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

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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more peaceful stepfamilies when you
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