Family Rituals

Family rituals are assessed either through questionnaires, interviews, frequency checklists, or direct observation. The most frequently used self-report questionnaires are the Family Routines Inventory (FRI) ( Jensen et al. 1983) and the Family Ritual Questionnaire (FRQ) (Fiese and Kline 1993). Interviews have also been developed where families are asked to identify rituals that are important to them and how frequently they practices such rituals (Fiese et al. 1993; Wolin and Bennett 1984). The practice of family rituals, such as mealtime, has also been directly observed though video-taped recordings (Fiese and Marjinsky 1999) and audio-taped recordings of conversations (Blum-Kulka 1997; Martini 1996).