![]() Keep in mind that doing just a couple of things each day in the same way to create anchors is the most important thing for young children. If you find a true schedule is not working for your family, try a morning meeting during which priorities are set for the day and general timeframes are created for blocks of activity. However, for some children, overly defined schedules may increase anxiety, especially if the transitions between segments seem artificial. One way to do that is by creating a schedule. When times are uncertain, and children experience worry or sadness, rituals provide the internal sense that they are not alone and have a balance in their lives of positive and negative experiences.Īs described, children most need to know what to expect each day at home. In addition, the joy that families experience inside of rituals together can leave an “emotional residue” that children keep with them to cope during stressful times. Rituals give children a growing sense of themselves as a member of a greater whole which promotes positive developmental outcomes. ![]() Rituals are routines that also impart a sense of family identity and promote connection among family members. ![]() Not only can children know easily when and how they will occur, but even young children can often participate in these routines in meaningful ways by helping to set the table at dinnertime or choose their own book to read with a parent at bedtime.Ī special kind of a routine, a ritual, adds an additional layer to the significance of predictable family experiences. Furthermore, these are routine moments that provide a high level of accessibility to children. Children can anchor their day according to these expected interactions with their families. For example, many studies demonstrate the benefit of bedtime routines and dinnertime routines. Children benefit from relationships and environments that are predictable to them: this includes important caregivers who behave in predictable ways, and events that occur at predictable times. Those constructs are similar, but routines require a particular set of characteristics for children to be most developmentally supportive: predictability and accessibility. Often parents hear the word routine and imagine it is a proxy for schedule or even more generally structure.
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