Creating meaningful rituals with your kids

Asha Dornfest, author of Minimalist Parenting, shares advice for parents on the importance of family rituals and how to can create meaningful rituals with your kids
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Creating meaningful rituals with your kids

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You know, rituals has a really serious and sombre tone to it. Rituals! I think that when I think about rituals in our family, I about those repeatable, regular things we do (whether it's once a week or whether it's based on holidays or whatever), occasions that my children can look forward to and that they can expect. So rituals can be anything from a particular holiday celebration or a particular meal that you eat on a Friday nights, to something as simple as a game night - we do a board game night every Friday, and we have a great time with it. Not always, I mean sometimes it's a real dud, but the fact is it happens every week and so we can look forward to it. And we have that space carved out to spend together. And it's almost like it creates opportunities for special things to happen. I know for my kids predictability gets sort of a bad wrap, but the fact is that predictability is wonderful for kids, because they can anticipate. And I know that, for my children, having those rituals and traditions has really made them care a lot more about holidays and about certain occasions within our family. So I would say that if you are trying to introduce rituals or traditions into your family, start with whatever it is your family enjoys doing, and then sort of carve out a special time to do that regularly. And make it something that the kids can expect and predict when it's going to happen. And you would be surprised at how special it can be.
ALL PARENTS, Family Life, Family Time

Asha Dornfest, author of Minimalist Parenting, shares advice for parents on the importance of family rituals and how to can create meaningful rituals with your kids

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Asha Dornfest

Author of Minimalist Parenting

Asha Dornfest is the co-author of Minimalist Parenting: Enjoy Modern Family Life More By Doing Less, and the founder of Parent Hacks, an award-winning website devoted to sharing “forehead-smackingly smart” parenting advice. Since its launch in 2005, Parent Hacks has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Real Simple, Family Circle, and Parents, and has been named the “#1 Most Useful” of Babble’s Top 50 Mom Blogs three of the four years the honor has been given. Nielsen named Asha one of its 16 influential “Power Pack Moms,” and she has appeared in several TV and video broadcasts including CNN and ABC News Now. Asha lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two children.

 

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