By Eric Putnam -

Empowered parenting takes advantage of the power of habits, routines and rituals, strengthens family relationships and the family as a whole.

Part 1: Take advantage of the power of habits, routines and rituals

What are habits, routines and rituals and how can they help me parent my child?

Habits are involuntary behaviors that occur because of prior repetition.

At first glance, habits may seem small but can strengthen over time and have profound effects on people’s lives.  Habits can help and habits can hurt.  They can maximize memory, decrease stress, and allow us to multi-task.  They can also lead to uncontrolled tantrums, backtalking and defiance, and aggression toward others.

Let’s face it we are all creatures of habit.  Habit comes easy to us.  Since we naturally form habits, we might as well take advantage of it.

The Power of Repetition

Our brain learns through repetition and then becomes comfortable with its predictability.

If you were to roll a ball down a hill, it would fall down a particular path.  As you increase the number of times that you roll the ball down the hill, it would start to fall into one of a few paths.  Over time, the ball would follow the more used paths over the lesser used ones.  The brain follows the most used paths of action.

It takes about 27 days of repetition for a habit to take hold in the brain; the more daily repetitions the better.

Empower Yourself with Routine and Ritual

Routine is when you repeat a sequence of behaviors together.  Routine is a habitualized activity.  Routine is the sequence of events that helps you get through your day.  It helps our children get ready for school in the morning and to sleep at night.

Rituals are more powerful than routines.  Rituals are routines that have some sort of symbolic meaning attached to them.  Rituals are the family dinner and the hug goodbye.  The symbol is family and love.

Families create lots of rituals including:

-       Baby showers

-       Birthdays

-       Graduations

-       Weddings

-       Funerals

Rituals draw on the power of the symbol within the routine to strengthen and support the behavior.

Choosing Positive Routines and Rituals

Our lives are filled with knee-jerk reactions and poor choices.  Parents have the opportunity to choose new positive paths for family growth.  Parents can choose to create new positive parenting routines and rituals that support the family as a whole as well as address specific child misbehaviors.

Parents can choose:

-       Family fun time

-       Family dinner time

Parents can also choose for their children:

-       One-on-one time

-       Skill building time

Think of a new routine or ritual that you want to introduce to your family or specific child and get ready to:

-       Commit

-       Engage

-       And have fun

Commit

Commitment is the driving force getting your new routine or ritual going.  Don’t commit to something you can’t do.  If able, commit to a specific day and time.  Post it on a calendar and talk about it the rest of the family or any other significant people in your day-to-day lives.  If something comes up that prevents you from doing your new routine or ritual, immediately reschedule and follow through.

Engage

Activate all of your senses.  Try to incorporate as many of your five sense as you can.  Encourage discussion, storytelling, song, physical activity and contact, etc.

Have fun.

Habits are much easier to learn when you are having fun.  Ask for feedback from the rest of the family and be true to yourself as to what would make it more fun for you as the parent.

Remember that repetition is the key, you may get some resistance at first but don’t fight it.  Ride it out until the habit takes hold and the empowerment begins.  Next month we will look at specific routines and rituals that parents can use to strengthen family relationships.