What is a fun project to do together on weekends or over the holidays?
Several years ago, we started a new family tradition—the creation of a group art project. We trek off to the local art store together and purchase a large blank canvas and lots of acrylic paints and brushes. Then we divide the canvas into six sections with a light pencil mark. This gives each of us our boundaries to work within. Since there are five of us, the sixth space is usually shared by two who want to have another smaller shared space. We all then paint our own space, taking as long as we want. The entire project is normally completed within a day, with each person usually working in isolation of the others. Anything is acceptable.
Not only is this art project fun to do every year, but we all look at it frequently and are now able to compare the years. We can remember how old each of us was and the important things that happened. But the value of this group art project is that it is something done by our family as a group. It reminds us that familymaking is fun. It also makes everyone feel attached, connected, and part of our family. When family members complete their individual canvas spaces, an amazingly integrated painting emerges.
Everyone needs to know and feel that they belong and play an important role in the family. They need to be involved in shaping the family culture in which they live and grow. Cultural traditions, like the shared canvas, are rituals. Rituals act like glue that holds the family together. Families can develop their own rituals. Any event the family enjoys and does regularly can be a ritual. It might be a fancy Friday dinner, a walk together early every Saturday morning, or a regular walk up the local mountain. Another of our rituals is to take a day-long bike trip along Lake Michigan every summer. The best part is that there are no rules on how to define rituals. They just have to make you and your family feel special.
Rituals often begin with parents, but children’s values and ideas should also be reflected in their selection. If a child wants to introduce a new ritual, parents should allow it, knowing that this will make the child feel special. Each member of the family can establish rituals and weave them into the fabric of the group. Any event that feels special to your family can be a ritual and serve to bring the group closer together.
Dr. Susan Smith Kuczmarski has taught at 8 universities, now at Northwestern University and Loyola University in Chicago. She is an award-winning author of 6 books, 3 on families and 3 on leadership, including her newest, Becoming A Happy Family: Pathways to the Family Soul (2015), and her best-selling, The Sacred Flight of the Teenager: A Parent’s Guide to Stepping Back and Letting Go, which was released (2019) in Egypt in Arabic. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, she has researched extensively how children learn social skills and teens become leaders. A frequent radio and television guest, she has appeared on "The Today Show" and speaks regularly to parents and educators. Listed in Who's Who in the World for 12 years and an International Fellow of Columbia University, her 35 years of college teaching and research have made her an expert on issues devoted to the contemporary family.
