Do You Create Family Rituals?
It’s Friday – which means 2 things in our house: ‘Friday Family Assembly’ and ‘Friday Film Night.’
Each Friday afternoon when Zoe comes home from school, we all sit around the kitchen table enjoying afternoon tea and our little ritual of ‘family assembly’.
We each take it in turn to stand and the other two congratulate us on our wonderful achievements that week. There's always lots of clapping and cheering and taking of bows.
It's based on something they used to do at Zoe's Primary School. Every Friday morning they would hold an assembly. Each teacher read out the names of children who had done particularly well with something that week. The whole school would clap and cheer and celebrate their success. And they would go up to the front to collect a sweetie as their prize.
We thought this was a wonderful thing to do and decided to make our own celebration called 'Family Assembly.'
Those achievements may include: doing something that takes us outside of our comfort zone; overcoming a problem; achieving a goal; being kind to someone else; not giving up when something got difficult.
No matter what’s happened during the week, we can always find something wonderful to give positive feedback about. I’ve even taken to writing a list of things when they occur to me. Often when we get to the end of the week, we can forget things that have happened at the beginning.
Family assembly always ends with the giving out of prizes. Just something small like a chocolate bar. But at the end of the month Zoe sometimes gets a DVD or a magazine.
Friday is also Family Film Night - a wonderful opportunity to take some time to sit down as a family and watch a film together. It's a day I look forward to all week - it feels like a real treat and I make sure that I have a final push during the day on Friday to finish off any outstanding work, so that I can relax and enjoy my evening with my little family.
I hope you all have a wonderful Easter weekend with your family and treasure moments like this. Why not start your own little regular traditions? Let me know how you get on.
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Love your Friday Family Assembly ritual! We do a similar thing in our household – we have a Chocolate Fish Ceremony on Saturday morning where we give out a Chocolate Fish and a certificate to each member of the household. Its so much fun and the kids look forward to it with great anticipation all week!
Meg recently posted..Feed Just One – Giving Back can be Simple
Meg,
I love the Chocolate Fish Ceremony – it sounds fabbytastic (I want one too lol). What an amazing thing to look forward to each week.
Hugs
Hx
What a wonderful way to build confidence and bonding in the family…I absolutely LOVE that…Gonna have to start something like that with my granddaughter! THANKS!
Michelle,
Yes! Do start something like this with your granddaughter. Maybe a mixture of ours and Meg’s Chocolate Fish Ceremony – or make up your own. Do come back and tell us how you’re getting on. This is such an amazing idea and you’ll start a wonderful family tradition.
Hugs
Hx
Ours is currently a blended family – my daughters and I have recently moved in to live with my sister and her husband and their 4 boys. Our weekly ceremony has been an invaluable help with bonding and settling together as one great, mad family 🙂
Meg recently posted..Feed Just One – Giving Back can be Simple
Meg,
What a magical way to bring everyone together.
Sounds like an amazing family.
Hxx
We eat dinner together every DAY when my daughter comes home from school. This started when she would get off the bus starved and head for the snack closet. I decided that this was the perfect moment to place a full dinner on front of her….and it stuck. I work from home with my hubby and he too joins us for dinner. We all love it and we get to hear about her day before distractions set in.
Stress Free Kids | Lori Lite recently posted..To My Teen Goodnight- I Love You…
Lori,
Welcome to the blog – so delighted to have you here.
I love that you eat dinner together every day – it’s so important not only to catch up with your daughter but to teach her about the ritual of eating together. So many families eat at different times and in different places – it would be sad to lose a wonderful time honoured tradition.
We eat dinner together every day and we have our special dinner on Friday evening and then Sunday Lunch is also a very special time as well.
I love these sacred times.
Much love
Heather xx