Step Parenting Power Tool: Using Family Rituals and Traditions

Step Parenting Power Tool: Using Family
Rituals and Traditions to Create Identity
by Ron Huxley

If you are in a step family and struggling for some
sense of family identity, don't despair. You can
enhance your feeling of togetherness with the use of
family rituals and traditions.

Rituals allow nontraditional and traditional families to
form collective identities, facilitate healing, celebrate
life changes, and pass on expressions of beliefs.
Rituals include daily activities, even if they are taken
for granted, such as getting ready for bed, eating at
the table, and watching a television program. They
can also be much more elaborate, although not
necessarily more symbolic, such as weddings,
funerals, bar mitzvahs, graduations, and religious
ceremonies.

Regardless of their format, rituals are an important
aspect of our social lives, and parents can utilize this
hidden resource in developing more intimate
families. Family therapists have used the concept of
rituals to help families that have been hurt by past
actions toward one another or by an unexpected
traumatic situation. Wedding vows have been
restated by stepfamilies and have included all
family members, including the children. Letters of
anger and sadness have been written to unknown
mothers and fathers and then ceremonially burned
or destroyed as an act of saying good-bye. Marriage
bands have been melted down or thrown into the
middle of lakes to break emotional ties and
symbolize the need for an emotional divorce, even
after families have already been legally divorced.
Again, how one performs these valuable tools is not
as important as finding a way to signify a gain, loss,
or both in the lives of families.

Often the most powerful rituals and traditions are the
ones that come up naturally in a family. Forcing a
tradition, in a stepfamily especially, is a guaranteed
way to create more disharmony. Keep an eye for
routines and activities that biological and
nonbiological family members seem to enjoy. What
causes anxiety and frustration to leave the home
and fosters a fun, creative, or relaxed atmosphere?
Do more of those things.

If you still are unable to come up with a family ritual
or tradition, have a family meeting or kitchen table
discussion about what members of the family would
like to do on a regular basis. You might be surprised
what ideas come up. If reasonable, try these
suggestions until you find one (or two) that fit your
newly formed family.

As children get older and situations change, rituals
and traditions may leave or no longer be of interest.
If they are not related to deep spiritual values, allow
them to pass and look for new ones to arrive. Rituals
and traditions are there to serve your family and not
the other way around.

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