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Home › Articles › Parenting Strategies › Family Rituals and Traditions

Family Rituals and Traditions

Now More Important Than Ever

By Janet Dengel

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Rituals involving the extended family broaden a preschooler's horizon and introduce him to grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins who can all help him feel special. Hearing family stories (including ones about the silly things his parents did as children) will make a youngster feel a sense of belonging.

Rituals Provide a Hidden Source of Family Strength
Research done at George Washington University's Family Research Center indicated that children fare better in households where ritual is established and preserved, even if disruptive problems – such as divorce or alcoholism – are present. A nightly dinner ritual of setting the table together, sitting down as a family, discussing the day's events or saying grace before the meal can slow down the hectic pace of today's families and provide a sense of meaning and order to the day. When family members are upset with each other, daily rituals can pull them back together and provide the setting for working out problems.

Rituals are also a positive way to help families affirm their beliefs and values. Attending a house of worship, donating groceries to a food bank or recycling together to help the environment can show a preschooler the importance of a family's community involvement.

Rituals Help Young Children and Their Families Deal With Stress
"Rituals provide children with something beyond the current stress they are under," says Cohen. "Rituals are events that happened in the past and will continue in the future no matter what is happening in the present."

Rituals provide a sense of continuity and security that often can help children and their parents work out fears or deal with stress. A nightly ritual of a warm bath, a bedtime story and a prayer can ease children into a restful state. One parent may chase monsters from under the bed or set up a stuffed animal patrol each night to guard the sleeping preschooler until dawn.

A daily ritual can often ease the transition to preschool or a stay with a babysitter. One mother and her 3-year-old devised a secret handshake that included tickling and always guaranteed that their partings were full of laughter, not tears.


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