Create New Family Traditions in 15 Minutes (Or Less!)

Why Are Family Traditions So Important?

In short, because they anchor us. Family traditions give us a sense of place and time. They take us from just knowing that it’s Christmas, or the 4th of July, or Friday night, to experiencing it.

Have you ever had a holiday where you didn’t do what you normally do? Maybe you went on vacation instead of to Grandma’s house. I’ll bet anything that you (or someone next to you) said, “It just doesn’t feel like Christmas this year.”

That is the power of family traditions.

They create a sense of order within the year. And they help us continue to look forward to the next thing!

Are Family Traditions Only for Holidays?

No! Family traditions are usually associated with the big holidays, like Christmas and Thanksgiving, but you can have traditions for every day of the week if you wanted!

Some examples of how to build family traditions into your weekly life would be Friday-night-pizza-night, or having family game night on Sunday evenings. Even week-night dinners can turn into family traditions!

Of course, there are also birthdays, and smaller holidays, like Valentine’s Day or Father’s Day, that lend themselves pretty naturally to family traditions, as well.

Family Traditions and Childhood Memories

Family traditions may be the easiest way to hardwire happy childhood memories into your kids.

Human memory is endlessly fascinating, but in general, we tend to remember the things that either happened all the time or the things that are so unique and important (for better or for worse) that they leave an indelible imprint on our minds.

Family traditions can actually hit both those categories. A simple tradition, like singing “Happy Birthday” can be something that happens all the time (like at every birthday) and something that is unique and important (think of how special you feel when everyone is singing to you on your birthday, especially as a kid!).

Memory and the 5 Senses

Our 5 senses are also very important in creating those memories. When something happens to heighten our senses, it tends to alert our minds that something important is going on. It also creates additional ‘points’ on our ‘memory maps’ (aka neural networks) that help strengthen the staying power of that memory.

So it would make sense that a childhood memory that goes beyond the base of making an emotional connection would become more likely to stick around for the long-term. Playing a game with your family can be a great memory. But if there’s some music in the background, laughter, or even the smell of homemade cookies in the oven? And if you do that weekly? That’s the recipe for a long-term memory- and your kid remembering their childhood as a happy one.

How to Start New Family Traditions

Using this free printable, and the examples of family traditions below can make it easy.

Create a Family Tradition in Just 15 Minutes

Grab a timer and a notebook. Let’s go!

Minutes 0:00-2:00- Who

Who is this family tradition for? Is it everyone, or is it just one parent and one of the kids? Maybe it’s for the whole extended family. Deciding who will be involved will set the stage for the rest of the family tradition.

Example: This tradition is about the kids- either or both parents will be just fine.

Minutes 2:01-4:00- When and Where

Is this going to be a daily, weekly or holiday/event-based tradition? Or maybe it’s more on an as-needed basis? Then choose where this will occur. Knowing whether this is something that you want to occur in the kid’s bedroom, the car or the kitchen will determine a lot about how many other factors you can incorporate.

Example: This is going to be a tradition around coming home from school and transitioning to the evening. I’m not sure I’ll have enough bandwidth to do this every day, so I’m going to start with just Friday after-school. This will generally be at home, although it could vary on special occasions.

Minutes 4:01-6:00: Taste

Will there be a taste specifically associated with this tradition? This would definitely be the category to consider if your family tradition will include food (like birthday cake!).

Example: I’d love to have a ‘predictable’ treat, but balance it with something healthy. Cheese and crackers are an easy treat, and maybe even have a bowl of m&ms out, too!

Minutes 6:01-8:00: Touch

Touch can mean so many things! Touch can include anything from a sprinkler, to a hug to a sensory bin. Is there a specific blanket, or even a secret handshake involved in this family tradition?

Example: A big bear hug is going to be part of this tradition- and mandatory if they want candy! (I’m only sorta kidding!)

Minutes 8:01-10:00: Smell

Smells are the sense that is most closely associated with our memory, because the olfactory bulb (aka the smell center in the brain) is physically the closest to the hippocampus, where memory is processed and stored. Although it can be a weird thing to spend a minute thinking about, try not to overlook it just for that sake.

Example: I could make cookies every week, but honestly that sounds like it could be too much of a commitment for me. I’m more likely to buy a certain scent of a candle, and only have it lit on Friday afternoons.

Minutes 10:01-12:00: Sight

Sight is where you can include any decorations you might put up. You can also consider what the lighting might be like- dim for bedtimes, pitch-black for movie nights, and natural lighting for outdoor activities!

Example: For a weekly Friday-fun-day I’m not planning to have any decorations. Maybe eventually I’ll pick a certain bowl and or plate in my cupboard, or a fun one from a thrift store, and have it be the official snack-plate and/or candy bowl of Fun Fridays.

Minutes 12:01-14:00: Hear

I love using the senses as a way to guide your thoughts about starting new family traditions because it’s such a wide-open guideline! ‘Hearing’ is no different! Whether it’s a question (like “what are you thankful for?” during Thanksgiving dinner) or certain music (Christmas, anyone?), incorporating it into your family traditions can lead to even stronger memories.

Example: My kids aren’t natural ‘talkers’, so to help draw them out, I’d like to start with questions. We could either do the standard, “What was the best and worst part of your week?” or we could use our box of dinner questions. Maybe I’ll eventually get around to making a playlist of some upbeat oldies I know they won’t hear anywhere else.

Minute 14:01-15:00: Bring it all together

Take a (literal) minute to review everything you wrote down, and bring it all together. Pick one or two things to start with, and then build it up from there! Star those, and then you can even write dates (like 1 month from now, next year, whatever works for you) so that you know you’ll be back for it.

Example: I’m coming up with a Fun Friday for my kids to highlight the transition home from school for the weekend. We’ll have a simple snack of cheese and crackers, with a special treat (like bagged candy), and everyone will get a big bear hug when they come home. Everyone can share their highlights and low points from the week.

Once I get that going strong, I’ll get a candle and light it just on Fridays (like in the kitchen, not like I’m trying to set a mood or something). I’ll also keep my eyes open for a snack plate/candy bowl. And maybe make a fun playlist when I have some downtime!

The Importance of Family Traditions

Family traditions are one of the best tools you have to create that indescribable sense of family.

Traditions give a kid a sense of time within the year, and keep them looking forward to the small things. They also build a sense of place for them within the family, and help them feel like they are rooted and belong. And as a bonus- they keep that childhood energy alive for you, too!

In short, “The traditions we create today will be the memories our children cherish in the future.”

What family traditions do you have? Are there any you’re excited to start? Leave your comments below!

How To Motivate A Child or Teen

How to Motivate a Child or Teen

Ahhhhhhhhh. Internally motivated kids. That’s the dream, right?

Because, wouldn’t it be great if your kid wanted to do their chores and clean their room? Or if they would do their homework without you ever reminding them? What if you never had to nag them to practice piano or free-throws ever again?!

But it doesn’t have to remain a fantasy. You can help your child develop their internal motivation. Which will not only help you, but is an incredibly important part of excelling in adulthood! (So maybe they’ll actually move out one day!)

But First, What is Internal Motivation?

(Ok, bear with me while I geek out for a minute 😋)

Intrinsic motivation theory (the psychological study for all things related to internal motivation) suggests that people engage in some activities purely for the internal reward. There are things that we do, simply because they’re enjoyable to us. They fulfill our sense of competence, independence and/or connectedness.

In contrast, external (or extrinsic) motivation would be doing something for a reward outside of ourselves; like praise, money, or fame.

A kid who is internally motivated does something for the internal reward it brings; a sense of accomplishment, or the sense that volunteering brings them closer to their community, or even the peace that comes from ‘doing their part.’

Steps for How to Motivate A Child

1. Figure out what motivates them.

Sure, you want them to do well in school, but clearly that’s not resonating with them. Look deeper into what’s driving them right now; what psychological need are they trying to fulfill? Are they a kid who loves to learn and will dive deep about topics that are interesting, even if it has nothing to do with school? (Competence) Or are they always trying to find a way to be different from the norm? (Independence) Use that knowledge to reframe why they would want to do well in school.

2. Help your kid develop their identity.

You can help motivate a child by assisting them in defining their identity. Use their behaviors that point towards what drives them (the ones you identified in step 1), to help them identify that as part of their identity. “I am a person who loves to learn” or “I am a person who values individualism.” Essentially, here you are helping them define some of their values. And a value-driven personal is functioning on internal motivation.

3. Find Their “Why”

We need to figure out why this would be a meaningful task for them to accomplish for themselves, rather than for someone else. Depending on the developmental age of your kid*, this would be an awesome conversation to have. (Usually, the most direct way to these answers is to just ask!)These examples of internal motivation would be a great place to dig in. For example, if your trying to motivate your child in sports, you can help them kid see the difference between practicing their free-throw because they simply enjoy basketball, (or the act of mastering a new skill) or because Coach said they had to practice.

Quick Note

If you have a kid who hasn’t hit the age of reason or meta-cognition yet (approximately 8ish, but it’ll vary pretty widely) then I would just sprinkle in little sentences throughout the day like, “You seem really proud of the Lego creation you built- I love that you enjoy the process of creating so much!” It may seem small, but after years of hearing how they’ve enjoyed being creative, it’s going to imprint on their brain, and one day that’ll come right back to them, “Oh yeah, I’m someone who loves to create!” That’s when you can help them explore if they like creating new recipes, stories, or even larger projects that are masquerading as homework.

Once your kid hits tween years, I stop trying to be ‘sneaky’ with this sort of conversation, and just talk to them like their adults. They may not understand or process it all completely on an adult level, but it’s a great way to model conversation, and they’ll appreciate the respect.

4. How do you motivate an unmotivated child? Find the hook.

Use those psychological needs that they’re trying to meet, and use those to your advantage. Maybe they’re really working towards connectedness at this moment; some kids balk at homework and studying due to the isolation they feel while they’re doing it. In that case, maybe hosting a study group at your house with kids in their class would help your child do more of their homework during that time?

5. Use personality quizzes!

There’s no denying that personality quizzes are fun to take! Gretchen Rubin, of The Happiness Project, developed a whole personality quiz, called the 4 Tendancies , with the specific tagline, “One of the daily challenges of life is: “How do I get people- including myself- to do what I want?” It’s a great resource for learning how to motivate unmotivated kids, utilizing their personality (especially for older kids/teens who have developed a more stable personality).

Essentially, you’re helping them understand and harness the power of their unique disposition towards why they will do something. According to Gretchen, there are 4 categories of people, Upholder, Obliger, Questioner or Rebel.

So, for example, if my teenager took this quiz, and it told him that he’s a Questioner, we would understand that his drive to know why is very deep, and he will only tend to do things once he understands the purpose and it makes sense to him. That definitely gives us something to work with when we’re trying to internally motivate a child!

6. Tie small facts into the process.

Fun fact- learning small, new, novel facts hits your brain the same way that scrolling Facebook for new information does. It gives us a tiny hit of dopamine, and lights up the reward centers in our brains.

So, learning tiny, interesting facts is a very rewarding process, (although understanding it as a reward is fairly subconscious). Essentially, it will complete the loop in the brain that says, “I just did something, where’s my reward” without offering an external reward.

To use this tip, just keep it simple and tell your kid that after they complete whatever task you’re trying to get them to do, you will tell them a fun fact! (Or a weird fact, or a gross fact. You know your kid best. Use this to your advantage.)

While technically this fact could be about anything, bonus points for making the topic relevant to what they’re working on. (Ie: you want your kid to make their bed every day? Arm yourself with weird bed facts, like that the spring mattress was invented in Germany in 1871)

Avoid This Trap If You Want to Raise A Self-Motivated Child

If you want to self-motivate your child, The one thing NOT to do: DO NOT GIVE AN EXTERNAL REWARD! It’s a trap. You think you can reward a task, create a positive association, and then remove the reward. It makes sense. It follows everything we’ve been taught in Psych 101 and that we know about Pavlov and his famous drooling dogs. But I repeat, it’s a trap! (And yes, as a mom of 3 boys, I really want to put a Star Wars joke here. But I digress…)

What really happens when we reward the completed task is that our children are now working towards an external reward. Things like praise, ice cream, or even gold stars are all external rewards. Which is kind of the exact opposite of what we were going for. It seems like a great short-cut, even like common sense, but the result will be an externally motivated child, not an internally motivated one.

Now You Know How to Motivate A Child

These steps will work for whatever reason you have for needing to motivate a child. Whether they need motivated to work on school and learn, or to practice music or sports, these steps are universal. They’ll even help a kid who may seem unmotivated, stubborn, or even lazy.

The trick is as simple and challenging as finding what makes our kids tick, and using that to their advantage.

[bctt tweet=”The trick to motivating our kids is as simple- and challenging- as finding what makes our kids tick, and using that to their advantage.”]

Becoming an adult means doing the hard and unfulfilling tasks, even if you don’t want to. So helping your kid find (and use) internal motivation is a key part to helping them become a successful, independent adult.

What are you trying to motivate your child to do? Share in the comments below!

7 Games to Get Kids to Open Up and Talk to You

7 Games and Activities to Get Kids to Open Up and Talk to You

I’ve been using games to get kids to open up for over a decade now. And let me tell you- they work!

It’s pretty much a guarantee that I will ask myself on a daily basis, “How can I communicate better with my son?” (I have 3 boys, so communication always needs to be tweaked with someone.)

Exhibit A- I used to go in and pick my 4-year-old up from preschool. I’d hear all about his day from the teachers, and find out about what crafts they made or what books they read. Then we would get back in the car to go home.

“How are you, sweetie? How was preschool? Did you have a good time?”

“Mom that’s too many questions!”

That’s literally what my 4-year-old said to me. “That’s too many questions.” 3 questions was too many.

He’s never been what you might call a ‘talker.’ But I knew right then that this was truly going to be an uphill battle just to stay informed about what was going on in his life.

And as a family therapist, this drives me particularly nuts. I talk to kids for a living! So I thought I’d have it all figured out with my own kids. HA! Luckily, as a therapist, I have a few tricks up my sleeve. There are LOTS of games to get kids to open up!

Communication is Key

True, some kids just don’t like to talk. But that doesn’t mean that we’re free as parents to not communicate with them. In fact, I believe it raises the stakes on the need for communication.

As a parent, it’s my responsibility to know about the basics of what’s going on in his life. So when he’s four, that means knowing what he did at preschool. I need to know who he’s playing with at free-time, and how he’s getting along with his teachers, and generally what he’s learning so I can help supplement when (or if) necessary. The things I’ll need to know about him will change as he grows and becomes more independent, and as my role in his life slowly shifts.

I also see it as my responsibility to be the best parent I can be for him. Which means being responsive to his needs and connecting with him. And it’s nearly impossible to connect with a kid (or anyone!) who won’t open up to you! Seriously, if you asked, “So tell me about your day,” and the guy answered, “It was ok,” how long would that date last?!

Being responsive to our kids is one of the basic measures of being an Authoritative parent. It’s pretty much the gold standard of parenting, and backed-up with lots of research. You might want to check out this article if you want to learn more about Authoritative parenting.

How Do I Get My Kid to Talk to Me?

So how do you get your kids to actually talk to you? Fair question. Let’s start by setting ourselves up for success.

1. Don’t Require Eye-Contact When Talking About Big Things

Kids can often struggle with face to face conversation, especially if they’re more introverted, have a history of trauma, or have diagnoses like Depression, ADHD, Anxiety or Autism. But it can be tough for any kid to look a parent in the eye, especially when having conversations about ‘big’ things. (Their definition will vary from yours.) So don’t make it a requirement here if you can help it.

2. Know Their Development

It’s critical to know what your child is capable of understanding and discussing. Kids with various developmental delays may also have a delay in metacognition (thinking about thinking). So they may truly struggle to answer the question, “What were you thinking about when that happened?” Kids with ADHD will struggle to focus on the conversation for a long period of time.

Know your kid, and what they’re capable of. If you’re unsure, you can do a quick Google search, or talk to your pediatrician about it. You can get a PhD in child cognitive development, so I can’t even begin to do it justice here.

Games and Activities to Get Your Kid to Talk To You

These games are so simple, it’s easy to overlook their power. Some of them are games in the typical sense of the word, and some of these are ways to turn the conversation (or your approach to it) itself into a game!

1. Try Having a Conversation with Them While They’re in the Car

This is a time-tested ‘game.’ Chances are that your parents may have even used it on you! Simply starting the conversation in the car takes away your kid’s concern about seeing your reaction when they tell you something. So it’s much easier for them to open up that way!

2. Don’t Talk About Them

Start by talking about someone else; take the roundabout path, don’t direct the conversation AT them. Try asking a question like, “I haven’t heard about your friend in a while- how are they doing?” If you let them steer the conversation, starting from a non-threatening place, it might just wind up back where you were hoping. Warning- this option is kind of a long-game.

3. Talk Over Card Games and Easy Board Games

Chances are, these are the ones already in your cupboard. You want to choose ones that don’t take a lot of mental bandwidth so that your kid can think about the game AND be able to talk to you still. Board games like Trouble or Chutes and Ladders are great for this. So are card games like Go Fish or War. (These card holders make it so much easier for little hands, or limited fine motors skills to play along!)

4. Let Your Kid Fidget with Something

Letting your child fuss with something in their hands while they talk is a great strategy to help kids open up. A fidget, clay, theraputty, or play-doh or can serve two functions. First, it’ll help draw the eye-contact away, which helps with potentially awkward conversations. Second, it helps occupy that impulsive or distractable part of the brain, which means your child might actually be able to attend to what you’re saying!

5. 20 Questions

An oldie, but a goodie, for a reason. If you’re really trying to get them to open up about a specific topic, like, how to get your child to talk about school, this is a great game to play. You can start with a broad question- something like, “What was your favorite part of school today?” And if you’re like most parents of reluctant talkers, you’ll get a response of anything from “I dunno” to complete silence. Then, just ask if you can turn it into a fun game of 20 Questions! (Or even 10 Questions depending on their attention and development level!) The best part is that you’ll get collateral information while you’re on your way to finding out the answer!

6. Turn Dinner Into A Game

To say that talking to our kids about school is like pulling teeth is an understatement. Our older son is extremely private, and all information is deemed to be either something we ‘should’ already know, or something we don’t need to know. Our other kids are both receiving speech therapy- so I completely understand what it’s like to sit at a table with people who won’t- or can’t- talk to you!

Using “Dinner Questions” -at least that’s what we call them in our house- has been a really nice way to communicate with our boys. I think there’s something about the fact that the questions don’t technically come from mom and dad that they appreciate. My husband and I take turns answering the questions, too- which I think contributes to the draw of the dinner questions. (Here’s a link to the ones we have in our home- they’ve been good for an age range of about 4 -5 and older.)

We also instituted the “Roses and Thorns” (basically, what were the good or bad parts of your day) question at dinner time, which has gone surprisingly well. The four-year-old can’t quite answer such an open-ended question. But the 8-year-old has been really open with us! Even to the point of letting us know about friend troubles I’m confident we never would’ve learned about otherwise.

7. Using a Mom and Me Journal

I’m totally saving the best for last here. I absolutely LOVE journaling as a communication tool. And there are so many formats you could use that will help your child open up. It could be as simple as having a composition notebook that you pass back and forth. Or you could use a journal with prompts to get the creative juices flowing. You could choose to write about your days, or write fictional stories together. The options are truly endless!

Thoughts on Using Games to Get Kids to Open Up

A kid’s job is to play. The more we ‘gameify’ things, the more we are reaching down to their level to connect. Play and imagination are so real and so necessary to their development that it’s often the best place to find out about what’s really going on in their lives. It’s why there’s an entire branch of therapy dedicated to play! (ie: play therapy)

So when you use one of the activities or games to help your kid open up and talk to you, you’re sending a signal of unconditional acceptance to your kiddo; that you’ll meet them where they are. Not to mention, you’re also doing some very smart parenting! And when they feel connected to you, and you feel good about your parenting, the communication is only going to keep flowing!

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