Guest Author - Terrie Lynn Bittner

When your children grow up and look back on their childhoods, what do you want them to remember? What memories will crowd their minds when they’re homesick? As parents, we can create traditions and shape the way our children view their lives.

Traditions are one way to do this. Traditions can be big, carefully planned events. One family holds an annual family conference instead of taking a traditional vacation. Another sings each evening before bedtime. Many parents read to their children every day, or take early morning walks on the beach.

Traditions can also be small things which gain importance when you’re on your mission or alone in a college dorm. Building these little traditions take a bit of thought and concentration, but don’t require major planning. When you read to your children, curl up in the same big chair or sit under the same tree. The site of a big, overstuffed chair or a certain kind of tree will send memories flooding into a grown child’s heart.

Come up with an insider-only language. There are certain phrases or words understood only by people who are in the group, and it gives a sense of belonging to know the code. For instance, in our family, someone needs only to say, “I read four books once,” and everyone snickers. The phrase certainly isn’t funny to anyone else but us. It comes from a book we read, and it’s funny because of the discussion that followed. But you had to be there…and that’s what makes shared memories and insider language important.

Even chores can involve traditions. In our family, we all worked at the same time in the same room instead of going off to our own tasks. As we worked, we sang and played word games that both educated us and distracted us from the tediousness of the tasks. I could hardly wait for my children to get old enough to try the same tradition with them.

Church-related traditions are important for making the gospel so integral to a child’s happiness that he would never consider living any other way. Is there a special breakfast you can serve each Sunday morning, something that can be prepared the night before? Can you hold family scripture reading all piled up on a big bed with everyone snuggled together? What tradition can accompany the giving of a talk in Primary or Sacrament meeting? Perhaps, during family home evening, you can help each person decorate a special file folder to carry his talk in. Perhaps the speaker will find, in his talk folder, little notes of encouragement from all others that morning.

Traditions needn’t be time consuming and overwhelming. Little things done consistently make memories to last an eternity. Simplicity is the key to carrying out family life successfully without getting overwhelmed.