Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/collaboration-avoids-duplicating-family-traditions/5013862/
Collaboration Avoids Duplicating Family Traditionsby Karen Stephens
To enhance identity, promote unity, and to rejoice in the beauty of life's seasonal changes, cultural groups have always created holidays and festivals for celebration. Helping children and families honor those customs forges lasting bonds between the generations. The traditions give young and old alike a tangible way to demonstrate commitment to family and shared community values. Over the years, most holidays have been celebrated primarily with immediate and extended family. In contemporary life that has changed. Children are now more likely to experience holiday festivities in multiple group settings. And more often than not, the holidays are observed in very similar, if not downright repetitive and redundant ways.
Early childhood staff often get a head start at children's holidays. With flourish, they embroider rooms with crepe paper streamers and banners, collect piggyback songs specifically tuned to "the day," and make sure every story time features a book from the holiday line-up. Attending to every detail, they make sure snacks are served on color-coordinated accessories befitting the season. I admit that enthusiasm can be charming. And it can add sparkle to long child care days. At first blush, all that tender loving attention ...