How to Reconnect with Your Family

In the days of Leave It To Beaver, it was easy to keep family connected with daily rituals. Dad was the breadwinner, Mom maintained the home and children and everyone met at the dinner table for a shared meal and recap of the day's happenings.

Family roles were clearly defined and interests outside the home were limited to visiting Grandma and Grandpa after church on Sunday for the ritualistic meal of fried chicken, gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, and apple pie. Let's face it, June Cleaver didn't have to worry about dropping Beaver off at daycare before heading off to the office herself. Neither did she have to "bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, and NEVER let Ward forget he was a man" before she drove Wally to evening Soccer practice, Karate class, or his after school job.

Today's families are seriously disconnected. Each family member is focused on their own agenda. We 21st Century families would do well to reflect on the lessons the Cleaver's presented to us each week on the Leave It To Beaver Show. Building strong, intimate family connections, displaying and teaching healthy moral codes and values, dealing with misguided behaviors, helping each other through disappointments and hurts, laughing and playing together, and ultimately holding each other accountable for home and community were the clear goals of each episode.

How can we find a way to bring those very stabilizing lessons of the importance of family connection into the lives of our overworked, overfed, underpaid, and just plain too busy families of the 21st Century? I think, as parents, that we have a moral responsibility to try to reconnect with our overly obsessed 4 year-old gymnastic class preschooler, our iPod carrying pre-teen, our over scheduled, video game addicted teens, not to mention our weekend golf club wielding husbands. We simply need to find a way to start some family rituals that will force us to slow down the rat race we are all running and re-focus on those beloved people who share the same address with us. A way to spend our lives sharing some part of ourselves with each other instead of a passing grunt or wave in the hallway as we head off to our different directions. One sure way to build strong family connections is to develop what most people call family traditions, a.k.a. rituals. Building on rituals already in place, or more importantly for the severely disconnected family, developing new rituals, is a guaranteed way to reconnect with our loved ones. Research shows that family units with great connections do just that. These families assure that they "connect" on a daily basis with small rituals, such as a hug with their daily goodbyes, or starting with a family breakfast, or a quick daily meeting in the foyer to advise each other of what meetings, appointments, activities, are planned for everyone's day. Many of these families also "connect" regularly on a weekly basis with planned family meetings, family nights, game nights, or any kind of "nights" that help them celebrate their love for each other. If your family doesn't have such daily/weekly bonding rituals, I believe you should make every effort to develop some.

The first thing to do is realize that even the smallest of family rituals impart a sense of joined identity and give a strong bond of comfort and security to our loved ones. It is never the largest gift or the fanciest celebration that adults remember from childhood. It's the simple rituals and everyday traditions or gestures of love that left them feeling safe and cherished in childhood. Birthday celebrations and holidays are generally already celebrated together even in the most disconnected families. Again, research suggests that the most connected families have at least one solid daily ritual in addition to a modest weekly ritual. So, how do we get started.

Surprisingly, you may already have some of this ritualistic behavior in place. Do you have a certain words that you say to your family members as you leave the house each day, for instance, "Bye honey, be careful, I love you". Or do you chase your young children to the door as they leave for school saying, "Have a good day", Don't forget your backpack, or "I'll see you after school". These are just the daily rituals that are needed for each of us to feel that comfort zone of connection to one another. Maybe your family would have more connection time at dinner where you can develop a ritual such as holding hands while someone says grace before the evening meal, or going around the table allowing each member can share something about their day. How about a round of "blessings or woes" where each member is encouraged to share the best or worst of their day. The most important factor in connecting your family is that each member be allowed to act or speak according to their need. For families with jam packed schedules, maybe a simple shared afternoon snack before it's off to the next scheduled activity will provide a chance for daily connection.

What your ritual is and when it is performed by your family isn't nearly as important as doing it consistently. These daily "check in" rituals allow us to see each other's transformations while the daily connection with each other stays constant.

Weekly rituals can vary just as widely. Anything from a weekly family planning meeting to a regular game night with Goldfish crackers and Monopoly to a Thursday Night is Pizza Night where each member helps prepare the pizza of choice will work. Again, what's done on a weekly basis isn't the focus, it's the connection factor that is critical. Conversations at weekly ritual meetings can include family business, jokes, friendly banter about who's team is the best, behavior concerns or planning the next vacation. Just be sure to allow "give and take" from each member of your family. The idea is to "celebrate" the individual's triumphs or smooth over rough spots the individual is facing. These rituals require a family to focus intensely on each other's lives and engage in active participation with each other on a regular basis.

Don't worry about finding good ideas for your ritual connections. Most family rituals will develop naturally if you make a sincere effort to spend time together. Sharing a little or a lot of time together, your "connected" family will learn to fully cherish each other's special moments and milestones, share wounds of trauma or loss, and strengthen the spirit of identity with each other. Before you know it, we will have developed caring connected children who will become caring connected adults that will be caring and connected with all mankind.