Have special meaning and symbolic significance

Often have special meaning or symbolic significance

Closely tied to extraordinary events

Closely tied to ordinary family life

Usually tied to culture, religion or faith, ethnicity, and social customs

Meaningful behaviors tied to family identity, member needs, and valued family events

Often intergenerational; becomes more tightly enacted as the family is more committed over time and interests in retaining and transferring meaning to the future increase

Initiated when members identify themselves as family and desire a collective identity; tend to become more patterned and organized over time

Repetitive and highly structured actions related to celebrations, traditions, and cultural customs that include the entire family and have accompanying role expectations

Repetitive, with both highly and somewhat structured actions related to daily life and family function that may include the entire family, dyads, or triads and have accompanying role expectations

Continue relatively unchanged across the life course

Changes based on members’ and family household needs

Systematically planned according to revered practices and customs

Response to valued behaviors, stress, change, transitions, development, and predictable life events

Mostly based on esteemed family traditions

May be intentional, deliberate, and directed by shared values of multiple family members, but may also be unplanned

Intergenerationally transmitted with few changes

Some may be transmitted across generations, but patterns may change