Introduction:
Constancy, predictability, connections, dependability, guarantees and uniqueness are all terms used by researchers to define successful families. They know that from birth, humans crave the security that comes from being able to depend on others and to depend on rituals. The observance of traditions, whether big or small, is how we meet our needs as families. Without these traditions, we can actually create anxiety, loneliness, confusion and resentment in our children, and in ourselves. This article will give you some ideas about how traditions can be defined, what the essential ingredients of strong traditions are, and how you can enhance the traditions you already celebrate in your family.
Question: What exactly is a family tradition?
Answer: We define traditions as any activity designed by the family that includes the following:
1) persists over time
2) is different from regular routine
3) includes at least two family members
4) brings family members closer to each other
Question: Are there different categories of traditions?
Answer: Traditions can range from tiny activities in terms of time and planning to elaborate, multiple day events. Traditions can also be rooted in wonderful cultural and multi-generational history or can emerge from some funny little quirk of recent circumstance. We try to break them down into three general categories:
1) Traditional Traditions,
2) Rites of Passage, and
3) Tiny, “Neato” Traditions (TNTs)
Traditional Traditions include national holidays, state founders days, religious holidays and other events that groups other than your family have put in motion or that pretty much everyone does such as vacations.
Rites of Passages are more unique to each family, but most all families celebrate them. School graduations, weddings, retirement, birthdays, bar and baht mitzvahs, and even funerals.
TNTs, in our opinion, may be the most powerful of all traditions, in terms of their power. These small traditions can include reading from the same children’s book every night or special desserts and movies on Sundays. It can be mornings of newspapers and bagels or certain types of special love phrases that only your family knows.
Question: Why is it so important to keep traditions as similar as possible one year to the next?
Answer: Children depend on sameness from you to keep order and feel secure. The rest of their world constantly changes as they grow. They need something that is still there (like you), despite outside or personal disappointment. Even teenagers, who say they think the same tradition is now silly, look to these events for stability. Be cautious about changing even small details of ongoing traditions unless there is true feedback from the family – especially the little members of the family.
Question: How can we know we have good traditions?
Answer: Ask your family. You may be surprised by what your kids look forward to, what they dislike, and what they wish your family would do for future traditions. Questions you may want to ask yourself include: looking at how consistent you are, how difficult the tradition is to keep going, how you feel after and before the tradition occurs, and what results you see from the tradition. Along with your kids, you may have seen traditions other families have. Go ahead and borrowt them and adapt them to your family. Then, ask your family again.
Question: Why do “TNTs” seem so important?
Answer: The tiny, neato traditions happen so regularly that they allow for an accumulation of feelings of security, constancy, predictability, connections and uniqueness we all crave. Family work is incremental and needs constant nourishment not provided by once a year activities.
Question: Are there certain families who are in even greater need for traditions than others?
Answer: Blended families, families where there has been a recent loss, families with adopted children and families where parents are separated or divorced are in dire need of the kind of stability traditions can bring. In blended families, traditions from both families need to be honored.
Question: Is it OK to dump a tradition?
Answer: You bet, especially if the tradition distances family members. A tradition such as the teasing of little ones during their birthdays by regularly bringing up embarrassing memories is something worth getting rid of.
We wish you luck with your own traditions. You will know you are on the right track if at least two thirds of the traditional traditions are planned and carried out each year, that you hit all the rites of passages that occur each year and there are some TNT traditions happening every week.
For more information, please see the FamilyIQ courses, Holding a Family Council, Creating a Family Brand, Healthy Family Government and Family Systems.
Kimball DeLaMare, LCSW, is a licensed clinical social worker with over twenty-five years working with troubled adolescents, young adults, and their families. He is the cofounder of a nationally recognized treatment center and the founding Board President of the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs (NATSAP). Kimball is a past member of the Joint Commission Youth Advisory Council which helps direct national standards for treatment providers. He is now closely involved with Family IQ which provides online family and parenting courses as well as consultation to programs nationwide.
