The first week of my blog will be spent introducing you to my project. Yesterday, I introduced myself, and today I want to explain why I am starting this blog. My purpose in writing this blog is to empower emerging adults to positively enhance their relationships with their parents during the transition to adulthood. Based on my reading of the research and my own experiences, I think family rituals can help with this transition. Family rituals are special events or activities families repeat over and over again. They have the potential to strengthen family relationships and may be especially significant to emerging adults and their families because rituals that used to be important to the family when the emerging adult was a child may no longer hold any meaning for family members. You probably no longer cuddle with your mom to read a story before bed or enjoy family game nights or do whatever rituals you did when you were little! 

But I think emerging adults could benefit from helping their families identify and evaluate current rituals, modify old rituals or add new rituals to meet their changing needs. Family rituals give family members stability and a feeling of belonging that may be lacking in families during emerging adulthood. I want to encourage emerging adults to initiate family rituals within their families in order to enhance family strengths, specifically within the parent-child relationship. In the next few weeks, I will ask readers to initiate family rituals with their families and to provide feedback about their experiences. I will recommend a new family ritual with some possible alternatives each week, focusing on building one of the six characteristics of strong families as described by DeFrain and Stinnett (2007).