day of each month, have your family members write down one goal they want to accomplish that month on a piece of paper and place it in the box. When next month rolls around, take out the pieces of paper and review the goals to see how everyone did. Then write new goals for the next month. Rinse and repeat.

Daddy Date. We have a friend who has three daughters. Ever since they were knee-high to a grasshopper, he took one of them each month on a “Daddy Daughter Date.” Rules were simple. The daughter he spent the evening with got to pick the activity they took part in. He didn’t care what they did. His goal was to give each one of his kids one-on-one time with dad.

The monthly date with dad isn’t just for daughters. You can do something similar with your sons as well.

Family Service Day. If creating a culture of service is part of your family mission statement, put that goal into action with a monthly Family Service Day. Designate one Saturday or Sunday to serving others. It could mean spending a morning at the homeless shelter or cleaning the garden of an elderly neighbor or sorting clothes at Goodwill.

Milestone traditions celebrate events that may occur only a few times, or even just once for your immediate family. But they become traditions as they are passed down from one generation to the next.

New Home Traditions

New Home Dedication. Buying a home is a momentous occasion and thus a great time for instituting a family tradition. Some religious folks hold ceremonies in which they dedicate the home (and all those who dwell in it) to God.

In the Jewish tradition, it’s customary to hold a Chanukat Habayit (home dedication) party. At this gathering, words from the Torah are spoken and family and friends use the occasion to express their blessings and wishes for a fruitful and happy stay in this new home.

New Muslim homeowners will often host a feast in their new house and those that enter are to leave their blessing.

Differing Christian denominations have their own unique new home dedication rituals, but they typically involve a dedicatory prayer and a reading from the Bible. For some ideas on which scriptures to read check out this list. I know many Christian families that will place a plaque near their home’s entryway with the famous verse from Joshua 24:15 (“As for me and my house…”) after a home dedication ceremony.

“It’s a Wonderful Life” Blessing. In the classic holiday movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey and his wife, Mary, give a nice housewarming gift/blessing to a family that just moved into a new house:

Mary: Bread… that this house may never know hunger.

[Mary hands a loaf of bread to Mrs. Martini.]

Mary: Salt… that life may always have flavor.

[Mary hands a box of salt to Mrs. Martini.]

George Bailey: And wine… that joy and prosperity may reign forever. Enter the Martini Castle.

[George hands Mr. Martini a bottle of wine.]

You don’t need to know a thoughtful couple like the Baileys to experience this tradition. Just do it yourself when you move into your home. Make some focaccia maybe, and enjoy it with wine for mom and dad and grape juice for the kiddos.

Mortgage Burning Party. This one is for you Dave Ramsey “gazelles” out there. Once you pay off your home mortgage, throw a party with your family and ceremoniously burn your mortgage agreement. Mortgage burning parties were actually once a common tradition in America, but due to changing mores and the increasing mobility of Americans (thus making it less likely a homeowner will live long enough in a home to pay it off), Mortgage Burning Parties are pretty much unheard of today. I think it’s a tradition well-worth resurrecting.

Family Time Capsule. Bury a family time capsule when you move into what you think will be your “forever home.” Fill the capsule with some of your family’s favorites things, notes, and items that represent the time period. Then open in it up in 20 or 30 years. Make sure you exhume it if you end up moving sooner than you thought you would.

School-Related Traditions

First Day of School Photos. On the first day of every school year, take your kiddos to the front of the house and snap a picture of them for posterity. You’ll enjoy looking back at how they’ve grown through the ages. I remember looking forward to this little ceremony as a kid. It was my chance to show off my cool new backpack and Air Force One high-tops.

First Day of School Chalk Pep Talk. Kids can sometimes be a little nervous on the first day of school. Give them a nice surprise by writing messages of encouragement on the driveway with chalk the night before. It will put a smile on their face when they walk out the door the next day.

Parent/Teacher Conference Note. Whenever Kate’s parents came in for parent/teacher conferences, they would leave a note for her in her desk, telling her how neat her desk was, how nice her artwork on the wall was, and a nice thing the teacher had said about her. Kate says she really looked forward to finding the note and that it was cool to think her parents had been there.

College Acceptance Celebration. One family I know would celebrate their kids’ college acceptance letters by buying everyone in the family a t-shirt or sweater with the school’s logo and then having a barbeque with the university’s fight song playing in the background. The mom would then snap a pic of the whole clan dressed in their school colors, frame it, and pack it in their kiddo’s stuff when he or she shipped off to college. Cheesy? A little bit, but I always thought it was a nice gesture.

Wedding Traditions

Night-Before-Wedding Roast. We have another friend whose family always stayed together at a hotel the night before one of the kids got married. They’d hang out and do a good-natured roast of the bride or groom-to-be. They had a big enough immediate family (5 kids) to make this fun. If your family is smaller, invite close extended family to take part too.

Most families have traditions for celebrating birthdays. Cake, presents, dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. You know, the usual. Below are some birthday traditions you may not have thought about.

First Cake Cut Wish. I picked this one up from Kate’s family. In addition to getting a wish for blowing out the candles, the birthday boy or girl gets another wish for making the first cut into the birthday cake. Two wishes, one cake. Can’t beat that.

New Privilege/New Responsibility Cards. Amidst all the fun and hoopla, remind your kid that with age comes greater power and with greater power comes greater responsibility. In addition to birthday presents, present your child with two envelopes. One envelope is labeled, “New Privilege”; the other, “New Responsibility.” Provide an age appropriate privilege and responsibility each year.

8^th/ 18^th Birthday Time Capsule. On your child’s 8^th birthday have him fill a time capsule with some of the things he likes and a note to himself. Open it a decade later on his 18^th birthday.

Nose Grease. This birthday tradition comes from our friendly neighbors north of the border. In Canada (particularly the Atlantic Coast providences) it’s common for the birthday boy or girl to get ambushed by friends or family members and have their nose greased with butter for good luck. The buttered nose supposedly makes the person too slippery for bad luck to catch them. This tradition is said to come from Scotland. I think I’m going to have to adopt this one as it hails from my ancestral homeland of Nova Scotia.

The Yearly Measurement on the Door Frame. Many families have a doorframe where they keep rough pencil lines marking off the height of their kiddos as they age. Make it a tradition to take the measurement on birthdays.

Hunting Traditions. Our hunter/gatherer ancestors developed meaningful traditions to celebrate the life-giving hunt. While hunting is no longer essential for survival, many families continue to have traditions that surround their yearly hunt. A few include celebrating the first kill by having the new hunter share his harvest with those in the group, the Hunting Beard, and the after-hunt breakfast or dinner. There are many more. I’d love to hear yours in the comments.

Meteor Watching Party. Once a year or so (use this handy calendar) get everybody up in the pre-dawn hours, dress warmly, drive out to a spot where there’s less light pollution, lie down on a blanket, and pour cups of cider or cocoa from a thermos as you watch for meteors and point out different constellations to your kids.

Welcome to Fall Dinner. Usher in the first day of the indisputably best season of the year by having a harvest-y dinner: turkey, stuffing, apple crisp, and the like. It’s something my mom did in my family growing up and I really enjoyed it.

Baseball Opening Day. While football has overtaken baseball as America’s favorite sport, there’s still something about celebrating America’s pastime by attending a game on opening day that resonates with me. It’s a chance to connect with your kiddos over a sport that’s connected generations of American families.

Barbershop Visit with Dad. Every man should frequent the barbershop. So should every little boy. Instill in your strapping little lad the time-honored, manly tradition of visiting the barbershop by making his first visit a big deal. Take pictures of him getting his ears lowered and then take him out for breakfast or lunch afterwards. From then on, get your haircuts together.

Annual Camping Trip. Inspire a love of the great outdoors in your kids by taking them camping at least once a year. If you find a campsite you love, return to it again and again as you build special memories around that place.

Another fun tradition is to pick a day each year that you go backyard “camping” with your kid.

The holidays are the most tradition-rich time of the year. There are a lot of great classic traditions out there from making cookies for Christmas to doing an egg hunt on Easter. Here are some holiday traditions you may not have thought of.

Easter

Easter Basket Scavenger Hunt. Instead of setting out the Easter baskets by their bed or in the living room, have your kids do a fun hunt for them. Leave the first clue by their beds, and have them follow one clue to the next until they find their baskets.

An important note: adding a scavenger hunt to anything turns it into an awesome, memorable tradition. I’m not sure there’s anything more fun as a kid than a scavenger hunt.

Egg Wars. The fun of dyeing Easter eggs doesn’t have to end when you pour out the food coloring. On Easter Day, commence the egg wars. Two people each hold an egg and on the count of three, they hit the end of their eggs together. Whoever’s egg cracks loses; the winner goes on to another battle. You can offer a prize to whoever has the egg that lasts the longest. During the Great Depression, Kate’s grandfather’s family was so poor, that the prize was keeping the other person’s egg.

Halloween

Pumpkinfest. Make the classic tradition of pumpkin carving extra special by finding a nice pumpkin patch that you return to each year, taking a hayride while there, and making a whole pumpkin-themed meal to precede the carving (pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie…).

Tombstone Rubbing and Ghost Stories. Tombstone rubbing used to be a popular pastime with folks. It’s still popular among genealogists searching for info about ancestors. Basically, you just get some butcher paper, place it over the face of the tombstone, and then rub charcoal or crayon on it so that the lettering on the tombstone is transferred to the paper.

To make this activity a bit spookier, visit an old cemetery at night and have a contest to see who can get the oldest tombstone rubbing. (Make sure to bring flashlights!) Afterwards, tell ghost stories while sitting in the cemetery. Spoooky!

Candy Swapping Wizard. This is a good one if you’re not crazy about your kids grazing on their trick-o-treat candy for the next 6 months, but want to do something about it that’s more fun than curmudgeonly. Tell your kids to select X number of pieces of candy they get to keep, and then to place the rest of their booty outside the door to their room. During the night, a wizard comes and swaps their candy for a gift.

Jack O’ Lantern Burial. After serving valiantly on Halloween Night, a carved Jack O’Lantern typically experiences an ignoble end by slowly wilting away on the front porch and eventually being tossed in the trash. One family featured in The Book of New Family Traditions didn’t think their Jack O’ Lanterns deserved such an anticlimactic demise. So they decided to give their carved pumpkins a proper burial the day after Halloween. They have a small patch in their backyard that’s designated as the “Pumpkin Graveyard.” The day after Halloween the family brings their respective Jack O’ Lanterns to the graveyard and offer a short eulogy that goes thusly:

“We are gathered here to pay homage to our dearly departed Jack O’ Lanterns. Throughout their short lives our Halloween Pumpkins have brought both us and our Trick-or-Treaters much joy. We now consign them to the earth where they first came. May they rest in peace.”

All of this is done, of course, with tongue firmly placed in cheek.

Says the mother of this family, “The Great Pumpkin would be proud.”

Thanksgiving

Thankful Box. As they hang out before dinner begins, family members are encouraged to take time to anonymously write down a few things they are grateful for on slips of paper, which are then placed in a decorated shoebox. Later on as the family eats dessert, the box is passed around the table and each person draws a slip and reads it aloud until the box is empty. The fun comes both in hearing family members offer heartfelt (and occasionally humorous) thank yous, and in guessing who wrote what.

Turkey Bowl Football Game. For families that have huge extended family gatherings at Thanksgiving, a morning of touch football is a great way to work up an appetite for turkey and pumpkin pie later that day.

Watching the Lions Lose. No Thanksgiving would be complete without the family gathered around the TV to watch the Detroit Lions lose. It would be like Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie or the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Christmas

Out with the Old, In with the New. To teach your kids to live just a bit more simply, to accumulate less stuff, and not to hold onto what they have too tightly, require that for however many gifts they get for Christmas, they have to get rid of the same number of their old toys/clothes. Throw away or donate what they discard.

Glass Wax Stencils. This is a tradition from Kate’s family that we plan to carry into ours. Glass wax is a liquid window cleaner that comes out pinkish and dries with a white frost. By blotting it with a sponge over stencils, you can, as the makers of glass wax used to tout, “turn you window into a winter wonderland!” Stenciling with glass wax used to be popular decades ago, but has almost entirely disappeared, making both the stencils and the wax hard to find. You can search for it on eBay.

Pickle on the Christmas Tree. Legend has it that during the Civil War, Private John C. Lower was being held at a prison camp and was given a pickle on Christmas Eve by one of the guards. Starving, he believed the pickle helped save his life, and after the war he began a tradition of hiding a pickle on the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve for his family to find the next morning. Other origin stories for this 19^th century American tradition are floated as well. Nowadays, a pickle ornament is hung on the tree on Christmas Eve and whoever finds the pickle first the next morning gets an extra gift or is promised a year of good fortune.

Countdown to Christmas with Books. There are a lot of fun ways to count down to Christmas with your kids, from making a paper chain to opening the doors of an advent calendar. Here’s a new one I picked up from The Book of New Family Traditions: wrap 24 books about Christmas, and open and read one each night during December. On the 24^th, the book that is opened is The Night Before Christmas.

Run a Marathon Before Opening Presents. The parents of a family we know who are very ambitious, gung-ho about life, and love physical challenges would make their kids run a marathon before they got to open presents. Not individually, mind you! The 26 miles was split between the parents and their 4 kids, depending on age and ability. Quite a way to teach delayed gratification.

New Year’s Eve

Rent a Hotel Room. Staying at a hotel is terribly exciting when you’re a kid. Rent a room on New Year’s Eve, bring board games and snacks, let the kids swim, and have a family slumber party to ring in the new year.

Banging on Pots and Pans at Midnight. The tradition of noisemakers at midnight originates from the belief that it would scare away bad luck and evil spirits. Let your kids run down the streets banging on pots and pans when the clock strikes twelve.

Eating Chinese. I’m not sure why we associate New Year’s Eve with Chinese food, since the Chinese New Year is on a different date, but Kate and I have started a tradition of going out for Chinese food on December 31. Just seems lucky somehow.

If you’re feeling more ambitious, try your hand at making our own fortune cookies and creating personalized fortunes for your family.

Putting Regrets to the Fire. Have each family member write down and then share one of their regrets from the past year. Then throw the regrets into the fireplace to symbolize a fresh start.

Read the other posts in the series:

The Importance of Creating a Family Culture
How and Why to Create a Family Mission Statement
The Importance of Establishing Family Traditions
How to Plan and Lead a Weekly Family Meeting
How to Get the Most Out of Family Dinners
How to Become Your Family’s Transitional Character

Despite the size of this list, there are tons of other great traditions out there – we didn’t even mention all the specific religious/ethnic/cultural traditions that exist! Tradition ideas are limited only by your creativity. Please share your family’s traditions in the comments!

Illustrations by Ted Slampyak

Tags: Tradition

Family traditions: from generation to generation

How family rituals can help maintain peace and understanding between households

We rarely think about what makes us from a group of people living together into a real family. Meanwhile, not the last role in this is played by established customs that are passed down through generations. We analyze the importance of family traditions and how they affect family life and people's values.

From dinners together to joking nicknames

In a family, relatives not only live under the same roof, but also love each other, take care of each of their members, and spend time together. If some occupation or action is repeated repeatedly, passes from one generation to another, then it becomes a custom.

Family customs are not necessarily something big. Even modest weekly rituals that are established in a particular family can be considered a tradition. For example, watching cartoons with children on Fridays, cleaning together on Saturdays, or family dinner on Sunday evenings. nine0003

The habit of wishing each other good morning, kissing each other when meeting or parting, family nicknames understandable only to a narrow circle or calls that you have safely reached your destination can also be attributed to family traditions.

What are family traditions like

Family traditions can be conditionally divided into universal, which are inherent in the most different peoples, and rituals specific to different nations. The first group includes traditions associated with events that occur in the lives of people around the world. nine0003

Joint holidays

In most Russian families, on birthdays, New Year and other holidays, relatives and close friends gather at the laid table to congratulate the birthday person or spend the outgoing year. These days it is customary to give gifts and souvenirs, sing songs and dance.

Meeting important events in life

Relatives and friends are also invited to a wedding, housewarming, graduation or the birth of a child to share their joy with them. Such a sad event as passing away also gathers all relatives in order to lead a person on his last journey and support each other. nine0003

Family council

In many families it is customary at least once a week to discuss in a narrow circle what events have happened during this time, share thoughts on this matter, give advice or simply express your support. It also discusses plans for the near future. Such frank communication unites, allows all members of the family to feel their importance and significance.

Traveling together

If opportunities permit, many people spend their holidays with the whole family, going on trips to different places. And someone prefers annual summer trips to the country. Any such trip opens up people from a new perspective and strengthens family relationships. nine0003

Photographs for memory

You want to capture pleasant events so that you can return to a memorable day at any time if you wish. Fashionable now photo shoots can become a good tradition, especially in families with children. After all, each age of the baby has its own charm, and time flies quickly.

Joint cultural trips

Cinema, theater, exhibitions, museums, festivals - all this is interesting and informative. So joint visits to cultural or entertainment events is a tradition that is useful for all family members. nine0003

Bedtime stories

Evening reading not only develops the child's imagination, but also sets him in a calm mood, and the mother's or father's voice calms and lulls.

Joint games

The warmest childhood memories will be those when our children played with us. It doesn’t matter if these are board games or active outdoor games, the main thing is that both older and younger family members take part in the game.

Household duties

It's good when all household members, even the smallest ones, have household chores. Classes can be changed and offer new tasks each time. Invite the child to wipe the dust during cleaning, and the next time to work as a vacuum cleaner. And with such an assignment, how to water the flowers, even kids can handle it with pleasure.

Transfer of skills

Children learn craftsmanship, recipes, needlework from older relatives, and these skills are passed on from generation to generation. nine0003

Continuation of the collection

Older family members often pass on their passion to the younger ones. It can be collecting stamps, badges and other items.

General "meeting place"

Relatives often organize a family chat, which includes many family members from different cities. There they congratulate each other on the holidays and exchange news, provide support when necessary.

Traditions are different, but all are aimed at the main thing - mutual understanding in the family

Traditions provide a sense of stability for spouses and, more importantly, children. From childhood, they form a variety of positive qualities:

1. bring up respect for elders;

1. instill a craving for work and order;

1. rally and unite relatives;

1. make you feel like an integral part of something bigger.

Family traditions include daily habits, religious rites (of which there are many in Russia, depending on the confession), and national features associated, for example, with marriage. Russia is a multinational country, and each nation has its own customs. nine0003

Specific customs include features that are unique to your family. For example, you like to eat oatmeal for breakfast, or each family member has an “internal” nickname known only to the household.

It is important that the newlyweds understand for themselves even before the wedding what common values ​​will become the foundation of the future family, what traditions they will take from their parental families, and which ones they will make their own. But even if this did not happen before, already being married, it is worth discussing. nine0003

If values ​​can be compared to the foundation, then traditions are those strong bonds that bind us to each other on the basis of joint activity, a sense of belonging.

Sources:

Blog "House of genealogy"

Portal "b17.ru"

Photo: Collection/iStock

Losino-Petrovsky

Surely you have your own family traditions that you don't even know about. But if you don't have any or would like to come up with some new ones, you'll love these ideas. nine0003

What is a family ritual?
Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between family ritual and daily routine. As psychologist Barbara Fize says, rituals convey an understanding of “who we are” on a symbolic level, providing a link between generations. And the daily routine is “this is what should be done.”
For example, bathing every day at 7pm and going to bed at 8:30am is part of the daily routine. But if you add something of your own, personal to the routine - some special song, a kiss, a handshake - you turn the routine into a ritual. nine0003

Why rituals are so important
Family rituals allow you to slow down and reconnect between family members. A 50-year study of family rituals published in the Journal of the American Psychological Association (APA) found that they provide a sense of stability and are associated with adolescent self-identity, children's health, academic achievement, and family life satisfaction.
Maintaining family rituals even during transitional periods, such as divorce, reduces conflict and helps children adapt to change. nine0003

So, 37 ideas for family rituals:

Rituals that teach responsibility
The phrase "housework" usually has a negative connotation, but it can be made into a positive family ritual that teaches responsibility. In many cases, children don’t mind helping — at such times they feel special and capable.
1. Orders. For example, each family member is assigned a different task when the table is set: someone clears the table, someone lays out napkins, someone puts cutlery, and someone lights candles. This can be done for your personal (or family) music selection. nine0111 2. Repetitive housework. For example, a table with tasks on the board in the kitchen, which changes every Sunday. Or you can write the tasks for each family member for the week on ice cream sticks and place them next to the name of each family member.
3. Dedicated time for housework. Designate a specific time each week (usually Saturday or Sunday) when the whole family gets together and cleans up. You can turn on loud music, chat, laugh, dance, but the housework must be done. nine0111 4. Collaborative projects.Working on something together is always fun, whether you're peeling potatoes, painting a wall, or putting together a new baby crib.
These rituals show children that even hard work can be fun. And they learn responsibility from an early age.

Rituals to Develop Kindness and Empathy
5. Love and Kindness Meditation—when we need to think of those we love and send them positive thoughts or good wishes. Four traditional phrases: may you be safe, may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you have an easy life. But the wording itself is not important, what is important is the feeling of kindness and warmth. nine0111 Research has shown that meditation on love and kindness increases awareness, helps you find purpose in life, and encourages positive social behaviors such as generosity.
6. Family volunteering. Find a place where you can volunteer with the whole family, such as an animal shelter or a nursing home. Or you can help disadvantaged children by donating food, clothing, school supplies, or toys.
When you volunteer with the whole family, you set an example of empathy and kindness for children. nine0003

Rituals that encourage a positive attitude towards life
These rituals help the family relieve stress, learn to reflect and stimulate a positive attitude towards life.
7. Time for family hugs. Kelly Holmes, author of Happy, Happy Family, has come up with a ritual that helps her family slow down after work and school and spend quality time together. Every time the family gathers at home, they climb onto the sofa all together and hug for 5 minutes. They call it "family hug time." nine0111 As a result, their evenings are happier and calmer. They laugh more, help each other more and argue less.
8. How was the day. Another good ritual is to ask family members how their day went. Although it can be built into any other ritual, such as dinner or falling asleep.
Talking to children about how the day went is sometimes difficult. They may hesitate to tell or not, or evade answering. There are a few tips for getting your child to talk:

• Don't use the words yes and no. Instead, ask questions that begin with "why" or "how." nine0003

• Ask funny questions. This is not a test or an exam, and your child should not feel like they have their back against the wall.

• Listen to your children instead of leading them or giving them a specific answer. If the child says "I don't know", explain that there is no right or wrong answer to your question.
This ritual can be made more specific, when, for example, at Sunday lunch, everyone talks about what happened this week and for which someone or something can be thanked. Or the family shares their successes and failures that happened during the day. nine0111 9. "Above, below and Buffalo." This idea was proposed by the director of the summer camp and the mother of five children, Audrey Monke. Each family member talks about the best moment of the day, the worst and buffalo (anything you would like to talk about).
Open communication, laughter, understanding set you in a positive mood and bring your family closer.

Rituals That Provide Strong Bonding Between Family Members
One of the best ways to ensure strong bonding between family members is to have dinner or go to bed together. Children, thanks to co-laying, feel connected with their parents and relax. nine0111 10. Massage. If your child loves to be touched, give him a soothing massage before bed.
11. Songs. Choose (or let the child choose) a favorite song as a lullaby.
12. Stories. Choose your favorites to tell every night, or let your child choose a story for each night. To encourage creative thinking, choose any three things or three characters and have your child tell a story about them.
13. "Good night, nose." Bedtime rituals can seem ridiculous, such as saying “goodnight, nose” every night by gently pressing the tip of the child’s nose, or “goodnight, fingers” by tickling the child’s feet. But it's important for kids. nine0111 14. List of love. When you tell your child, “Mom loves you. Papa loves you. Grandma loves you,” naming all the people who love and accept your child.
Dining rituals are very important. Shared family meals have been linked to academic achievement, good mood, and less common depression and anxiety. They also reduce the likelihood of adolescent risk behaviors associated with alcohol, drugs, violence, and sexual activity.
15. Shared time. Take turns at lunch or dinner to talk about what happened during the day. nine0111 16. Joint tasks. Let each family member contribute to the preparation of lunch or dinner.
17. Keeping a queue. Take turns choosing your favorite dishes based on a regular schedule or focusing on special occasions.
18. Theme dinners. Host themed dinners once a week, such as pancakes on Tuesdays, pizza on Saturdays, and ice cream on Sundays. It is also interesting to make a special topping menu so that all family members can choose what to add to their pizza - extra cheese, sausages, herbs or something else. nine0111 19. Try new cuisine. Have a cultural lunch every month, or just try a new cheese or something new. You can also cook a new dish or bake a cake in honor of some achievement of one of the family members.
It doesn't matter how complex or simple your ritual is. The main thing is that thanks to this, family dinners will become a memorable event and will bring joy to the family.

Rituals that develop a sense of belonging
It's one of those things that gives children a sense of security, belonging and acceptance.
The ritual can be just an unusual greeting or farewell.
20. A special greeting or farewell. For example, say goodbye “See you later, alligator!”, And the child replies “After a while, crocodile!” (hello, crocodile / bye, hamadryan, see you by the river). Or you can say goodbye to a child with the help of a “kiss in the palm of your hand”, as in the fairy tale about Chester the raccoon and his mother, who left a kiss in her paw in parting so that Chester would not be bored without her. nine0111 21. Special handshake. Come up with your personal handshake with each of the children. Even such a short ritual demonstrates to the child that he is special and an important part of the family.

Holiday rituals and special events in the family tell the child that he is part of the family and important to her.
If you're celebrating Christmas or New Year's, try the following:
22. Tree trip. Arrange a whole ritual, a pleasant event from the choice of a Christmas tree.
23. Christmas garlands. Walk around, choose the most beautifully decorated house, or vote for the best garland. nine0111 24. Christmas tree decoration. Listen to New Year's songs or Christmas carols while you decorate the tree, then light the candles and eat something delicious.
25. Traditional Christmas toy. Every year, make some kind of Christmas decoration yourself or buy a Christmas tree toy that symbolizes an important event in the outgoing year.
26. Treats for Santa Claus. For Santa Claus, you can leave a cookie or other edible surprise.
The New Year is a time to reflect on how the old year went, and these rituals will help you look back:
27. Family videos. Watch family videos or photos to remember the past year, laugh and talk about the best moments of it.
28. Thanks. Get a "jar of gratitude" - at any time when you are grateful to someone, write down the words of gratitude on a piece of paper and put it in the jar. At the end of the year, it will be possible to get them and read them aloud - this will be a great transition from the old year to the new one.
29. Songs for birthdays. The birthday ritual can be as simple as singing a special personal song to the birthday person. nine0111 30. Personal cake. For the birthday of each of the family members, you can prepare a special cake (of course, the one that the birthday person loves the most).
31. Breakfast, when you can do anything. For example, on a birthday, you can arrange a breakfast of naughty, when you can eat anything, even cakes and ice cream!
32. Come up with your own family holiday. In my family, growing up, we started celebrating Mom's Day, Dad's Day, and Children's Day - my dad's invention. He signed us postcards and gave us something unusual. Usually on this day we went for milkshakes and ice cream, and then ate them in our backyard fort. nine0003

Unusual family holidays also help to develop in children a sense of belonging to the family.
33. Theme nights once a week or once a month. You might want to host a board game night or movie night once a week or once a month. Buy interesting games or make a selection of good family movies and have fun.

Think of a special ritual for such evenings. For example, each time a movie or a game is chosen by one of the family members. Maybe movie night will always be popcorn and game night pizza. Maybe all family members will put on pajamas and drink hot chocolate. nine0111 34. Fritters on a Sunday morning. If pancakes every Sunday seem too frequent for you, arrange such a breakfast every first Sunday of the month.
35. Forays into nature. Make a plan for outings in nature so that your walks are more fun.
36. Favorite restaurants. Great idea - for example, eat pizza in the same local restaurant after football.
37. Tent in the living room. Set up a hike in the living room. Put up a tent, cook a chocolate cake in the microwave, tell stories, show shadow theater - that's enough imagination.

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