Family Traditions

What makes holidays, birthdays and any other significant day on your calendar different from the other days of the week? Traditions.

The Christmas tree can be a beautiful tradition,
especially when you teach the symbolism
behind it and the various decorations.

This was particularly clear to me when I lived in Korea for two years. Korea had been a Buddhist dominant culture for many centuries. Christianity had only become a significant part of their civilization in the last fifty years or so. To this day, I think only half of the people consider themselves Christian. So as you can imagine, Christmas was not as big a holiday as it was here in the US. Easter was the same way.

The Fourth of July, the fourth Thursday in November and many other holidays were understandably not celebrated because they hold no significance for the Korean people.

They do have a Chinese New Year, and their own Day of Harvest celebration, which were big holidays. Each was complete with special foods prepared just for the occasion. They would have games, songs, and stories they tell on those days. And best of all, they would spend the day with their families. Sound familiar?

Why are Traditions Important?

No matter where you live, traditions play an important part in our lives. For example:

·         With all the changes a new college student goes through, their first Thanksgiving or Christmas back is usually really special. It reminds them of years before and reestablishes a familiar element in their world of change and often instability.

·         For newlyweds trying to figure out their own traditions, they can decide together what traditions they will keep. It can be a union of the best concepts and practices from both families. They can create their own traditions that are important to them. This is part of establishing their own identity as a new family.

·         For more established families, traditions offer an opportunity to teach. Parents can discuss how they observe that holiday and the reasons behind the traditions. Traditions help teach kids about reverence, honor and beliefs.

The traditions I remember best were centered around family. I would run with my dad on Thanksgiving morning. I loved the noisy conversation around our Thanksgiving feast. I cherished singing Christmas songs around the piano with my family. I looked forward to playing games through the night with my family on New Year’s Eve.

These events and many others helped develop strong family ties that continue to be strong today. I want those ties to be equally strong for the next generation, so Catie and I are creating or continuing family centered traditions for our family.

Traditions are a great way to teach our family. When we take time to discuss why we celebrate Thanksgiving and then discuss what we are thankful for, we help teach our kids to be grateful. When we focus our Christmas traditions around Christ, we teach our kids to focus on Christ and not on Santa. When we focus on Christ at Easter, we teach our kids to hope for Salvation because the Tomb was empty.

The opposite is true too. If we center all of our traditions on whimsical ideas, we shouldn’t be surprised when our kids are disappointed by those traditions in the future. (Just wanted to throw that out as food for thought.)

Everyday Traditions

Traditions don’t just apply to holidays. Sabbath observance can be a tradition in a way. In the Ten Commandments, the Lord said to keep the Sabbath holy. The Jews then created a long list of laws and rules for the Sabbath. Nowadays, what we do on the Sabbath each week is largely up to us. For my family growing up, we went to church, spent time together as a family and mostly kept the TV off. We often wore our “Sunday best” all day to help us remember what day it was. We also had a tradition of reading the scriptures and praying together as a family each day. The overriding lesson I learned through all of this was that God and family are so important we set aside time each day and then a whole day each week to spend with them.

Now Catie and I are trying to establish our own traditions. We travel to see family. We tell the story of Pilgrims at Thanksgiving and count our blessings. We focus on Christ and emphasis that Santa’s giving is a symbol of the gifts the wise men brought to the Christ Child. We read the scriptures and pray together every day. We want the traditions we keep to reflect our values.

What traditions do you remember best from your youth? What are your favorite traditions now?

Next week: Christ in Christmas

Family Virtues – Optimism

"Whether You Think You Can or Can't,
You're Right"--Henry Ford

At a previous place of employment, we had a team building activity that taught a lot about the groups effects on our performance. The leader of the session (we’ll call her Jane) picked a young woman (we’ll call her Abby) to leave the room. After Abby left, Jane told all of us to think very negative thoughts about Abby and mentally tell her she couldn’t do the task she would be given. Then Jane went out into the hall and got Abby and asked her to try to lift up her arm while Jane tried to hold it down.

She couldn’t do it. No one said a thing, but we all hoped she wouldn’t be able to do it.

Jane asked Abby, who was feeling a little embarrassed, to leave again. Then Jane asked all of us to think of all the good qualities in Abby, and mentally encourage her to do the task. We agreed and Abby once again was brought into the room. She was asked to pick up her arm while Jane tried to hold it down.

This time Abby was able to do it with little problem. Again, we didn’t say anything, but we knew she could do it. (Besides, she was a stubborn farm girl, she wasn’t going to fail twice. :)

Now I must admit, it’s easy to dismiss this because Jane might have just not pushed as hard, or Abby was more prepared the second time around. But aren’t we more capable when those around us encourage and believe in us? Am I the only one who falters more often when everyone around me expects it?

Specialists from Clemson University wrote an article titled, “Building Family Strengths: Optimism.” In it, Debora Thomason, Ed.D. and Brenda Thames, Ed.D. define optimism as the energy that fuels your thoughts, feelings and actions based on the difference between your expectations and your perceptions of a situation.”

So when we are optimistic about the future, we will have a positive energy in our actions moving forward. If we are optimistic about those around us, we will have positive energy in our feelings towards them.

Optimism isn’t just a good idea. It really does have a lasting impact on families. Researchers from University of California-Davis and Dixie State College wanted to find how optimism impacted those that were prone to economic pressures and early life struggles. They interviewed single African American mothers and their children from Iowa and Georgia. They conducted the interviews four times over 9 years, starting in 1997.

While I won’t go into the whole study (you can read it here), here are some highlights.

·   Mothers that were optimistic tended to be more effective with managing their children.

·   While all the mothers had internalizing symptoms (the research doesn’t explain what that means, but I think it’s when they really believe they are less of a person because of their problems) when economic pressures were high, those that were highly optimistic were significantly better at dealing with internalizing and were more effective parents.

·   Optimism was most impactful when economic struggles were highest, and least impactful when finances were good.

To me, this means believing in our kids and helping them believe in themselves, actually helps us manage our kids better. I also learned from this research that economic pressures don’t determine the optimism. The individual’s optimism determined how they coped with it.

“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”

-- Alexander Graham Bell

On the Clemson University Family Life website, they give some examples of what positive families do. I want to share two of them.

Strong families aspire to:

·   give so much to the improvement of self that there is no time to criticize others; and

·   be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear and too happy for the presence of trouble.

The rest of the list is good, so check it out.

Think about the Savior. When the woman who was caught in adultery was brought before him, he didn’t jump in with the others and criticize her. After dismissing them, he didn’t look at her and say, “I’m sure you will make this mistake again.” He said, I believe you will change. So go and sin no more. (Not an exact quote)

So let’s work on strengthening our families by believing in each other. Believe in the future and let your optimism energize your thoughts and actions.

Next week: Family Virtues – Faith and Hope

Family Virtues – Morality

Teach children early what's right and
what's wrong. I don't know what she's doing
but it looks like she got caught doing
something she wasn't supposed to do.

The following story comes from a book that I feel everyone should read (I get no credit or compensation for this mention, I just really like it.) It’s called Standing for Something by Gordon B. Hinckley. He shares the following experience of meeting a young man in an airport in South America. The young man was unkempt, unemployed and traveling in South America on his father’s money. He was a smart man and earnest and sincere as they talked. He told Mr. Hinckley that he wanted peace and freedom. He was using drugs to obtain that peace and believed the current moral standards gave him more freedom than Mr. Hinckley’s generation or any generation before it.

Having learned of Mr. Hinckley’s religious involvement during the introduction, he asked Mr. Hinckley how he could defend personal virtue and moral chastity.

“I shocked him when I declared that his freedom was a delusion, that his peace was a fraud, that they would be bought at great personal and social cost, and that I would tell him why.”

Mr. Hinckley didn’t get to tell him why because they were called to board their planes at that moment, but he outlines it thoroughly in his book. He says, “He represents a generation numbered in the millions who, in search of freedom from moral restraint and peace from guilty conscience, have sought to legitimize, even celebrate practices that enslave and debauch and, if left unchecked, will destroy not only individuals but also the nations of which they are a part.”

What are morals? And why are they so important to families and society?

Morals are defined by Webster dictionary as: “of or relating to principles of right and wrong behavior.” Our moral compass helps us decide what is wrong and right and guides our actions.

For families morals need to be consistent to give the children a standard to learn by and understand the world around them. Children in stable homes have greater advantages over children in unstable homes. If the morals that govern your home are constantly changing or don’t exist, there will not be stability in that home.

In a 1997 nationwide survey, 82 percent of adults who rated their marriage as “very strong” (9 or 10 on a 10-piont scale) did not have premarital sex. Divorce is 32 percent more likely if they do engage in premarital sex. I would say that’s a strong correlation. Strong morals are not debilitating or enslaving. Good morals make life easier because we know what is right and wrong already.

Society’s morals and standards are ever changing. It’s really hard to establish right and wrong if the standard you live by changes with the seasons. God has already set the standard and it doesn’t change. If society’s morals as a whole were stronger, many of the problems we see would be relieved.

Choose ye this day

It starts with us and our families. We must live a higher standard than what is shown on TV. It might help to turn off the TV. The standards shown on TV are society’s morals, not true morals. And if you don’t think it has an effect on your family consider how much companies pay for just 30 seconds during the Super Bowl? If they think they can change your purchasing behavior in 30 seconds, you are surely impacted by an hours of suggestive programming.  

The young man in the first story didn’t believe in answering for his choices or bridling his passions. He lived by what feels good now. Morals help us understand that choices bring consequences, even if it may not be immediate. Joshua was exactly right when he told his people to choose whom they would serve. By choosing not to serve God and live the standards he provides, we ultimately choose to serve the Devil. The addictions of society are a testament to his service.

So in order to have true, lasting freedom I stand with Joshua and say, “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Next week: Family Virtues - Civility