10 Benefits of Engaging in Family Traditions

Yesterday, my daughters completed a gratitude activity that we complete each year before Thanksgiving. In the coming days, they will help me prepare traditional Thanksgiving foods. Then, I’ll recount stories of past Christmases as we hang ornaments on the Christmas tree. We’ll place our handprint tree skirt under the tree after adding this year’s prints.

The thing I love most about holidays is handing down traditions to my kids. These things are often quite fun, and they allow me to hand down more than just an action or an activity—they are vehicles through which I also pass down beliefs and information.

After studying the impacts of traditions and rituals on families, researchers have identified numerous ways they benefit families. I’m using the term “traditions” here, but these findings apply to traditions and rituals, which are distinct. Traditions are things we do over and over again that help us hand down information, beliefs, and behaviors to the next generation. An example of a tradition is having cinnamon rolls for breakfast every year on Christmas. Traditions are often unique to individual families and can vary in significance. Rituals, on the other hand, are always laden with meaning. Sharing the Seder meal at the start of Passover is an example of a ritual. Rituals are prescribed ways of doing things or repeated patterns of meaningful actions that have spiritual or emotional dimensions.

The benefits I’m about the list come from both rituals and traditions. However, for the sake of simplicity, I’ll continue using the term “traditions.” We are all familiar with this term and concept. Additionally, in many families, the line between tradition and ritual is often indistinct.

How traditions benefit families

• Traditions help us stay connected. The demands of life pull us in many directions, but traditions provide family time during which we can reconnect. These periodic opportunities to reconnect help our families stay close despite the upheavals that occur in our lives.
• Traditions offer stability and order. Children (and many adults) thrive when they know what comes next and what is expected of them. Because traditions are predictable, they help us create stable, orderly environments for our families.
• Traditions teach practical skills. Traditions allow us to pass important skills on to the next generation. Examples of skills that children learn from holiday traditions include how to prepare traditional foods, how to set a formal table, and how to practice hospitality.
• Traditions help us make sense of the passage of time. Young children do not really understand the concept of months and years, so traditions that are associated with the various seasons are one of the first ways that they begin to make sense of time. As children age, they take note of time’s passage because they become old enough to participate in traditions in new ways (being allowed to stay up until midnight on New Year’s Eve, graduating from the “kid’s table” to the regular table at Thanksgiving dinner, etc.). As adults enter their twilight years, traditions help keep them oriented. They may confuse names and dates, but they often know precisely what to do when familiar traditions begin.
• Traditions help us cope with loss and trauma. When we face traumatic circumstances (death of loved ones, natural disasters, etc.), traditions give us a blueprint for how to act. For example, many families share the tradition of eating a meal together after the funeral of a loved one. Family members don’t have to figure out what to think or do because this activity is automated. Its predictability provides a sense of comfort and helps restore normalcy.
• Traditions connect us to our pasts. We feel connected to our ancestors when we engage in the traditions that our families have practiced for generations. These traditions preserve the past by helping us pass our worldviews, cultures, and values on to our own children.
• Traditions contribute to our identities. Traditions shape our families and make them unique. Our families play a significant role in shaping us. Consequently, these traditions impact how we understand and express ourselves.
• Traditions can protect against violence and drug abuse. According to researchers, families that make rituals a priority are less likely to experience violence within the home or have members who become alcoholics.
• Traditions help us communicate. Not only do traditions give us family time during which we can communicate, but they provide us with opportunities where it is considered “appropriate” to say things that might otherwise go unsaid. Thanksgiving traditions help us speak of gratitude, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day traditions help us thank our parents, funeral rituals help us discuss our mortality, etc.
• Traditions impart values. By engaging in certain traditions, we enact our values in tangible ways. Doing practical things (providing Christmas dinner for a family in need, picking up litter on Earth Day, etc.) is a much more powerful way to convey values to the next generation than simply speaking of them.

I certainly don’t think about all these benefits when we make a gratitude inventory, complete our Jesse Tree readings, bake Christmas cookies, hang our paper chain prayer calendar for Lent, etc. However, I’m so glad these benefits accompany the fellowship and fun we share while completing these traditions!

If you’d like more information on the benefits of traditions and rituals, then please visit my sources:

• Family Routines and Rituals: A Context for Development in the Lives of Young Children in Infants and Young Children
• Rituals and Family Strength in Direction
• A Review of 50 Years of Research on Naturally Occurring Family Routines and Rituals in Journal of Family Psychology
• The Magic of Traditions and Rituals from the Legacy Project

What are your favorite traditions? How have they benefited your family?

Shared at the following:

Encouraging Hearts and Home.