A Thousand Word Thursday

I had a wonderful night with my family and friends and incorporated several aspects of the family rituals I’ve posted throughout these eight weeks. I made chicken teriyaki and beef burritos, and my boyfriend made salad. Our friend Lana made shrimp and spinach pasta. She also brought two different kind of wines from Napa. Lingjie brought homemade chocolate cheesecake. After enjoying our delicious food, Lana gave us some wine tasting tips. Lingjie also shared her recipe of chocolate cheesecake. Later, we played card games. We liked having fun together on the weekend, and we enjoyed the simple games we played. We also talked very openly with each other and shared jokes together. It was a wonderful night, and I hope we can repeat it soon!

Wisdom Wednesday

   Over the last six weeks, I’ve enjoyed finding inspiration for family rituals online from a variety of resources. Today, I want to share one last online resource that might help you facilitate family rituals similar to the ones I have recommended on my blog. 60+ Family Tradition Ideas provides readers with a list of over 60 family traditions that can be incorporated into family lifeor even modified to create new rituals. Although targeted at families with children, the ideas presented could be adapted by emerging adults to use with their families of origin

    I really liked this resource and thought it might beespecially helpful for inspiring family activities on adaily, weekly, or monthly basis. The authors offer ideas for celebrating life changes or milestone, birthdays, and holidays. Their suggestions could help you establish a positive family culture by creating new family traditions and rituals for your family to enjoy! I hope you’ll visit the site on your own (or with your family members) to learn more.

Tuesday

This is the last week of my eight-week project. I can hardly believe it! The time has flown by. Though I hope to continue blogging after this week as a way to encourage emerging adults to practice family rituals, I won’t be posting on a daily basis. Also, I want to spend this week wrapping up my experiences. So today, instead of posting a new ritual for Try It Tuesday, I am going to share some of my thoughts about the rituals I posted every Tuesday over the last few weeks.

During the second week of my blog, I posted the first Try-It Tuesday family ritual. I encouraged readers to host a familydinner to strengthen enjoyable time together. In the comments, a lot of my readers talked about inviting their family members or friends to have dinner with them. They emphasized the good conversation that took place over these dinners. Some of them used the conversation starters I provided and indicated the starters helped prevent awkward silences during the meal. Others used their own conversation starters by talking about movies they had seen recently.

Based on their comments, I think all of them enjoyed the time spent with their families. One reader’s comment pointedout that the family dinner was a chance for her family to connect and catch up especially because she is hardly at home now. Another reader shared how the family dinner helped her put her busy life on hold and realize what is most important to her. I think I will continue to recommend this ritual to emerging adults and their families. Family meals are a wonderful opportunity time for family members to sit and talk, distraction free. And initiating these family dinners helps emerging adults and their parents view each other differently.

The second Try It Tuesday focused on sending Love Notesto family members as a way to enhance appreciation and affection. This is the ritual I loved the most! Some readerswrote to their parents and friends. Others wrote to theirchildren, grandparents and spouses. It was so sweet to read their comments. One reader used texts and similar applications for fun quick messages. Another reader sent the notes over email. Most of them mailed home love letters for each one of their family members. One reader expressed to each of her children how proud she was of all their accomplishments and how thankful she was for making herjob so easy. Another comment expressed how thankful she was to have someone there to support her and send her in the right direction when she was stuck.

This ritual allowed families to demonstrate the appreciationand affection, one of the six characteristics of strong families(DeFrain & Stinnet, 2008). Family members were able to saythey appreciated each other. They were able to show affection to each other, feel close to each other, be kind to each otherand be thoughtful of each other. I definitely will recommend this ritual to emerging adults and their families again. As one reader stated, “I highly recommend that everyone takes the time to let people know how much you care. Don't just assume they know it. Saying it or seeing it, allows them to know for sure.”

In the fourth week of my blog, on Try It Tuesday, I described a specific family game and recommended a family game night as a ritual to enhance effective communication.For me, it was great to read about a lot of new games playedby my readers and their families. I would love to try these games too! I also just liked that so many readers made time to be with their families. One reader said he really enjoyedtelling and hearing jokes and sharing new and old stories withhis family. He also felt that the family game night give him achance to see how the dynamic of his family has changed now that he and his siblings had grown up. Another reader commented on her family members sharing their feelings with each other as they played games together. She tells her mother and sister everything because they are her best friends.

This ritual helped family members practice effective communication. Like one reader said, “We like to talk to each other, and listening and respecting each other’s points of view just seems normal for us. We don’t always agree on everything but it’s easy for us to talk openly with one another and eventually resolve whatever issue there may be between us.” I will highly recommend this ritual to emerging adults and their families. Family games are a great chance for all family members to see everyone, and I encourage emerging adults to even consider planning a family game weekend or vacation where they can hang out and spend more time together and talk outside of the house.

Family storytelling was the ritual posted on Try It Tuesday during the fifth week of my blog. This ritual surprised me the most! As my readers talked about sharing stories with their family members, some of them said they spent a lot of time laughing. Others cried tears of joy. Some cried out of the sadness they felt as they told some of their stories. Regardless of their emotional responses, they all seemed to have a great experience with family storytelling. One reader shared that family storytelling was awesome for hearing stories from before they were even born! She indicated she hoped to hear more stories because the ritual made her feel closer to her family. Remembering her grandparents in this way made her happy.

Family storytelling helped emerging adults and their families build commitment. The ritual allowed family members to be themselves and to respect the roles each of them plays in the family. I will recommend this ritual to emerging adults and their families because family stories provide our lives with meaning. Having a special time to share these stories is important. One reader said, “I felt ‘built up’ in a way after our night. I felt rooted and confident, kind of recharged in a way.” I think our past memories and the times we spend together as a family remind us of the importance of family.

During week six, I posted a family ritual that involved taking or finding photos of meaningful spaces and then sharing those with their family members. My readers identified several meaningful places, and I enjoyed reading the words they used to describe how they felt about those places: safe, warm, connected with family, calm, peaceful, and inspired. One reader talked about his loft on the top floor making him feel the same sense of comfort he always felt in the presence of his family when they shared their lives on a daily basis. This reader indicated his home felt like a sanctuary to him because in this space, he could be himself and unwind from his day and just relax. Another reader commented that her faith is the most important aspect of her family members’ lives. She indicated that her family’s sanctuary really is the sanctuary at the church her family attends.

This ritual helped emerging adults and their family members enhance their spiritual well-being. Seeing their home as a sanctuary, feeling a sense of belonging, and having a hopeful attitude toward life were three of the qualities of spiritual well-being addressed by this ritual. Finding it is easy to share spiritual values and beliefs with each other and having compatible personal religious beliefs were two others. I will recommend this ritual because those important spaces in our lives will continue to hold special places in our hearts.Helping our family members better understand these spaces can make us worry less and cope better than we might otherwise.

Last week, the seventh week of my blog and the last of the six rituals I posted included keeping a family journal to share stressors with family members. Some readers who started family journals thought it was easier to communicate by writing because they could express their true feelings with no arguments. They also indicated their family members were more understanding. One reader pointed out that writing down their feelings and thoughts had been extremely effective for relieving their stress until they felt able to talk about it with a family member in person. One reader felt that this journal had really helped them realize that there are much more effective ways to deal with stressors in the family than the ways they had been using in the past. Another reader shared that one way his family effectively coped with the issues they discussed was to constantly reinforce the positives of the situation. When someone had trouble finding the positives, the rest of them helped out.

I think keeping a family journal can help family members enhance their effective management of stress and crisis.Emerging adults and their families can work together to solve very difficult family problems, face daily issues confidently, and support each other. They also can more clearly see how a crisis can help make their relationships stronger. I will continue to recommend this ritual to emerging adults and their families because the family journal really allowed participants to express what they were feeling to one other and to help each other cope with those feelings.

If any of these rituals pique your interest and you haven’t tried them yet, I hope you will go back to a previous Try It Tuesday and try one of the six rituals posted in this blog. If you do, don’t forget to comment on your experiences. I’d also love to hear about any of your suggestions for helping emerging adults build the six characteristics of strong families within their families.

Much of the rest of the week will proceed as usual. Tomorrow is Wisdom Wednesday so I will provide additional resources related to family rituals. On A Thousand Word Thursday, I will share another photo capturing a family ritual, and on Q&A Friday, I will post another question and answer of my own. On Saturday, I will post my last Weekend Wonder for your enjoyment.

Although this project is coming to an end, I hope to continue blogging in the future. I will update this blog once I have more experiences with family rituals to share. Also, I hope everybody reading this continues to practice the family rituals I have provided. I’ll be back tomorrow with another resource. Until then, thank you so much for your participation in this project!

Memorable Monday

      

      Today I am going to share my own experiences with keeping a family journal and sharing stressors with my family members. Since all my family members and I live a long distance away from each other, in order to keep daily connections easily, everybody in my family has down loaded an app on their cellphones or laptops called WeChat. WeChat is a new and powerful mobile communication tool. It supports sending voice, video, photo and text messages. You can also do group chats WeChat works on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Symbian and BlackBerry devices. A family member can update whatever he or she wants to say or wants to share with the rest of the family anytime, anywhere. There are 10 people in my family group, including my grandparents, my parents, my uncles, aunt, my cousin and my boyfriend.

      Every time I feel stressed or face certain problems, I like to share my worries with my family on WeChat because all my family members are there. They check WeChat every day so they can give me ideas and help me out as soon as possible. Also they encourage me and support me. I do remember last year, I shared with my family how stressful my life had become. I wrote a long text on WeChat. I told them my car was having problems because of the bad snow. I had the flu and had been sick for two weeks. I had to work on my thesis and tests because it was close to final week. I have to find a new place to live because my contract ended in the next month. My boyfriend was debating whether or not he should change jobs, and he needed my support and suggestions. All of the sudden, everything made me feel that the end of world was coming. I could not even sleep!

      The next day, all of my family members responded tome on WeChat. My father told me to relax and to take care of myself first. He told me to try to figure each thing out one at a time and to do everything step by step. My grandfather sent me 500 dollars and told me to take care of myself and go to a restaurant to spoil myself. That was very sweet! My cousin said he had some friends in the state, and if I needed any help, I could give them a call. After I got through everything, my father wrote me to tell me he was proud of me. And all of my other family members felt happy for me.

      Writing our daily stressors on WeChat has become a habit for my family members. It keeps my family working together to solve difficult problems. We still use WeChat everyday!

Weekend Wonder

It’s time for a Weekend Wonder! Hope you’re enjoying your weekend so far, and I hope you have had a chance to share your stressors (and your words of encouragement) in a family journal with your family! If you haven’t had a chance to create a family journal, try to make that happen and let me know how it goes.

I had a stressful day and after playing this video, I feel so much better. I STARTED GIGGLING! Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L49VXZwfup8

This definitely cheered me up! Such cute babies!!!

If giggling babies aren’t your thing, what kind of videosdo work to cheer you up when your stressed? Post your links here!

Q&A Friday

Which of the qualities of managing stress and crisis effectively have been strengths in your family?

In my family, it is easy to find solutions to our problems when we talk about them. We also like to support each other. My parents are very open minded. Every time we have problems, we have a conversation and talk about how to deal with the problems together. For example, when my grandmother was ill, everybodywas very busy working. My family members were quiteemotional at the time, trying to figure out how to take turns taking care of my grandmother. She needed to be taken care of 24 hours.

Initially, we had to cool off before we could problem solve because we all felt too angry to talk calmly about my grandmother’s care. Eventually, we had a familymeeting to schedule time with my grandmother. My uncle said he could take two days off that week. My father thought he could come to visit Wednesday to Saturday after 5 pm. My aunt said she could prepare every lunch for my grandmother. I could come to visit every morning, and for the rest of time when none of us could be there, we decided to hire a social worker to help. We made a list and put everybody’s schedule on the list.

During our family meeting, we defined the problem and stuck to the topic and did not argue with each other.We also used effective communication by respectingeach other’s point of view, paying attention and listening.My family members worked together to come up with as many possible solutions as we could. Once the solutionwas decided on, we committed to it and supported each other.

We did a great job of taking good care of my grandmother, and after one month, my grandmother got back to her healthy self. We looked at this challenge and saw it as an opportunity for growth. This experience made me proud of my whole family, especially of how we effectively managed this crisis.

A Thousand Word Thursday

     This is a picture of my family and my friends at Universal Studios. I have a lot of stories from before and after they came to visit me. We were very excited about being together, but my parents and I kind of struggled to prepare for this trip. They are very busy and it was hard for them to make the time. But they wanted to visit me because I didn’t get chance to go back to China this year. At the same time, I was busy working on my final project and trying to find a job. I was kind of stressed about their visit from the very beginning.

     When Chinese people come to the U.S., it is very complicated. I helped my parents apply for their visas, completing all of the documentation because of the language barrier. They had to make an appointment in Shanghai for the embassy interview. Fortunately, they passed the interview and received their visas and passports. Then I booked their flight and wrote very specific instructions about how to transfer planes in the airport and how to order food while they were in flight. I wrote the instructions in English and Chinese, in case they needed help. My parents started practicing their English everyday, before they came. I also made a very detailed schedule of the trip.

     After they arrived here, for the first week, everybody was tired. I got up at 7 am to pick them up in the hotel and travel into the city. They wanted to see more of America, but at the same time they were still jet lagged. After dinner, when I took them back to hotel, I started working on my project and looking for job postings.

     The good part about this experience was that everything seemed to work out pretty well. Our schedule changed many times. The car had problems, and the hotel had issues. But always, we were able to find solutions. I think we managed stress and crisis very effectively! Specifically, we felt it is important to accept the things we could not change. We also worked together to solve difficult problems and supported each other. And we looked at challenges as opportunities for growth. What a wonderful experience!