Welcome to my blog! My name is Ying Zhu, and I was born and raised in China. I am a third year graduate student at Kent State University. Between the ages of 22 and 28, I moved five times and lived in four different cities. At age 25, I quit my job and went back to school to continue my education, moving to an entirely new country to learn a new language, a new culture and more about my new major in Human Development and Family Studies. Although not everyone moves 7000 miles, my experience during this age period is not especially unusual. 

In the spring of 2010, I heard the term “emerging adult” for the first time in my life. It was in my Lifespan Development class, and I realized I was an emerging adult myself. I felt like I was finding the answers to my life’s questions. I was so excited to learn the words that could help explain my behaviors as well as my some of the confusion I felt during that time in my life.  

When I started thinking about my master’s project, I thought about my own experiences as an emerging adult and some of the questions my emerging adults friends were asking me. Why has my life become so complicated? Why do I feel so lonely? Why can’t my parents understand me? I knew I wanted to reach out to other emerging adults, and I thought I might be able to do that with a blog. Even if I couldn’t answer all their questions, I wanted to try to help other emerging adults think differently about their families.

And I already had experience blogging! I kept a blog as an undergraduate to share experiences and feelings regarding relationships. I also blogged as a teacher to share activities and photos from my classroom with my students’ parents. Blogging has been a great way to figure out what I want to do with myself; for me writing is a path to self-discovery. I write about what interests me, and my blogs reflect my personality.

I started doing weekly family dinners when I was in China because my parents were super busy, especially my stepmother. She worked at least 55 hours a week, and my father is not a good cook! At that time, I did not know about the research demonstrating how family relationships can be improved by sitting down to dinner. I started regular family dinner because I wanted us to be a family, not just three people living under the same roof. I felt sad I did not have too many memories about our family time together. I decided to do something about it. Dinnertime seemed like the perfect solution because everyone has to eat!

I started our family dinner ritual with my parents by establishing “make your own dumpling” Friday. We had a lot of fun by experiencing the whole process of making dumplings (a traditional Chinese food). We were a great team. I was surprised that my father was so good at making dumplings. Dinner became a gift -- a way for my family members to spend happy time together. We still continued our family dinner ritual by using Skype once I left China. Even though there is a 12-hour difference, I have dinner with them while they have breakfast. We still enjoy the time together!

This blog is a way for me to help other emerging adults and their families experience the same feelings I experienced—the wonderful family time, the happiness in family life, the enjoyable time together. As an emerging adult, I want to take more responsibility in caring for all of my family members, making them smile and happy. I can’t believe how important they are and what a great family I have. I am grateful!

 I hope you will enjoy this journey, as you work on enhancing your own parent-child relationships and building family strengths. Please try some of the family rituals I will be recommending in my blog with your own families. Share your thoughts in the comments about your experiences with family rituals. I’d love to know what worked for you and didn’t work for you and how family rituals have strengthened your family relationships. Also, be sure to look at the resources I post in the “Additional Resources” to see if you can learn more that might be helpful to you and your family. And, of course, please pass on the link to this blog to your friends. I look forward to building a community of emerging adults who want to experience happy family times with their parents even as grown ups!