A family’s traditions and routines are one of the things that bond them together. Are you looking to create more family traditions? Here’s what we’ve been doing in our family lately.
Recently I’ve been trying to add a few more weekly family routines and traditions to our life. I felt motivated to do this more intentionally after reading The Lifegiving Home by Sally Clarkson, a book I’ve mentioned several times here on the blog and over on Instagram.
I want my kids to have regular things that they can expect to happen each week that they’ll hopefully look forward to as well. Kids thrive on regular rhythms and routines – I think we all do to some extent!
It’s important to note that special traditions as well as regular rhythms and routines will be different for every family and every stage of life. My family’s weekly routines and traditions will probably look very different from yours and that’s okay!
Right now we have very simple routines. My kids are little and there are not many demands on our schedule at this point. I know that this will change as the kids get older. For example, Caleb will have soccer one evening a week this fall and in the future we’d like to take the kids to AWANA or something similar once a week.
We also have very simple routines currently because we only have one car so I can’t plan regular outings during the week. If we get a second car at some point I’ll likely add in some routines like a regular library day, a grocery shopping day, etc.
With all that being said, here are some of our weekly family routines and traditions that the kids have come to expect:
Our Weekly Family Routines and Traditions
Sunday: church
Monday: laundry day (even when we had a second car we always stayed home on Monday to get caught up from the weekend)
Tuesday: cousins over for play date/swimming (usually)
Wednesday: afternoon tea party (I started this after-nap tradition a few months ago and it has been quite a hit with the kids!)
Friday: special summer class with Grandma + swimming, pizza and movie night
Saturday: pancakes/waffles for breakfast, fun day with Daddy
Another little tradition we have that doesn’t fit on one particular day is sharing the happy and sad parts of our days at dinner time. It’s an easy way to get the kids to talk a little and will hopefully develop into something even more meaningful as they get older.
We have also been working to get in more one-on-one time with the kids recently. What’s working well for Pablo and I right now is to make some time for one-on-ones with the older two once Lucas is down for bed in the evenings. The goal is to do this twice a week so that we’re each able to have that individual time with both the kids.
So, those are our current weekly family routines and traditions. Now it’s your turn! I’d love to hear some of the things that your family does on a regular basis! Leave a comment below and let me know!
One last note: I also think it’s important to have a loose *daily* schedule. Life with littles requires flexibility, but having a basic schedule or framework for your day helps your kids know what to expect and gives you a bit of sanity. 😉 I plan to share another blog post soon talking about how I loosely schedule out our days at home.
