Parent’s University: Having Fun with Traditions!!

Posted on 03.12.08 in Parenthood Parents University and there are 8 comments.

(This is my entry for this week’s Parent’s University series. Click here to read the other entries.)

One of the ways that I really like to have fun with my kids is to have family traditions.

My oldest two are only 3 and 5 and just about everything they encounter each day is new and different.  I think they enjoy these little traditions we have because it allows them to feel like they are in control. They know exactly what is going to happen and how it’s going to play out.

Our Traditions

Gogurt and the Bible
Our most enduring tradition is that the first thing my girls do in the morning is put gloves on, got to the freezer and eat a gogurt (a frozen yogurt).

Before my other two children were born, my oldest daughter and I would get our gogurts and then go sit on the bean bag in my closet and read a Bible story.

That got a bit cramped as my younger daughter joined in, so the couch is where we read our stories now.

Mommy Monday
Before my oldest started school we had a weekly “Mommy Monday.” The girls would get their dolls and their doll strollers and we’d all go to Panera bread and order bagels for breakfast. Afterwards, we would take a nice walk down to the bookstore and read and play with the train set.

We don’t go to Panera weekly anymore, but I do try to take them every now and then. Even though the trip isn’t a scheduled tradition, what we do when we go is still fun and predictable for them.

A Haircut and A Sandwich
Whenever the girls and I go to get our haircut two things always happen:

1. If they sit still for Ms. Joni, they get a sucker. This is VERY exciting for them.

2. After we get our haircut, we walk over to the sandwich shop and enjoy lunch together.

Crepes on Sunday
Every Sunday morning, Jimmy makes crepes for us. The girls sit on the stools at the counter, help him stir the batter and wait for their warm and delicious breakfast.

(Does anyone see a food theme here? Hmmmm.....perhaps I need to work on that.)

How To Make Your Own Traditions

Here are a few tips for developing your own traditions:

1. Pick an activity and do it on a certain day of the week, month or year.
This is the most obvious sort of tradition, but it’s also the hardest to maintain. Make sure that whatever you do, you really want to do and can feasibly become a tradition.
2. Join two or more activities together, so that when one is done the rest always follow.
These can be irregular traditions but are memorable because even though the timeframe changes, the sequence of events is always predictable.
3. Be consistent.
It’s not a tradition if it’s not done consistently. Usually, you’re kids will help you with this one because they look forward to them so much.
4. Don’t Give Up.
If you fall out of a routine, don’t be afraid to start it back up. We’re not as consistent as we’d like to be about our morning Bible Study and we have lapses in all of our little traditions, but we just try to start fresh every day and pick up where we left off.

Your Turn

So what kind of family traditions do you have or want to have?

The Comments:

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Those are really great traditions, Kat. I like that you get gloves on to get the gogurts, so fun! 

We’ve started a tradition of getting pizza before baseball practice. 

We have book time at night as an entire family, and we talk about what we like about each other, and the things we did that day, and the things we want to pray for. 

(Your blog has not been showing up on the google reader for some reason?)

Kristin,
Good to see we’re not the only ones with a tradition revolving around food.

Thanks so much for letting me know about the feed. Someone else told me that it yesterday. I’ve been looking into it…

Yes, food, here, too!

I love the morning Bible Study tradition. My kids sometimes see me reading but I need to be more consistent in reading with them. I fall off the wagon oh so easily!

Liking this topic so much. We are just starting our traditions as a family.

We have a few:

“Good stuff’s in the middle”. We started this to help our nieces walk between us when we went some where with them. Now it’s stuck as a family tradition. When we go some where with any child, they want to be the “good stuff” and stand in between us. (we likened it to Oreo cookies, the good stuff is in the middle.)

“Blank family sandwich”. We started this with DS #1 when he was little. One of us yells “blank (our last name instead of blank) family sandwich”. We all dash to get together and hold both DS’ between us and hug tight. DS #1 loves it. He wants it over and over. DS #2, well he’s 6 weeks old. Give him time. HEhehe.

Hey Kat - what about National Pizza Day?? Remember that one?? Love all of you!

(Does anyone see a food theme here? Hmmmm.....perhaps I need to work on that.)

Kat - Actually, I’m going to disagree with this parenthetical comment.

Think of all these things and more: The Lord’s Supper, the Bread of Life, Living Water, Jesus eating and drinking with sinners, Marriage Supper of the Lamb, etc. It seems to me that breaking bread together, dining together, gathering in one place for sustenance, is a truly God-ordained form of community.

I do understand having concerns about this if you were encouraging gluttony or unhealthy eating habits, but it doesn’t sound like you are. I think perhaps one reason that so many traditions center on meals is because they occur at regular intervals during the day, and people who are engaged in various and sundry activities can stop those activities and engage in the same activity as one another, at the same time. They provide commonly shared “pauses” from the busyness of life’s other activities.

So enjoy these great times with your family, with grateful hearts toward the Lord, who pours out His grace in such abundant measure!

Jamee,
Oh, we’re not as consistent as we’d like to be either...it’s a work in progress.

Kari,
Oh, that’s fun!

“Grandma,”
Yes! National Pizza Day. Hmmm...I think we need to have one of those again. Yum.

C-Hammer,
Aw, thanks. That’s a really good point. Thanks for always sharing such great wisdom.

Great traditions!  I’ve been offline a bit, but I’d still like to post our fun traditions too.  Hopefully this week I’ll get it up and add it to the links thing.

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