The Book of New Family Traditions (11 page)

Birthdays

The Pompi family celebrates the birthdays of all seven of their cats, and their dog. The cats get a can of tuna decorated with a candle stuck in it, and the dog gets a meaty bone from the butcher, also with a candle. The dog gets the biggest party, because he’s the oldest. Naturally, the Pompis sing “Happy Birthday” before helping their pets blow out candles.

Dog-Friendly Errands

Gretchen Zimmer, who owns the Rocky Top Dog Park in New Jersey, engages in many regular rituals with her dogs. She goes so far as to frequent establishments that provide dog treats. “They love to ride in the car with me,” says Gretchen, so she always fills her gas tank at a station that provides free dog treats. She even goes to a drive-through bank where the teller puts money in the plastic tube—and sticks in a biscuit for each of Gretchen’s dogs. And get this, in warm weather, Gretchen takes her pets to an icecream kiosk called Lickit that always reserves cracked cones for dogs. If you have dogs, make your errands more fun by finding local businesses that welcome them, too: For little kids, errands can sometimes be fun, but often they make them restless. This adds an element of playfulness.

Pet Funerals

The death of a pet is a big hurt for a young child. Ritualizing that death helps children work through a painful loss and teaches them to value all living things.

Goldfish Burial

In the book
How to Bury a Goldfish: And 113 Other Family Rituals for Everyday Life,
Virginia Lang recalls the time she almost flushed her two-year-old daughter’s dead fish down the toilet. Instead, she and her daughter dug a little hole together in the backyard, put the fish in the hole, and planted a flower on the spot. Her daughter invented a song about her pet. Ms. Lang recommends marking the calendar on the day a pet dies, as well as marking the ground where the pet is buried, either with a painted rock or by planting something.

Rats and Gerbils, Too

My friend Sandy Graham has found that her kids grieve greatly even when a pet rat dies. Her son and daughter make a gravestone with a piece of flagstone or brick and a permanent marker. The pet is put in a metal cookie tin, resting on a scrap of fabric that is soft and pretty (often satin or velvet). All the pets are buried by a special tree, a big cottonwood, and during the burial ceremony, all four family members reminisce about the pet’s exploits and character. Sandy says a prayer asking God to welcome the critter into pet heaven with all the family’s previous pets.

Memorial Garden

If yours is a critter-loving family, chances are, pet funerals will become a more regular ritual than you bargained for, and you may want to create a special garden for this purpose. You might consider planting specific plants for different animals, such as catnip for your favorite cats, or bright yellow sunflowers for a pet with a sunny disposition. You can paint a special marker for each animal, or place special garden decorations here, such as wind chimes or a birdbath. When my son’s beloved pet gecko, Dart, died, I found a brightly painted twirling garden marker for sale online that included a lizard. When Max’s pet frogs departed, they were buried under a big rock, upon which sits a small metal frog wearing a crown.

Celebration of a Pet’s Life

My friend Anita had a cat named Madness (she was allergic, but this stray cat captured the attention of her daughter, my stepdaughter, Kate), who lived a long life and was a beloved family member. When the cat became frail and was approaching an age that translated into 100 human years, Anita threw a “Century of Madness” party. All the guests got an apron and a baseball cap decorated with the party’s theme and a drawing of a cat. There was an enormous cake, great food, and Madness himself was carried around the room atop an ornate pillow, so he could be petted and admired. Later, this cat’s death left a hole for sure, but the tribute (and all the leftover commemorative gear and photos) keeps his memory alive to this day.

Chore Rituals

Mary Poppins was right about that spoonful of sugar; we all have duties and chores, but rituals can liven them up. That applies to chores we assign our kids, and chores we must do ourselves, when they’d rather we play. If all else fails, invent specific silly songs for different chores; this works well with toddlers. Whistle while you work!

Laundry

One of our babysitters started this ritual of letting my son “ride” the bulging laundry bag as it was pulled across the floor to the laundry room, and for years I performed this weekly. “Oh my goodness, my laundry is heavy!” I would moan as I tugged him along. Then, I’d pretend I was going to throw my son in the washer and set him down on top of it. One mother I know does laundry with her daughters on Friday night, creating “intermissions” in their video watching to go change loads. The girls bring their own dirty clothes to the washer in a baby carriage.

Ckarts and Stickers

My mother had four kids and went back to work when I was in grade school. We all had to do our own ironing, strip and make our beds each week, and so forth. But it helped that she was an artist and provided very explicit directions in colorful ways: I remember a painted chart in the upstairs bathroom that even indicated what types of clothing to throw in the hamper, according to the day of the week. For today’s kids, it’s always good to create charts so that they get a certain type of favorite sticker every time they do their chores without nagging, and these can add up to a treat at week’s end, while providing a visual daily reminder of what’s expected.

Yard Work

You’ll get a lot more work done if your kids can help. Get smaller copies of some of your tools, and give them their own part of the yard to tend. Have a regular routine such as always checking under certain rocks to look for insects, always climbing a certain tree, always leaving seeds or bread crumbs in the backyard for the birds.

Freeze Rest

Elizabeth Elkin’s two boys, Noah and Eli, hate cleaning up as much as the next kid. So she decided to make it more entertaining with the “Freeze Game.” “I would play fun, upbeat music and they had to clean up as fast as they could while the music played.” When their mom stopped the music, everyone had to freeze, generally in silly and awkward postures, which got everyone laughing.

Mix a Privilege with a Duty

Amanda Soule, a mother of five, assigns each kid a certain duty for the week: laundry helper, bathroom helper, dish dryer after meals, etc. One of the things that has helped compliance for the kid who has to be chief dishwasher, is that he or she gets to pick the music that the whole family listens to during meals.

Grocery Shopping

Little kids can become very cranky sitting in those cramped metal carts. In addition to bringing a snack like a baggy full of Goldfish crackers, I always told my son stories when wewent on errands. My invented polar bear, Pete, would be in the grocery store with us getting into trouble, usually by climbing into the freezers and eating all the Klondike bars. We had brief but fun rituals for different sections of the market: When we came to the seafood section, Max always said “hello” to the live lobsters in the tank.

TV Rituals

There are many good arguments against giving children too much television and screen time generally. Although I watched a great deal of television throughout my childhood, after college I lived without owning a television for at least a decade and I rarely felt that I missed anything. When I wanted to watch something special like a dance concert on PBS (Public Broadcasting Service), or the Oscars, I’d find a friend with a television who was watching and invite myself over. And bring food.

I know a good number of families that still don’t own a television, or limit their kids’ tube consumption drastically. Farther along in this section, you’ll find information and resources on how to limit overexposure to all types of screens in your household. But I did want to cover TV-centric rituals in this edition because television watching is so deeply ingrained in American life, and I believe that can be a positive thing if parents are disciplined about using it.

Let’s face facts: The vast majority of families already have daily and weekly traditions around watching certain shows, whether they religiously watch the evening news or their favorite sitcoms and reality shows, or wouldn’t miss kid faves like Sesame Street, The Backyardigans, or American Idol.

Another indisputable fact: Most Americans watch too much TV for their own good, which is one cause of our obesity epidemic. By the time the average American turns sixty-five, he or she will have spent twelve years watching television! Yikes.

What the Experts Say

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under two have no screen time whatsoever, and that kids over two watch no more than one to two hours of quality programming per day.

Although there is a heap of mind-numbing junk on television, there are also amazingly educational, artistic, and powerfully thoughtful programs worth watching. Families that love football, baseball, tennis, and other sports have wonderful traditions of sitting around cheering on their favorite teams and booing their historic rivals, while eating special snacks.

Even the silliest comedy shows and their characters can become part of a family’s shared cultural references, the source of everything from family jokes to pet names. When Max was little, he loved every type of animal show, and we all learned a lot about exotic animals by watching with him. Our shared love of
The Simpsons
has led to all sorts of conversations about everything from what makes a family to chasing down the plentiful movie references in the animated show.

So-called “must-see TV” events truly bring us together as families. As we watch the Olympics together or the president’s State of the Union address, we have a chance to talk about current events and watch history unfold.

When it comes to creating family rituals around television, here are a couple of general principles that will work for most families:

Limit screen time: Be very intentional and direct about how much television time you allow. You don’t want to have to spend every moment working as a TV cop, so set very clear guidelines. Limit your kids to the amount of time they can spend each day, especially on school days, or just let them watch on weekends. In many households, the television does not get turned on until homework is complete.

Turn the activity from passive to active:
Teach your kids to be media critics by discussing what you see during and after a program. Whether it is a science show or a sitcom, you can challenge assumptions, and talk about whether it is realistic. Keep a family TV diary so that after you watch a program, every family member can decide how many stars to award it and write a one-sentence review. Tell your kids to find a book at home that covers the same topic, and spend some time reading it together. Or make art based on what you saw: Draw your favorite characters from a show, or get a book from the library about how to draw cartoons. If it’s a game show, like
Jeopardy
, play the game yourself. If it’s a cooking show, head into the kitchen and make a snack together. Watch the latest episode of
American Idol
, then let every family member perform one song, whether dancing, singing, or playing an instrument.

Bring everyone together
: Especially if your kids are older or far apart in ages, they won’t all want to watch the same programs. You may want to let each watch one or two favorite programs alone, but TV watching doesn’t qualify as a family ritual unless everyone is having a shared experience. And there should be an activity that follows, even if it’s just a short discussion of what you all just watched.

Curate your own programming: With
built-in video recorders, on-demand programming, and rental services like Netflix, families have a great opportunity to personalize and control their viewing experiences. So think of yourself as the curator of your family’s TV time and pick and choose thoughtfully. Perhaps you can program Friday Night Videos and pick a different theme each month: One month, you watch only animal shows or movies, and the next month it’s World Travel Month, and you learn about different countries. Have a double or triple feature. Serve popcorn or cookies and milk at “intermission” or during the shows. Let the kids help shape the programming.