Rituals to Build Strong Families

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Dawn Davenport  0:00  
Welcome, everyone to Creating a Family talk about foster adoptive and kinship care. I'm Dawn Davenport. I'm the host of this show, as well as the director of the nonprofit, creating a family.org. Today we're going to be talking about rituals, specifically rituals to help you build strong families. We will be talking with Elizabeth Barber, who she is the author of a new book, sacred celebrations, designing rituals to navigate life's milestone transitions. She's a passionate advocate for smart self care, and the power of rituals to deepen our connections to self, others and spirit. She is also a reunited adoptee and an adoptive mom. And I want to tell everybody, we're going to be giving some tips to families at the end. So make sure you hang around to the end. All right, so welcome, Elizabeth, to creating a family.

Speaker 1  0:53  
Thank you so much, Dawn, I'm delighted to be here. You know,

Dawn Davenport  0:57  
I love rituals. I love the concept of rituals. But before reading the book, when I was thinking about it, I thought, well, I don't know that. That is a family. We've done a lot of rituals. But then I realized, after reading the book that many of the things that we were doing, really were ritual. So anyway, I'm looking forward to this discussion. So let's start by the obvious, or maybe it's not the effect, it's not obvious. Let's don't start at the obvious let's start at something at the foundation, or shall we say, which is why are rituals important for families?

Speaker 1  1:29  
Yes, and such a good point, they're not so obvious. Well, especially in these days in this world that we're living in these turbulent and uncertain times, rituals are so important for connection. They're important for grounding, they're important for presence, and they're important for belonging. What I really find with the people that I work with in my coaching practice is that our kids in particular, they're so overscheduled, they're overwhelmed, they're worried about the state of the world, the hell a lot going on. And when we have rituals that bring us together as a family, it allows us to slow down, to settle in to tell stories to listen to one another. And it gives us a deeper sense of connection. So for kids in particular, it helps them to feel a little bit safer, feel like they can lean in to their parents and their siblings a little bit more. It also helps them to have a sense of belonging. And of course, it depends on the age of the kids as well. I know I'm raising a middle schooler right now. So belonging and identity are a really big issue. Yes, yeah.

Dawn Davenport  2:38  
It does, though, help you define the culture of your family somewhat, which is a form of belonging. Exactly.

Speaker 1  2:46  
And I was thinking about this story before we got on the phone today. One of my favorite examples of this is in one of the neighborhoods that I used to live in, there was a family and they had nicknames for each other. And it came from the television show The Money heist, I'm not sure if you ever saw that

Dawn Davenport  3:03  
I had or maybe I don't remember, either way, but go ahead.

Speaker 1  3:07  
It's actually a Spanish show. And it's about a money heist. It's about a bunch of people who robbed a bank, but it's actually quite funny. And they had nicknames for all of the people. So instead of calling the robbers by their given name, they all had a name of a city or a country. So for example, you know, Amanda might be Alaska. And Eric might be Edinburgh. But it was a neat way. So when the family not only at home, but when they would go out in public. And you know, maybe they were trying to gather the family together, but they had several kids and they'd be like, hey, Edinburgh. Hey, Alaska. So it was just kind of a fun way to stay connected. But it was very much a part of my identity of their family. It was really cute.

Dawn Davenport  3:53  
Yeah. And that's important to all age children. It's important to family structure. It's important for the unity of the family. And I think that would cover from infancy really, or certainly toddlerhood through adulthood. Absolutely.

Speaker 1  4:07  
I agree with that. And you know, the other thing that I think that rituals do and why they're so important is they give us a sense of, this is what my family does, sort of you were saying, This is who we are, and this is what we do. Like we have grades together every night when we have dinner. We have a gratitude jar that we write notes in with each other on review once a month. We are a family who goes hiking every Sunday night or we're a family who makes grandma's green bean casserole every Thanksgiving, you know, whatever. No,

Dawn Davenport  4:43  
no one really likes it. No one likes green circle, but we eat the soup. It sets that soup with the canned onions on top. Nobody likes it, but to make it exactly.

Speaker 1  4:55  
And why do we do it right? It's because it evokes See memories of times gone bought, and it helps us reconnect to maybe our childhood or the stories that our parents told us about them growing up with their parents, which are our grand.

Dawn Davenport  5:11  
Hmm, that makes great sense. Are you a subscriber to our free monthly newsletter, if not, you really should be, you can easily subscribe by going to Bitly slash C A F guy that's bi T dot L y slash C, A F guide to your ID, when you subscribe, you will get a free guide, the current guide is parenting a child exposed to trauma, it is a terrific, terrific trauma informed guide. So if you are a foster adoptive or kinship family, it would be very helpful to sit on your digital bookshelf. So check it out at Bitly slash C A F guide. So anyone who has listened to this show knows that I'm a real big believer in routines. I say it often in terms of the fact that it is really important to children who have experienced trauma in their life. Kids who have had a lot of disruption with foster kids, new kids coming in routines just simplify family life. But more importantly, for kids who need to feel some control, because their world is very out of control. Routines provide that it provides predictability, they can understand what's happening, what's coming next. And that gives them a sense of control in their life where they have very little. So I was thinking of routines the entire time I was reading. And so what is the difference between a ritual? Andrew routine?

Speaker 1  6:50  
That's such a great question. And I so agree with what you've said about that need for predictability and certainty and stability. And to me the difference is that routine is something that we do on a regular basis, that becomes a habit, we don't necessarily think about it. It could be things like you know, we cook dinner together, or we go to the gym and work out together before school or after work

Dawn Davenport  7:17  
even more relevant in my life, a bedtime routine, we take a bath, we brush our teeth, you brush your teeth first, then Mom brushes your teeth after we then get into jammies, then we read two books, then we say prayers, then we whatever. And then we get in bed and we cover ourselves with two blankets, and we have three lovies that type of thing. I love my life is sometimes like yes, two

Speaker 1  7:48  
blankets and three lovies I love it. Yes, and that's such a great example. Like this is the routine. This is the habit that what we do, what makes it a ritual is another layer of mindfulness and intention. So let's use maybe a birthday for an example. Instead of just having a traditional birthday where you know, maybe we have cake and ice cream, and we give people presents. We made the offer to the person in the family. It doesn't matter whether it's the children or the adults. But it's like you get to play in your special day, you get to pick up the meal, you get to decide what we're going to do today, you get to pick a special activity. And then it becomes a ritual because it has a new level of meaning. It has a new level of attention and more magic comes with that. I mean, I still remember growing up I just was raised by my adoptive parents. It was just the three of us. But it was every time one of us had a birthday we got to pick their favorite meal and I still remember it it was lamb chops and mashed potatoes and actually green beans but not casserole

Dawn Davenport  9:03  
was that yours? Or what are your parents

Speaker 1  9:05  
know that was mine? I love lamb chops. I don't know. I don't know what kid likes lamb chops, but

Dawn Davenport  9:12  
mine would have been ice cream, cookies and cake. But well, we got that after dinner. But that would have been the meal for me. But anyway.

Speaker 1  9:22  
That's great. I love it. You know another example I have one family who what they do with their children is whenever a child turns 13 in the family, that's when they get to choose a special trip to go on with their grandparents. And so the grandparent makes sure that each one of the children of all their grandkids gets a special quality trip with grandma and grandpa when the kid turns 13 I think that's a pretty cool ritual.

Dawn Davenport  9:48  
Yeah, me too. You've mentioned habits. Is there a difference between what you've said the difference between rituals and routines is intentionality. But throwing habits in there? Is there a difference? sanction habits and routines and rituals in your mind. A habit

Speaker 1  10:04  
might be you know, brushing your teeth, right? Like we all need to do that every day. Yeah, to me habits and routine are fairly similar. Okay, good intention is really to go to ritual which has that intentionality to it. Gotcha.

Dawn Davenport  10:16  
Okay, I use the word routine, but I think that I probably would conflate routine and habits as well. In addition to all the other things we do, including this podcast here at creating a family.org, we also have a curriculum, it is for training, or support groups, either one, it is a turnkey, all in one training. It can be for online groups or in person groups. It is a video based training, but it is interactive and participatory. Meaning that the video pauses, and you discuss what you have just learned, it is fun. And trainings aren't always fun, let's be honest. But this one is fun. And the topics we currently have 25 in the library, it is a super resource, you can find it at parent support groups.org. That's parent support groups.org. All right, now let's get to the meat the part that I am most excited about. And that is I want to talk about examples of family rituals, because we've talked about the importance of rituals. And we're talking today about building strong families. So let's get concrete. What are some family rituals that you have talked about in the book, but also seen in your coaching practice? So what are some rituals? Well,

Speaker 1  11:43  
there's a lot and I'll mention a couple of them. And we can decide which ones we want to dig into a little bit. There are some families who have regular family meetings, and they could be weekly, they could be monthly, it could be once a year, that that can be a really nice family ritual to bring people together and talk about what's our vision for our family? Do we have a mission statement for our family? You know, do we have goals or things that we want to do? I know one family, what they do is every few years, they sit down with the family and they have some structured time to talk about what do we want to do in this coming year. And they make sort of a bucket list for the family. And then throughout the year, they go ahead and they work on achieving these things, whether it's you know, taking a trip or doing some volunteer work or working on something in the house. And then at the end of the year, as they get ready through the next year they review it. So you know, what did we accomplish here? And then what do we want for the next year? So family meetings are one thing, I think, and this is going to sound so obvious, but having regularly scheduled dates, whether it's dates for the adults to go out without the children because believe it or not, and you probably do know this, but there are so many families where the parents never get time for themselves. Because it's hard, right? It's hard to find a babysitter, it's hard to step away. It's expensive, though it can cost money. So I think a lot of times couples get really burned out.

Dawn Davenport  13:15  
You are preaching to the choir, I am a huge believer. And it could be date morning, it could be date night, but the importance of parents, the foundation of the family, and we're assuming that we're talking about a two parent, those parents form the foundation of the family. But I would also say that even if you're single, having a night that you recharge, or having a time of day, maybe it's going working out and then coming back getting a cup of coffee on the way home. It's hard. It's hard to make the particularly for singles. But as you point out, even for a two parent family, it is difficult and is

Speaker 1  13:52  
difficult. But like everything, it's about making it a priority. It's about saying this is important to us, this matters to us. And what you just said Dawn, which is so key is that parents really do form that foundation of their families. So children watch our parents, they learn from us. And so if they never see us taking a break, if they never see a step in the way they learn that oh, that's what I'm supposed to do too. But if they see it modeled for them that hey, you know, mom or dad or mom and dad together or both of our parents or grandparents or whoever the caregivers are, they step away and that's okay. Then it teaches them it's okay if they can do that to you. Yes.

Dawn Davenport  14:31  
And I think that this comes back to the which you had said the intentionality. It's not easy and there are a lot I hear from people all the time. I don't want to leave my children with babysitters. I don't feel comfortable doing that. There are a lot of obstacles. But this is where taking creativity is sharing could work in the evening. I know of two couples who one has Friday night and the other has Saturday night and they swap off and the kids actually spend the night at the family who is on Friday night date night for one family, the kids spend the night at the other house. And then on Saturday night, it's the reverse. Now that is a unique situation in that the families get along very well. And they have similar age children who also are friends. That's great. Yeah, just different forms of, you know, finding a place to put your kids on a Saturday morning and working out with your spouse. You know, just things like that. There are ways to make it happen. If you believe it is important enough. And I think what you and I are both saying is it is important. Friday night date night was a ritual. And our family I we jokingly said the kids knew not to get sick on Friday night. Of course, it's not true. It's not true. But when it was a standing ritual, that we had it in our kids came to believe in it. I mean, they were like, okay, yeah, Mom and Dad, and we made it special for them. They got to pick out the stuff that I wouldn't normally give them for dinner, you know, Lunchables was the biggest thing is I wouldn't buy it for lunch. So we buy Lunchables, for them. And those silly little chicken pies that are all, oh crust and no filling the things that I wouldn't normally buy, they would have. So I am just a huge believer in the importance of if you're a two parent family, putting primacy to your relationship. Part of our date was that we weren't supposed to talk about the kids. Well, that lasted probably half of the first date night with the first child that never worked for us. I do know families who are religious about that. They say, No, we are not going to talk about the kids. We're going to talk about other things in our life. That did not work for us. But I'm all in favor of. Yeah, I just can't stress it enough. But you also mentioned Kid and Parent dates. So let's talk about that. Yeah, well, I

Speaker 1  16:45  
think that's especially important when you have more than one child in the family, I'm raising an only child. So this is not such an issue for us, because she gets all of our time and attention. But when you have multiple kids, like I have a friend who is raising seven children, and you know, that's going to be really hard to make each kid feel special. So they try and rotate through and have little date times, you know, and again, it doesn't have to be a date night, it can be a date day, but dedicate, you know, two or three hours to just spending one on one time with each child, or what my friend Tony did, she took the little kids camping, I think she three of the younger kids and the left before older ones home with dad, and then you know, of course, you can switch that up and do vice versa. So that, again, gives the kids a feeling of, oh, this is my special time with my parents. And so I get to focus just on me, and especially if you've got multiple siblings, that can be very exhausting.

Dawn Davenport  17:44  
Well, let me ask you a question. What about the concept of taking one child and then running errands going grocery shopping, returning, you know, Amazon purchases, but you just have one child and you try to intentionally make it about that child as that child, you know, that you're, you're not listening to your podcast or whatever, you're listening to that child with that count in your mind as a, and I'm using air quotes here date, I

Speaker 1  18:13  
think it could count as a date. But whether or not it would count as a ritual. To me that would have to be elevated by saying, Ooh, we're gonna go get ice cream, you know, or we're gonna go take 30 minutes and walk in the park after we go to the grocery store. So I think to make it a ritual, it needs to have a little more intentionality. But sure, I think it could definitely count is just a date like a one on one time together. Yeah,

Dawn Davenport  18:40  
I see your point, I see the distinction. Because with busy families go back to your example of a family and many of our families do have multiple children. So if you've got seven kids fitting in the time for two to three hour, and again, air quotes date with each child would become overwhelming. And people would just say, you know, that's just not feasible for my life. But if we say it's the intentionality of having one on one time, and then I hear your point, elevating it to do something special, like during the grocery shopping, will you get to pick the cereal that we're going to have that week or something along those lines. And then perhaps afterwards, on the way home we will do X will stop at the coffee store mom will get a coffee and yoga. Whatever, right? It's that okay? That in that would make it more doable because we have a huge list of errands. I mean, we just do 1000s of things. And the challenge, of course is finding who will keep the other kids. It's a tetris game.

Unknown Speaker  19:38  
It's a balancing it Yes, yeah.

Dawn Davenport  19:41  
Since we're ending up talking about each of these, I want to go back and give more time to family meeting because I think that's an important one. You talked about family meetings as more higher level. We're going to set goals. We'll do a bucket list for the year we're going to set goals we're going to talk about big things. What about family meetings for the more mundane, in our family we had, not throughout all of our children's childhood, but through a large portion of it. We had a family meeting on Sunday. It wasn't particularly highbrow it was more about. This is what everybody has going on this week. We also had a notebook that was kept in the drawer at the kitchen table, and we'd have the date of the next Sunday. And anybody could write something that they wanted to talk about. I recently ran across it, I had not opened that drawer in years. And I opened it and found the notebook. And it was absolutely hilarious. One kid was saying, I want to talk about so and so another sibling doing this. I don't like it or something along. And so it certainly was not highbrow what we were doing. But let's talk about that type of family meeting. Is there a place for that? Oh,

Speaker 1  20:53  
absolutely. And that's such a great example, John. And yes, I didn't mean to skim over that, because I do think having regular check ins, whether it's weekly, or once a month, are so vital for the family, because they really help with communication. And particularly for kids, as you were talking about, a lot of your listeners have kids who have had trauma, and they've had experiences where they're not valued or listened to in a very present way. And so to create that sacred container of, you know, as you said, maybe like Sunday night or Sunday morning, whatever it is, and just, this is our dedicated time as a family to talk to listen, to share to address, whatever it is that's going on, I think is really critical. And I think the way you could potentially elevate that from, you know, again, so we're talking about this distinction, right? Between routine like, well, this is what we do versus Oh, how do we make it a ritual is, the routine is Yeah, we talked about the schedule, and who's got a soccer game, and who has basketball and who has acting. But then we also maybe add an element of more intentionality. Maybe you introduce a gratitude component of, hey, you know, what are three things that you are grateful for this week, or maybe your family keeps a gratitude jar, that you have little slips of paper, and you write notes on it throughout the week, when someone does something kind, like, oh, you know, my sister, put my stuff away from me or my brother made my lunch for me. And that was really nice. And then what you do is you can read it together at the end of the week, and, you know, sort of celebrate like, oh, wow, look at all this great stuff that's happening in the family. So it's small things like that, that can elevate it from just being like, Oh, this is a family meeting to Oh, wow, this is a special time that you get to come together.

Dawn Davenport  22:46  
Okay, yeah, I'm beginning to get that distinction now that the element of ritual is taking what could be a routine and making it, for lack of better words, a little more special, a little more. Yeah.

Speaker 1  22:59  
And it doesn't have to be even a lot to make it special. I mean, it really could be something as simple as, Okay, it's time for family meeting, we're going to light a candle. And we're going to sit quietly, meditate for a minute, we might say a prayer, we might turn on our special family song, you know, maybe you have a meeting and then you end it with your family song where you all get up and you have a little dance party. You know, like there's different ways to make it sacred and sacred doesn't necessarily have to mean serious, it can mean silly, fun and playful. To

Dawn Davenport  23:34  
Have you heard about our free courses that we offer thanks to the jockey being Family Foundation. They are on our learning platform, but as opposed to charging, they are all free. And thank you jockey being family. You can find them at Bitly slash j, b f support. And you choose the courses that you want. There are 12 They're excellent. Check them out. Bitly slash J B F support. Okay, we have been talking about examples of family rituals. Let's continue. The next one that I wanted to talk about is one that is near and dear to my heart because I absolutely love it. And that is game night. Or it could be game day for that matter of game morning. But nonetheless, let's talk about game night. Okay,

Speaker 1  24:23  
I have to ask them what are your favorite family games to play?

Dawn Davenport  24:26  
You know, that's a great question. We play a game almost every night at dinner and yes, I know everybody's ready. You've got to be kidding me at dinner. Yes, at dinner. We play a game lately. For many years now. It has been Mexican train. It's a domino game and that's we've gone through a lot of others. For me a good game with a large family of diverse ages and skills is one that is maybe 75% luck and 25% skill. Maybe 82 Woody along those, if you're trying to make it fit a lot of diversity, you need to have that so yes, that's my What is your favorite family game? Well,

Speaker 1  25:08  
it you know, it's it's changed obviously over the years when our daughter was little, you know, I wouldn't say it was my favorite but she loved playing Candyland. Oh my god, if I had to play one more game of this.

Dawn Davenport  25:20  
I just couldn't wait when I could finally get him to chutes and ladders which actually. It's like, Oh, please, can we just get rid of Candyland and move which is

Speaker 1  25:30  
really just as bad. But it was a step up from candy.

Dawn Davenport  25:35  
Even now, I would prefer chutes and ladders to Candyland. But go ahead. And never monopoly for me never monopoly. Oh my gosh, fact I got to the point where I refuse to play Monopoly. I just said no the rest of your play because I really don't like that game. So it's

Speaker 1  25:50  
funny. You mentioned monopoly, actually. So I have a memory of my own childhood. That is really stressful. And so before I share it, though, the one thing I want to preface is saying game nights are important not only because they're fun, but also because they teach kids about teamwork. They teach them about language skills, about math skills, they teach them about how to be good winners, and how to be good losers. So that's where my monopoly story comes in. So I remember I was maybe 10 years old, and my mom and dad and I were playing Monopoly, and I lost. And apparently, I was very angry about it. And I picked up all of the rest of my money, which probably wasn't much if I lost, but I picked it up and I routed across the table. The only time John that I remember getting sent to my room, but you know, such a great example that because I remember it because it's so clearly wasn't experience as my parents saying, that is not an acceptable way to lose. You know, when you lose, you lose graciously, you congratulate the other players, and you say, Well, you know, you did a better job than me. Maybe I'll do better next time. And so it was really I mean, I remember where it was, I remember the summer where Yeah, it was this time and like the money went everywhere. And my mom was like, go to your room. Like,

Dawn Davenport  27:15  
yeah, it sticks in your mind. Yes, it does.

Speaker 1  27:18  
But yeah, but it's that idea that these game nights, not only do they provide us with the connection, and the belonging, and the play, and the laughter and all of that, but it really does teach skills for kids to skills that they would get outside of the classroom.

Dawn Davenport  27:34  
And you may have to be effect, not May, you will, particularly as the adults have to be flexible. That Candyland example is a good one. My refusal to play Monopoly is another. Everybody needs to look forward to it. So finding the right game or games, and we have struggled with some of ours not wanting to shift to a new game and some of the others getting tired. And so trying to find a time again, it goes back to intentionality because it was important to us taking the one or ones that didn't want to change and make sure that they learned the new game felt comfortable with it, agree to take you know, we were going to give it a trial run that type of thing. It goes back to your intentionality. It's not as easy as just opening up a game because, well, if you have just one child, it probably could be because you just cater to whatever that child is wanting. But if you've got multiple kids, you've got to give some thought. So it has to be important. You have to value it. And so it takes some thought, and you may get stuck playing Candyland a lot longer than you choose.

Unknown Speaker  28:41  
But somehow we eventually grow out of it. Yes,

Dawn Davenport  28:43  
thank goodness. Thank goodness. You know, it doesn't have to even be table games. I mean, Twister is such a fun game to bring out with the family. And of course, the kids are far more limber than the parents. So it's a good. It's good to have games where the kids can be better than the parents. Yes. Twister is if you're up for it is a pretty good example of that. As funny I

Speaker 1  29:09  
was actually just going to mention Twister and the other one. I think charades is a really good one. Because it doesn't matter what age you are. We played that this summer with some cousins. And it was grandparents and parents and then the little kids and everybody was able to get engaged and have a blast with it. Plus you get creative with it.

Dawn Davenport  29:30  
I love charades. Yeah. And we do do that. There's a game called. It's not a game. It's a charades thing, but it's called gestures with electronic form of charades. And that's fun. And then you have to do depending on the age and depending on the temperament and personality of your family. You can all work together to be guessing. Yes. Or you can divide into teams. Yeah, yeah. Let's talk now about some of the gratitude rituals.

Speaker 1  30:01  
So one thing I learned many, many years ago, I had gone to visit some friends of mine at their home. And it was just the three of us. So it was a husband and wife and their five cats. And me, and they invited me to dinner. And when we sat down to eat, they said, Elizabeth, that we want to teach you about something that we do, instead of saying traditional grace, or, you know, clinking our glasses and saying, cheers. So what we'll do is reset and take a few moments. And we share what we're grateful for throughout the day. And it was such a beautiful practice, we probably took 10 minutes, I mean, our food was almost cold by the time I got to it. But each person took you know, three to four minutes and said, Wow, this happened. And that happened. And this person said this time thing to me. And I had this wonderful opportunity. And you know, wow, the sunset was beautiful. And it was such a lovely way to step into the evening time, and to sit down in community together. And so I have started incorporating that with my family as well. And then particularly when we have big gatherings, I remember one of the first things Givens that we went to many years ago with, you know, bigger family. And instead of just, you know, hey, let's dig in and eat the turkey and the cranberry sauce. It was hanging with everybody to go around the table and just say one thing you're grateful for today. And I had several family members come up to me afterwards, say, Elizabeth, that was such a cool idea. And I said, Well, it's not my idea, I got it from my friends. So that's certainly one you can do. Another of gratitude practice that I think I mentioned earlier, when we were talking is you can keep a gratitude jar. I had a client many years ago, who was struggling with her teenagers. And she felt like they were being ungrateful and entitled, and just sort of, you know, taking parents for granted. And I saw what would you start a gratitude jar? And she's like, well, what's that? And I said, Well, you know, you just take little pieces of paper, and you have a pen out and you have a little bowl or a jar, and you invite people throughout the week to write down something that they're grateful for that happened. So I think I shared that earlier, you know, so and so made my lunch. And so and so it was really nice to me. And then what you do is you review it each week as a family. And let me tell you, this client said there was a complete transformation with our teenagers. Because, you know, at first they grumbled and broke my arm when it does, you know, it's really stupid. But as the weeks went on, and she persisted in the note, this is something we're gonna do this is important, then they started to really get into it. And she said, it really started to shift the auditing. So that's another great one.

Dawn Davenport  32:50  
This would lead us right into discussing prayer, or meditation. Where did those fit as far as rituals?

Speaker 1  32:57  
Well, every family is obviously going to be different. You know, you talked earlier about bedtime routine. I know there's a lot of families that say prayers together. I have another friend years ago, they raised their family doing Transcendental Meditation. And so they meditate as a family together twice a day for 20 minutes, like, wow, how do you find time to do that, but they did. And their priority every morning and every. So I think prayer and meditation, it's obviously very personal, very intimate. Sometimes it's something that we do together. And sometimes it's also just saying, hey, separately, let's just be quiet together in the space. So they don't necessarily have to be verbalized prayers, necessarily, but just sort of being in that same space together. We talked earlier about, you know, in your family meeting, it could be lighting a candle, you know, you can light up a candle and just everybody sit quietly. So it's just that togetherness that matters. I

Dawn Davenport  33:52  
don't know if this would fall under ritual, but certainly something that was identifying for my family was travel, we were a family that loved to travel. And we made Sacra, we didn't, our kids didn't have some of the latest toys. But But we would point out that we're saving money for, you know, a two week trip this summer to do X or whatever. So how does travel fit into rituals?

Speaker 1  34:20  
Well, I'm a big proponent of travel, too. In fact, we always would say our number one family value is travel. And like you, you know, make it a priority. So no, we're not spending money on this gadget or this brand name clothing, because we're putting our money in the travel budget. So absolutely. I think it can be a ritual but again, it's about the intentionality behind it. Why are we choosing to go to a particular place? What are we going to do when we get there? You know, yes, maybe we'll say, see, we'll have fun, we'll relax. But can we make a ritual out of you know, we're always going to try, let's say, a new cuisine, you know, and what Whether you're traveling domestically or internationally, but it's like, Oh, can we try a new food from this region? Or can we try a new restaurant? Or maybe we go visit all of the local farmers, I think it's really about what is important to your family. And maybe one of your kids is a history buff. And so you say, Okay, we're going to make a point of it that whenever we go on a trip, we're gonna go find the historical site, and we're gonna let this child pick, which historical site are we going to go visit? Or maybe you have another one who's interested in science, and you say, Okay, we're gonna go find the coolest children's Science Museum. And we're going to make a point to do that. So again, I think it's about intentionality. And letting everybody have a voice, you know, not just having the parents, or the grandparents plan the trip and say, This is what we're going to do. But ask each member of the family, what do you want? What's important to

Dawn Davenport  35:51  
you? Yeah. So what are some other family rituals that you highlight in the book? Well,

Speaker 1  35:58  
some other ones, I think, one thing we haven't touched on yet is the idea of having a home or a family altar, particularly if you have had loved ones who have passed on, whether it's a grandparent, or maybe it could be a parent, or it could be a sibling, I think that having a special dedicated altar, to honor our ancestors can be a really lovely way to talk about where we come from people that we have known and loved to could be for pets, you know, if you have a dog, or a cat who's passed away, that can be a nice way to honor them. But I also think that family altar can just be a place to have everybody have sort of a central place where they can stop and pause throughout the day, maybe say a little prayer, maybe just kind of get resourced. You know, when we get so busy, and we're running everywhere, and we're stuck on our phones, and the kids are watching TV, it's like, Oh, I'm just gonna come stand in front of the altar, or sit in front of the altar for two or three minutes, and just get myself grounded. So it could be a place where when you go on a hike together on the weekend, you pick up, you know, a favorite rock, and you go, whew, I love this rock because of how it feels, or it's so pretty, and you place it on the altar. For little kids, it can be gathering leaves or acorns in the fall. If you go to the beach, you could pick up some shells. So you know, tying it into travel that we were just talking about, right? Like your home, could have a theme. So maybe in one family, it's all about travel, and another family, it's about, you know, honoring young Foster. So it's really about what feels good to you.

Dawn Davenport  37:44  
The other one, and we'll end with this one, because I think everybody's got the gist of what we're talking about. But what I did want to spend some time talking about volunteering, that one was very important to me, that we do that on some level, and that we do it together as a family. So if you could talk to us a bit about the volunteering ritual?

Speaker 1  38:04  
Absolutely, yes, I think as we all know that when we take our kids to volunteer, it helps them to appreciate the worlds that they inhabit. And it helps them to understand that there are other people who are in need of help and support. So whether it is, you know, volunteering at a homeless shelter, or serving soup at a soup kitchen, or maybe it's volunteering at the local animal shelter, because you know, the puppies and dogs that are there don't have any love, and they need some extra attention. But I think volunteering really helps our kids to connect with the world around us and to our community. And what it does to is it helps them to realize, wow, things are actually pretty good at home. Because, you know, a lot of times they'll say, oh, you know, I don't have this, or I don't have that, or my friends all have this, or they have that or they do this and they do that. And then it allows them to get some perspective and say, wow, you know, actually our family is pretty great. We really love and care for each other. And we're connected. So yeah, I think the volunteering piece is huge. What what kinds of things did you do with your kids volunteer wives,

Dawn Davenport  39:18  
when they were younger one that we did that, I'm assuming would still be allowed, I don't know, was we went to a local nursing home and ask if there was someone who and I was specific, they needed to be someone who was still cognitively able to carry on conversations and things. And we stopped by after school on Thursdays. And this was my two younger children because the older ones were busy with after school activities. But we would stop by and visit Miss Mamie. We didn't do it every week. It started off every week and then it got to be every other week. I think our children still remember this and I think it was him. work. So yeah, that's an example of one. What's an example of volunteering that you have done with your family?

Speaker 1  40:05  
I know last year, so we just moved to a new city. And last year, one of the local churches sponsored a holiday caroling bus to her. And so they got a bunch of the members of the church and we actually weren't a member, but we were invited to go join them. And we went around and visited a lot of the nursing homes, and independent living and my daughter just love that because, you know, to see these older folks, and that, you know, they were just get the biggest smiles on their faces as all these kids came in and started singing to them. And it was really fun. So we're gonna plan to do that again this

Dawn Davenport  40:44  
year. As you can tell audience there are so many opportunities and you need to fit it to where your kids interest to is, you know, that's, that's part of it. You guys have heard me say this before, but this show is dependent upon the support of our partners and our partners are agencies that believe in our mission of education and support, unbiased education, I should say as well. One of our longest partners is hopscotch adoptions. They are a Hague accredited international adoption agency, and they place kiddos from Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Ghana, Guiana, Morocco, Pakistan, Serbia, and Ukraine. And they specialize in the placement of kids with special needs, including Down syndrome. They also do a lot of kinship adoptions for kin in the US or trying to adopt relatives in one of those countries. They place kids throughout the US, and they offer home study services and post adoption services to residents of North Carolina and New York. All right, alright, let's end on talking about rituals that are directly connected to adoption. And we can throw in fostering as well. I know a lot of people want to celebrate this as for adoption, the day their child joined their family, and that's one that takes some, as a parent, one has to be very aware, is this a day that your child wants to celebrate? Because let's be honest, there's loss associated with that. Even an infant adoption, there is the loss of birth family. And whereas a four year old doesn't get that an eight 910 1112 year old, 16 year old, this might not be a day of celebration, but there are still ways that one could ritualize it. And the ritual can include both the gain as well as the loss. What are your thoughts on that type of ritual?

Speaker 1  42:43  
I absolutely love what you're saying there about this dawn, because I think that when we talk about ritual, it doesn't always have to be about sort of celebration and joy and delight and happiness. Rituals are also about honoring, they're about honoring the care about witnessing, they're about recognizing pain, loss, grief, suffering, trauma, all of that. And with many things in life, it's a both and right, like, we can be happy that we're a part of this new family. And we can honor and acknowledge the fact that wow, I am separated from my family of biology. And that's really sad and devastating. I remember growing up as an adoptee every year on my birthday, even though my mom made a big deal of it, she would always say there's a young woman out there in front of you this day, every year. And you know, eventually I was able to meet my biological mom, but it as a child, it made me positive. Wow, she is out there.

Dawn Davenport  43:44  
Right. So it's actually bringing that. And your mother was also very wisely sending the signal to you that this is not a subject that you have to avoid with me. I have not threatened by talking about your birth mom. So kudos to your mom. Yes,

Speaker 1  44:00  
yes. Well, and actually, and thank you for saying that she informed my parenting. So I remember when my daughter turned seven. And even though we had showed her pictures of her biological mother, when she was younger, she didn't like possess one. And so she asked me she's a mom for my birthday. I'd like a picture of my birth mom. And so we gave it to her and we sat we talked about her. So every year our daughter's birthday, we always say extra prayers and blessings for a birth mom. And we're actually now in reunion with her biological father and have them for a couple years. And so he now actually gets to become part of her birthday celebrations, which means

Dawn Davenport  44:42  
and that's an interesting ritual to incorporating birth family. Yes. During important milestones in your child's life. That's another ritual. Yes,

Speaker 1  44:52  
if it's a positive and healthy relationship, absolutely right. As we know that's so important for them. Use kids. And whether it's actually being in relationship with them in real life or just simply talking about them. Or maybe if there's a connection, but they're not in person, you know, maybe it's exchanging letters or gifts or having a phone call, but certainly any way to incorporate them, you know, I Oh, the way I look at it, as you know, the more people to love my child, the better.

Dawn Davenport  45:20  
Are there any other specific rituals that you've thought about and included for adoptive or foster families, families who are formed and not through birth? I

Speaker 1  45:32  
actually wanted to circle back to you talked about the gotcha days, and then we kind of got a little sidetrack there that the one thing about the gotcha there is, if it is something that the family decides, Okay, yes, we do want to celebrate this is to really go back to that day, when the family was formed. I have some friends who traveled to China to adopt their daughter, they already had twin boys here in the US. And then they traveled to China to adopt their daughter, what they call their the third to make their triplets. And that day, apparently, when the united with her, they all took the kids to go get soft vanilla ice cream, you know, like the kind we used to get at Carvel when we were kids, and now these kids are in college. But every year on that day, they all go and get soft vanilla ice cream cones. And that's like, that's their gotcha day ritual. And again, it's such a simple thing. But what it does is it takes them back to the place, it takes them back to that moment, it takes them back to that wonder, wow, this is when we solidified and cemented our connection as

Dawn Davenport  46:40  
well, that leads us directly and to the TIPS section, because one of the tips you just gave was don't make it too complex if you're setting up rituals for your family. And I have this tendency to try to add more and more and more. And the weight of all the more can sometimes collapse the event the ritual. So it seems to me that's an excellent one, which is it doesn't have to be elaborate to achieve the goals of family rituals, which is defining who you are and what you do, and the culture of your family. So any other tips?

Speaker 1  47:17  
Well, one we had talked about sort of throughout is asking for input, you know, asking for each member of the family to talk about what they want, what's important to them, what matters to them, and making sure that you're incorporating that in the rituals. And then I think consistency is really key, sort of what you were talking about at the beginning about routines and habits that we have. Consistency is really key. And so for something to really become a ritual is something that you want to do on a regular basis. It doesn't have to be daily or weekly. But something like every year we do this or Every quarter we do this, or you know, as I talked about, like every time someone turns a certain age in the family, then they get this special thing. So

Dawn Davenport  48:03  
I would agree if it's going to become a ritual, it has to be consistent. That sounds great. Well, thank you so much, Elizabeth Barber, for being with us today. Her book is sacred celebrations, designing rituals to navigate life's milestones, transitions. I love the idea of rituals. And I think that all of our families can benefit from that. And it's also fun. So there you go. Thank you for joining us today everyone and I will see you next week.