By Guest Authors Helen Maffini, PhD and Wendy O’Leary, MEd

It’s easy to miss out on moments of connection and happiness in the midst of hectic family life. We often move automatically from one thing to the next, missing the moments that make up our days. We pass through hundreds of ordinary Thursdays with heaps of school projects, the flash of a smile as you walk in the door, and the sound of laughter in the other room. Though life can go by in a blur, the rituals we create are key to strengthening family bonds and fostering happiness. Pancake Sundays. Evening Storytime. The silly family jokes only you understand. These are the moments children will carry with them for lifetime. 

Why do rituals actually work when building our joy and happiness? Researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of The How of Happiness, suggests that as much as 40% of our happiness may be created by our intentional choices rather than by genetics or other factors. In The Secrets of Happy Families, journalist Bruce Feiler examines research that shows families with regular rituals have children with strong emotional foundations. Duke and Fivush at Emory University found that children exposed to their family’s history and traditions showed higher self-esteem and greater resilience. So, a weekly pizza night may matter more than we think. Not because of the pizza, of course, but because sitting with family doing the same thing we did last Friday, and the Friday before that, creates a sense of comfort, certainty, and opportunity for connection.

Here are three rituals to try out: 

Delight Detective

Be a “delight detective” so you don’t miss all the good moments in the day! Try this practice to help your family get into the habit of looking out for happy moments.

Make a pretend magnifying glass using a craft stick for the handle. Cut out a large circle for the magnifying glass. Glue the circle on the stick.  Have your magnifying glass visible at breakfast or before leaving for school, and remind everyone to be a “delight detective.” At the end of the day, pass around the magnifying glass and have everyone share one delight they noticed that day. 

Why this Works: Psychologists, such as Fred Bryant, call this savoring, which means deliberately noticing and replaying positive moments, thereby increasing well-being. Neuropsychologist Rick Hanson explains that because of ‘our brain’s negativity bias’, it is important to incline our minds toward noticing the happy moments in life.

Basket of Kindness 

Offering kindness to others feels good and helps us stay connected. Try this as a daily or once-a-week ritual for the family.

Get a basket and some small stones. Take turns holding a stone while thinking about (and even picturing) someone you love. Offer that person some well wishes, for example, “Auntie Sharon, I am sending you love,” or  “May you be happy, Sam.” Then put that stone in the basket. You can take turns doing this for several special people. End the practice by having each family member place a stone in the basket and offer kind wishes to everyone everywhere.

Why this Works: Author Rick Hanson’s research shows that compassion practices, including offering kind wishes to others, activate brain regions associated with reward and connection. These practices can literally train our brains to be happier.

The Squeeze

Sharing our good feelings helps us not miss good times and connects us with others. Sometimes the simplest way to share a feeling is to pass it along.

Sit in a circle with family members. Face each other, hold hands, and decide who will start the happiness squeeze. Have that person share out loud one thing that made them happy recently and then say, “That made me happy.” 

After sharing and hearing about a happy moment, everyone takes a breath and notices how their bodies feel. The person who just shared squeezes the hand of the person next to them to pass along the happiness. That person now shares their happy moment, and the activity continues around the circle.

Why this Works: Shelly Gable’s research from the University of California suggests that sharing good experiences with others amplifies positive emotion beyond what we feel alone. Dacher Keltner, from UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, identifies physical touch as a primary way people express care and safety for one another. The Squeeze combines these ideas, making it a simple way for a family to build closeness in under five minutes.

Have fun creating your rituals that work with your family. You don’t need to do everything at once or create any elaborate rituals. Start small with one or two simple ones and see what resonates with your family. By creating meaningful traditions in your family’s life, you will give your children fond, happy memories to look back on and recreate with their own families.

Would you like more support building rituals of well-being and resilience in your family? Try our newly-released card deck, Let’s Grow Happiness, which includes 50 activity cards to help kids build gratitude, self-compassion, and emotional regulation skills. 

Dr. Helen Maffini is an international educator, author, and consultant specializing in early childhood education, mindfulness and emotional intelligence. She is the co-author of Kind Kids, Let’s Grow Happiness and Developing Emotional Intelligence. 

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Wendy O’Leary, M.Ed., author and health educator, has three children’s books and an adult book on self-compassion in families. She is a certified mindfulness teacher, parent educator, and self-compassion advocate with expertise in teaching emotional resilience to children and adults. Her latest publication is a card deck for children titled “Let’s Grow Happiness,” created in collaboration with her colleague Helen Maffini. 

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Website – https://www.wendyoleary.com/

References: 

Bryant, Fred B., and Joseph Veroff. Savoring: A New Model of Positive Experience. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2007.

Duke, Marshall P., Amber Lazarus, and Robyn Fivush. “Knowledge of Family History as a Clinically Useful Index of Psychological Well-Being and Prognosis: A Brief Report.” Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training 45, no. 2 (2008): 268–72.