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This family also has its own traditions. And whatever happens in the family, rituals help them.
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Contact between parents and children is joy, convenience and a guarantee of preventing conflicts and misunderstandings. How to keep it from infancy for many years? Is it possible to maintain reliable contact between parents and children even during a difficult adolescence? In many families, this is helped by the usual rituals that go through life day after day: the Good Morning and Good Night ritual, the Lovely Fingers ritual, the 15 minutes before bed ritual.
A ritual is an action (a set of actions) that needs to be done, because you just need to do it — because everyone does it, because it is accepted here. Taking an oath is a ritual, shaking hands is also a ritual, greeting, that is, wishing health, is also a familiar ritual for everyone.
How the morning begins — and education
As difficult as it is to put children to bed, it is so difficult to get them up in the morning. But in our family, this problem has been successfully solved, because the Ritual of Getting Up in the Morning, composed by us and adjusted to our values, has been repeated every morning for many years …
The alarm sounds. I turn my head and kiss my wife (sometimes gently, sometimes funny). Loudly and cheerfully I notify everyone that a new good day has come (naturally, no one has woken up yet). I get up, turn on the music and go to the bathroom. I fill two buckets with cold water, turn on warm water in the bathroom. I come back and start giving Vanya a massage, organizing the same thing between my mother and Sasha, who are starting to wake up, with my voice. In five minutes the bath is filled, Vanya runs there himself, and Sasha likes to come there on my handles. The children are immersed in the water, I am back in bed. Five minutes of morning bliss for everyone. But then the children begin to rage in the bath, I go there and take out the plug, the water drains, the kids and I brush our teeth. The water has drained, Shura gets out of the bath onto the washing machine, Vanya turns on a small warm shower and gets high there. Question to Vanya, from which bucket he will pour himself. He chooses (where it is smaller), the shower turns off, the bucket is poured on him to the cheerful exclamations of everyone, and he gets out, having received a towel. Now Shura is warming up in the shower, I rub Vanya with a towel, and he runs to his mother, who is still in bed … Shura must be warned that the shower is turning off and the bucket is ready, then he is satisfied and jumps joyfully under the cold stream. I rub it with a towel, carry it to my mother and throw it into a common pile. Now I bring dumbbells, weights and disperse everyone from bed to exercise. Well, in general, that’s all.
It seems to be nothing tricky, but everything is fine adjusted to each other and, most importantly, learned by everyone to the smallest detail.
The kids no longer ask questions why it is necessary to pour cold water in the morning: the Ritual has made this an axiom, on the basis of which all other problems are solved.
Don’t want to shower today? — What a pity, because without the mood to pour on is not so pleasant!
Our procedures work because they work every day – for years. An exceptionally useful thing — a cleverly created ritual, turned by time into a sustainable tradition!
The best teacher is not the one who knows how to say smart and kind things. The best educator is the one who knows how to create a smart and kind lifestyle. Words can be ignored, and a way of life will grind anyone. Therefore, there are no problems of education for parents in whose family there are strong and smart traditions. Conversations about morality, of course, will also not be superfluous, but what can I say when all this is absorbed simply from the air — the air of family traditions?
Good morning!
It is curious: not everyone understands what to say to each other in the morning “Good morning!” — these are not just good feelings from the heart, this is a ritual. What seems so natural in normal families (and what could be more natural than the morning greeting “Good morning!”) — once it was not so natural. This ritual was invented and introduced by someone, some creative person. Probably, it was at first artificial, and then it became habitual and natural. Thanks to this wise man!
So, the ritual consists in the fact that in the morning everyone says with a warm smile (do not mutter, but say warmly and with a smile) “Good morning” to each other and kiss (here in different ways — on the shoulder, on the cheek, on the lips). This is a format, that is, a mandatory requirement of relationships. You may be sleepy and offended, but say «Good morning!» you have to anyway.
And when the child grows up in such an environment and gets used to it, it will become absolutely natural for him. It will cease to be a ritual for him and will become just good feelings — from the heart!
Good night
Likewise. Going to bed without going up to other family members and saying to them with a smile and a kiss “Good night!” — we do not accept. Yes?
If children are not accustomed to this, the School of Good Manners helps them to master this habit.
cute fingers
A child’s morning begins with someone gently stroking his toes. This someone crept up to him under the covers and not tickling, but pleasantly stroking his fingers. Thumb, next, next… little finger — all fingers get their strokes and kisses. “Good morning, dear!”, “Good morning, dear!” — the voice of mom (or dad) accompanies this soft morning massage.
Caution is important here — each child has his own sensitivity, and for some, even soft strokes can feel like a sharp tickle. However, as experience shows, the soft and caring hands of parents feel that now the child is pleased. It is important that the child does not learn, even in the game mode, to withdraw his legs like “Well, it tickles, go away, I don’t want to!” — He himself smiles at the same time and knows that his mother will still stroke him and he really enjoys it, but later this game can completely destroy this ritual.
Is it always possible to accustom all children to this ritual? Unfortunately, what is lost cannot always be made up. If the parents have taught the child to this ritual from childhood, it is familiar just like breathing and washing. It is already more difficult to accustom first-graders to this ritual, teenagers are rather inappropriate, they are now at the wrong age. Look at your own situation, think. But if your children are still small, the “Lovely Fingers” ritual should become part of the family’s lifestyle, become completely natural and internally obligatory, the same as the morning “Good morning!”
Let’s have breakfast together
If someone has to run away from home early, and therefore he can’t have breakfast with everyone, this is normal. But it is not normal if there is no desire in the family and there is no tradition to still have breakfast together. In a good family, everyone knows when we (that is, the whole family) have breakfast, and when everyone is called for breakfast, then everyone goes to breakfast. And what about breakfast? TV set? Of course not. TV in a good family is not listened to, in a good family at breakfast — be sure to have a general conversation. Usually everyone proposes a topic that he would like to discuss, and everyone carefully discusses this topic while eating. In families with a high culture, the rules “What do you think?” are popular. and “Repeat, agree, add”: this really brings everyone very close.
In fact, this tradition applies not only to breakfast: dinner is also organized, and on weekends — lunch. We like to be together, we are a family, we are together! For more details, see the article “And what are we going to talk about today?”
word before meal
Reading a prayer before meals is a religious tradition, and what can be a substitute for this in families with a secular worldview? I wrote the Word for my children, and for some time, from 4 to 6 years old, it helped us a lot. As soon as the children began to read this word, the atmosphere at the table changed miraculously. After all, after reading the Word, you make a commitment, and after eating there will be a Report: all the children, answering questions, will raise their hands. I. The better you behaved, the higher your hand. How I want to pull it to the sky! Perhaps this Word will be useful to someone else. Its main advantage is in its simplicity. Here it is:
I love my family
And I won’t let her down.
I will eat both soup and porridge,
Everything that our mother will give us.
If mom gives us rice —
I eat it without a whim,
Because I’m picky
Left without lunch.
I can not mess around
Don’t talk and don’t laugh
While I eat, I am silent like a fish,
And I ate — I will say thank you.
To respect myself
I will keep my word
Only the one who keeps his word
Worthy of respect.
15 minutes before bed
A wonderful thing is fifteen minutes of a child’s communication with dad or mom before going to bed, when the child is already in bed, and dad or mom is sitting next to him and quietly talking about something: they ask, they listen. There can be no showdowns and moralizing, in extreme cases (after a quarrel) you can just sit nearby, stroke the pen, kiss your fingers and say: “I love you. Goodnight!» What is said at night remains in the depths of the soul and for life. Speak kind words to each other!
All these rituals are just an example, just a reason to think that in our family we create our relationships ourselves. Everything is individual here — and if the mother (for example) woke up her daughter with the “Lovely fingers” ritual, then the daughter meets with her father through the “Good morning” ritual. Each family may have its own rituals, at different times and for each age are different, it is only important that we look for something that will support our relationship day by day.