Every member of the family can contribute to the rituals that define the intentional family. By helping shape those rituals, children learn that they have choices and they have an important role as a member of the family. Although predictability is an important quality of rituals, rituals need not be set in stone. As children grow older or the family changes, rituals can be re-examined and modified. And of course as children grow up and form their own families, they will decide what to carry forward and what to leave behind, just as we who are parents now are choosing the symbols and activities that will define our families.
Thanksgiving is a rare holiday in many ways, free of goblins and greed.
Let's think about how we, in small ways and large, can savor the closeness and coziness of Thanksgiving throughout our year. Dr. Martha Farrell Erickson, director of the University of Minnesota's Children, Youth and Family Consortium , invites your questions on child rearing for possible inclusion in this column. See other topics in the Archive .