Help your family thrive through fun rituals and traditions

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It’s the end of January (already!) which means we’ve just come through a wonderful time of year often known for family rituals and traditions.

If you’re lucky, you have holiday rituals and traditions you enjoyed as a child that you can carry on with your own kiddos. And even if you don’t, it can be just as exciting to create to new ones that are special to your family.

The best thing about rituals and traditions is they can benefit children and families long after the holiday season is over. Everyday rituals and traditions can bring your family closer together, help your kiddos feel secure in anxious moments and transitions, and provide them with a sense of belonging which is so important for their well-being.

In this short blog, you’ll learn more about the awesome benefits of everyday rituals and traditions and how to go about creating them for your family. As always, our team of autism and ABA therapy caring experts are ready to lend a helping hand.

Routines vs. Rituals

Routines and rituals are similar. So are the benefits. The primary difference is routines aren’t necessarily fun or special. There primary function is to bring order to your day and help to keep your family on schedule. For kiddos with autism, routines are especially important because it’s comforting for children on the spectrum to know how their day will play out and what is expected of them. (More on routines here.)

Rituals and traditions, on the other hand, should be enjoyable, something extra. They should be special activities, even small moments, that are repeated because they have meaning and help strengthen family relationships. For example, a routine is your child brushing their teeth every night before going to bed. A ritual could be a parent kissing their child on the forehead goodnight or reading a bedtime story together.

Family rituals can take many forms, depending on your family’s likes and dislikes. Here’s a list for inspiration. The first one is a classic.

  • Taco Tuesdays – Share a dinner of tacos as a family once a week. No phones or screens of any kind allowed. Change it up to Taco Thursdays to make it even more special for your family. Everyone can help prep, cook, and clean up, too.
  • Time outdoors – Once a week, maybe on the weekends, set a time when you can enjoy the great outdoors together. Choose any activity. Maybe let a different family choose each time. You can have fun as a family and get in beneficial exercise at the same time.
  • Game night – Choose one night a week when you can gather together and play a game as a family. Play the same game or choose something different each week. Game night could also be a shopping trip to buy a new game.
  • Hello and goodbye rituals – This could be a special way of greeting each other every time you part ways and come back together, for example when your kiddo goes off to school and comes back in the afternoon. The ritual could be a high-five, a hug, a special word or phrase, a shared treat, or whatever you choose to support transition moments that can be a challenge.
  • Baking together – Baking together one day a week is a great way to teach children cooperation and teamwork, with a built in reward in the end. It’s also a fun way for children to learn about measurements and kitchen safety and build their confidence.
  • Birthday rituals – Make birthdays even more special with a ritual for the birthday boy or girl. It could be a special song that is sung, one-on-one time together with your kiddo, taking a photograph together as a family, or letting the birthday person choose their gift or cake. It could even be something that is done for the birthday person first thing when they wake up and when they go to bed to close out the special day.
  • Movie night once a month – Another classic. You could all go the theater together or stay home and stream something. Afterwards, you can talk about what you liked best about the move and what you learned.
  • Volunteer together – These could be special activities once a quarter where you work together on a project for a charitable cause. It could be something you do at home or onsite if you’re children are old enough.

Why Family Rituals Matter

Daily, weekly, monthly, and even yearly rituals benefit children and families in many ways. Rituals work to:

  1. Reduce stress and anxiety in children by adding more predictability to their lives in fun ways. They also provide children with activities and moments to look forward to, acting like an incentive or positive reinforcement.

 

  1. Help children manage transitions in their lives, both big and small. Changes of any size can be difficult and family rituals provide children with a sense of stability and security. They help provide a supportive foundation on which children can learn how to become resilient and adaptable.

 

  1. Strengthen relationships within families by giving children and parents time to get to know one another better and appreciate each other more. Time together also helps to reveal issues or conflicts that might exist and provide the time to work things out.

 

  1. Give children a sense of belonging which is critical for their ability to learn, develop, and build trust and confidence in others, including their peers. When children feel like they belong, they are happier and more confident in who they are.

How to Create New Family Rituals

Start by looking at your family’s daily and weekly routines as they are now. Are there moments or room to add special rituals to your routines? Add one or two rituals to begin with and see how it goes. Repetition is key because that’s how rituals become traditions. Stick with it or make adaptions that will make it easier on your family to maintain the ritual on a regular basis. If a ritual just doesn’t take, try another one.

Be sure to involve your kiddos in the process of creating new rituals and traditions for your family. Their likes and dislikes will impact your success. Just make sure the rituals you choose fit naturally into the rhythm of your family’s life and the values you hold.

You can even take inspiration from your child with autism. Do they have a ritual or routine that your whole family can adopt and connect through, like wearing a certain color on a certain day? Now that would be fun!

For more insights about the importance of rituals and routines for children with autism, contact our team at The Behavior Exchange. Our BCBAs would love to help your family thrive through the gold standard in autism care – ABA therapy.

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Ashvina attended University of Bombay and graduated with a Bachelors of Commerce. She got her Montessori Diploma in 1985 and taught ever since. Ashvina came to TBE in January of 2016 as Admin Assistant. During the years she got the opportunity to learn and work in different departments such as HR, Finance, Office Manager and Executive Assistant. Last summer TBE bought billing in house and her current focus area is Revenue Cycle Management. She is detail oriented and enjoys working with people. Ashvina volunteers to deliver meals to seniors and local shelters on the weekend. She loves to spend time with her family and grandkids. Ashvina loves her job because she enjoys hearing different points of view, and she feels her contributions help fuel the direction of our company.

Working with children comes naturally to Angela. Her mom was a special education teacher for 30 years and often had Angela join her for Take Your Child to Work Day. And in high school, Angela spent every summer as the nanny for a little boy with an autism spectrum disorder. It was this experience where her passion for working with children with autism started to blossom.

From there, she went on to graduate from Oklahoma State University with a Bachelor of Science in Human Development and Family Sciences. She learned about Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) in a non-normative development class and from that moment knew that ABA would be her life’s work.

Angela moved to the DFW area shortly after and began working at The Behavior Exchange as a therapist. She worked on her Master’s in Behavior Analysis at the same time. A year after graduating, she earned certification as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst.

Now, as a Clinical Director at The Behavior Exchange, she brings a life-long passion to her work, holding a special place in her heart for children with limited language skills and working closely with families to develop healthy sleep habits.

Danielle’s passion for working with families is deeply personal and from the heart. Her younger brother has an autism spectrum disorder, and through their journey as a family, she found her purpose in life as an advocate for individuals with special needs.

After graduating from the University of North Texas with a degree in Human Development and Family Studies, Danielle began volunteering at The Behavior Exchange. She saw passionate therapists, meaningful change for clients, and families with hope for the future. After a summer of volunteering, she officially joined the team as Director of Admissions and found her home with The Behavior Exchange family.

With her extensive experience working as a client advocate with insurance providers, Danielle perseveres to help individuals of all ages and abilities receive the services they need to reach their full potential. She feels truly honored by each and every family who entrusts The Behavior Exchange to be part of their journey and is committed to the organization’s core values, mission, and goal of being a beacon of hope for the community.

Adam has always had a passion for helping individuals of all ages thrive and reach their full potential. He’s also an enthusiastic musician, songwriter, leader, and devoted family man, who has been helping children and team members grow with The Behavior Exchange since 2010.

Prior to joining the team at The Behavior Exchange, Adam was a mortgage loan consultant and grad student, pursuing his master’s degree in Education at the University of North Texas. He graduated in 2013 and also earned a graduate academic certificate in Autism Intervention. The following year, after years as a Behavior Therapist and seeing first-hand the power of ABA and the meaningful impact it can have on children and their families, Adam became a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. He then commenced from the Stagen Leadership Academy after completing the Integral Leadership Program (ILP), a 52-week practice-based program designed to develop executives serious about transforming themselves, their teams, and their organizations.

Adam is truly grateful to be a part of a dynamic, inspiring and compassionate team, and he’s dedicated to bettering the lives of all children and their families through the delivery of the highest quality of ABA services, while supporting the amazing team at The Behavior Exchange.

Soraya is from South Africa and moved to Texas in 1996. She graduated from The University of Texas and pursued a career, at that time, in Education. Soraya taught at a Montessori school for a few years and then took on a leadership role.

During her time in the education system, Soraya realized her passion was to assist children with special needs. So she joined The Behavior Exchange as a therapist, transitioned into a supervisory role in 2017, and a year and a half later, was promoted to Clinical Operations Manager.

She quickly learned the ins and outs of ABA operations and scheduling and successfully collaborates across departments to ensure The Behavior Exchange continues to provide quality services to clients and their families. She’s thankful to be part of such an amazing organization and excited to see what the future holds.

You could say Walter’s career started when he spent hours as a young child drawing superheroes and coloring maps. This passion, along with extraordinary swimming skills, landed him a full swimming scholarship at Texas Christian University, where he graduated in 1997 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communication Graphics.

During the next 13 years, his design and art direction skills, conceptual-thinking abilities, and marketing-savvy know-how were honed at a few prestigious advertising and marketing agencies around the Dallas area. In the mid 2000s, he helped his wife Tammy Cline-Soza (founder and CEO of The Behavior Exchange) create a unique and concise brand for her new business. From logos and websites to uniforms, brand voice and visuals, Walter has been the main creative force for all things The Behavior Exchange.

Aside from giving birth to The Behavior Exchange brand, Walter is helping Tammy raise two amazing, beautiful children, River and Sierra. In his spare time (the two minutes he’s got per week), you can find Walter illustrating iconic landmarks of Dallas and Texas or looking around for this next open-water swim. Once he gets back in shape.

After 20 years of building The Behavior Exchange, literally from the ground up,
Tammy couldn’t be more proud of the team, culture, and organization that it has become.

As a family helping families, The Behavior Exchanges looks for opportunities that will make the biggest impact and produce life-changing outcomes – for clients, families, and even for team members. Tammy believes that if a team, a family, a community takes care of each other, the possibilities are endless and the relationships built along the way can make life more enriching and challenges easier to navigate. You could say her goal has been to build a kind of utopia full of support, love, and expertise that brings the best services possible to the community and ensures more families have access to those services.

Tammy and her family have dedicated their lives to the mission of The Behavior Exchange and continue to grow, learn, cultivate, challenge, support, and create better models for success. To that end, she is committed to her own leadership development and actively participates in advanced training, mentoring, and deep self-exploration on how to live out her purpose to love and support her family and help others reach their full potential. She takes her position very seriously and tries to serve as a channel for what the universe wants to come to fruition.

She also loves travel, gardening, being creative, MUSIC!, tennis, yoga, meditation, journaling, reading, being in nature, adventures, and more than anything, spending time with her husband Walter and their two beautiful children, River and Sierra.