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Are Traditions Really Important for Kids?

cooking together, wearing red Santa hats, preparing tasty festive dinner

Rituals are powerful. Just the thought of bedtime and sitting down alone with a diet coke at night gets me through the day. But all joking aside, rituals and traditions are important for your kids. Child psychologists say that children whose families have rituals have higher academic success, happiness, and emotional well-being for the whole family. Holidays are examples of yearly traditions and rituals. Psychologists say that spending time with extended family members over the holidays gives children a sense of belonging, unity, support, and increases their emotional health. But you don’t have to wait for Christmas break to start to help boost your child’s emotional state. There are daily rituals we all participate in too.

A good example is dinner time. Psychologists have found dinner time plays a major role in children’s language development. When families sit down to dinner daily all of the children are exposed to language and social interaction with their family. The dialogue they are exposed to includes events of the day, sharing stories about the past, and making plans for the future.   Not only are the younger kids provided with a conversation, they are engaged in turn-taking, reading cues, and other language-related practices.

Another good example is reading to your kids. Reading routines support the development of early literacy skills and will help children continue to enjoy reading through their school years. Studies have found that reading can also increase academic skill development from an early age. Reading picture books to toddlers and babies, joint reading with kids who can read, and reading first chapter books are all family rituals that effect children’s academic performance.

I said before that you don’t have to wait for the holidays to start your family traditions. Daily rituals and traditions are important, but the yearly rituals can be too. So over the holidays make an effort to get your kids involved with your extended family. Cousins, Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents, etc.  Research shows that talking about the past with family (which is a huge part of family dinners) makes kids’ memories stronger over time.Every family has their own holiday traditions, but here are a few that you might like to start with your family this year!

Examples:

  • Christmas Ornaments: Buy each person in your family a new Christmas ornament each year that reflects what they did that year. Write their name and the year on the bottom of the ornament. (For example, if you daughter played soccer this year, get her a soccer ball ornament!)
  • Pictures with Santa: Even if you think your kids will be upset by a weird Santa holing them, you have got to do this tradition. You will thank yourself for it later. The pictures get more hilarious each year!!
  • Christmas Eve Box: Fill a box with some new PJs, popcorn, hot chocolate, and a book for each of your kids on Christmas Eve. Let them open it and have a snack and a special story before bedtime!
  • Candy Cane Hunt: This is pretty much the same idea as an Easter egg hunt, but with candy canes! Hang candy canes all around your backyard (or inside if its freezing) and let your kids go on a hunt to see who can find the most! When the candy canes have all been found have the kids hang them on the Christmas tree.

What Traditions do you have with your family?

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