Family Rituals
Rituals are often considered from anthropological and sociological perspectives, but less attention has been given to potential biological, health, or nursing perspectives. Although family rituals and routines are widely discussed in the literature, nurse clinicians, nurse educators, and many nurse researchers have mostly overlooked them (Denham, 1995). Rituals are acts or actions intentionally conducted by a group of people and usually employ some forms of symbols and routines used in a prescribed, formal, and systematic way. Rituals have a sense of rightness often based in their traditional perspectives. They have a way of linking private and public meanings and create opportunities to express acceptance or demonstrate rejection of social standards.
Family rituals are formal repetitive patterns that often enhance the family’s self-image and provide a way to express it to members and non-members. The household niche provides opportunities to model and reinforce family values. Thus, family rituals sometimes include a sense of social consciousness where family members demonstrate their family pride (e.g., entertaining guests, attending church together). Family rituals provide information about family relationships, changes within the family, family crises, values and beliefs, and the meanings of ordinary and extraordinary days.
Four types of family rituals:
- Day-to-day essentials (e.g., eating, sleeping, hello, goodbye)
- Traditional times when usual patterns are altered to celebrate special events (e.g., anniversaries, birthdays, reunions, vacations).
- Holiday celebrations (e.g., Christmas, Kwanza, Passover, Halloween) or events that link the family to the outside community and culture.
- Lifecycle rituals (e.g., baby showers, confirmations, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, graduation, weddings, retirements) or events that mark life course journeys and only happen once.
As identified by Imber-Black and Roberts (1992)
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