Eat Together, Grow Together Rituals Can Help Families Cope With Onslaught Of Modern Life, Author Says

The television blares during dinner. Jobs demand long hours. Computers and other gadgets are swiping valuable hours in any given day. Most American families, struggling to define themselves, are adrift in a confusing, fast-paced world, says William Doherty, a family psychologist and author.

“We are in a kind of place where we are sobered by the family changes. We are sobered by how men and women are doing together and how the kids are doing. I think people now are looking at what they can put back into their families (rather than looking) at the family as a place to just pursue individual happiness,” Doherty says.

To build strong family ties that can withstand the onslaught of contemporary American life, families need to intentionally create ways to come together, says Doherty. Without those rituals, he says, families go along aimlessly, eventually drifting apart.

That is why he has written “The Intentional Family” (Addison-Wesley, $22), which describes rituals families can create to help strengthen their ties. The rituals range from everyday events such as family meals and bedtime routines to celebrating Christmas and other family-oriented holidays. They also include connecting families to the communities where they live.

The rituals, Doherty says, will help families build a center where members work toward the family’s common needs. They also help members share a family identity, build values and have a sense of predictability, things that Doherty says often become tossed aside in the modern world.

While families once constituted a traditional husband and wife and their offspring, families in modern times take many forms and shapes, he says.

“Every generation has had its consequences and its rules about what is a good family and a good marriage,” he says. “This is the first time where we don’t have that. We have begun to ask where is the core of the family.”

When couples first date, Doherty says, their relationship becomes built around rituals. Some may adopt a certain way of saying goodbye at the end of a phone conversation. A couple may have a favorite song, restaurant or other ways that connect them.

“People in love have all these rituals they create together,” he says. “Then you get married, have a kid and stop doing this.”

Doherty suggests that couples find a way to connect with each other each day. For years, he says, he and his wife have had coffee alone together for 15 minutes after dinner.

When it comes to children, he says, rituals can help parents carve out time for each individual child as well as help build pleasant childhood memories. A bedtime ritual of bath and story time allows a child to expect some time alone with a parent. An expected Thanksgiving gathering of extended family helps the child establish a sense of connection.

Other rituals involve connecting to the community, Doherty says. When families belong to a church or synagogue, when they volunteer together or even organize a block party, families instill in children a set of values as well as benefit from the support of others.

In Doherty’s own life, routines subtly have turned into rituals. When his two children were younger, the family decided one Saturday to go out for pizza.

Soon the family was heading to the pizza parlor every Saturday. The children looked forward to the day and the parents began to notice a certain relaxed air during family conversations.

But one Saturday at the restaurant, Doherty’s then-9-year-old son asked to play video games before the pizza arrived.

“We told him, ‘No, this is family time,”’ Doherty says. “It was then I realized that this had become a ritual. I don’t think my son was pleased at first, but he shrugged it off. I think he came to enjoy it as much as we did.”

Turning routines into rituals or creating rituals from scratch takes time, discussion and patience, says Doherty.

When a family member decides to create ritual, he suggests that parents discuss together what it is they would like to achieve. Children, especially older children, can voice their thoughts on an idea. Instead of imposing a ritual on others, he says, propose an experiment. And expect some resistance.

“You can say something like, ‘Let’s just try a few weeks without the television on during dinner and see what happens,”’ he says. “I always think you don’t have a ritual until you lost it and then regained it, so people shouldn’t be discouraged if something doesn’t take right away.”

Families also need to maintain a sense of flexibility, he says. Children outgrow some rituals. Other household changes such as birth, divorce, death and remarriage may wreak havoc on long-standing traditions.

“My wife and I still have coffee together although the kids are gone,” he says about his ritual. “There’s something bonding in knowing that.”

Doherty says people shouldn’t expect rituals to solve deep-seated family problems. What they do instead is help ease both external and internal family tensions, he says.

“There is so much pressure on families and we have these high expectations,” Doherty says. “There seems to be a movement of creating marriage education programs and classes where communication skills and problem solving can be taught.

“Rituals won’t teach you those things. But it does help to build good will that you can draw from so that you can confront all these things together.”