An Exploration of Coming of Age Rituals & Rites of Passage in a Modern Era | Ron Fritz | TEDxBend

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Published 2017-07-06
Ron Fritz discusses his family’s journey to create meaningful coming of age events for their three children and shows how you can create a similar rite of passage for a child in your life – whether it’s a son, daughter, niece, nephew, grandchild or friend. These important rites of passage help young teens understand what it means to become an adult by teaching life skills and reinforcing character traits and values. Our children need guidance through this difficult and confusing transition and Fritz describes how bringing a community together to mark this coming of age moment can make a positive impact in a young person’s life.

Across the broad sweep of human history and in every corner of the globe, cultures have recognized the importance of “coming of age” rituals to help their children navigate the challenging transition from childhood to adulthood. In the United States, coming of age traditions are less common. Ron Fritz, father of three and CEO of an international technology company, believes in creating that meaningful rite of passage celebration to clarify for young people what it means to become an adult. Through his own family’s story, he hopes to inspire the resurgence of such traditions and maybe just spark a movement.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at www.ted.com/tedx
All Comments (21)
  • @justinelackey7620
    This is some of the best parenting advice I have ever seen. Bravo mom, dad and coming of age team!
  • @fab8672
    Mr Fritz , you are mentioning an obvious and needed reality most of us never went through , but the new generations need an eventful and meaningful ritual that awakes them up and prepares them for whats ahead . Great talk .
  • @ScottSheppard
    I always regarded myself as a pretty good father. Had I seen this years ago, I could have done an even better job.
  • @kohaku1821
    Wisdom is easy to share but hard to put into practice, having never learned it "the hard way".
  • @williambarth8476
    Is there a transcript available for this presentation? (Terrific talk, by the way).
  • @henrysmarthy286
    The coming of age ceremony for my kids- Here is doom eternal on nightmare mode have fun.
  • @kohaku1821
    I've assembled book cases like that before and it takes about two hours if you have to screw by hand and read all of the instructions, not having done it before.
  • @p.t.r.n.swesternchannel7976
    This has given us a lot of ideas. With our son we plan on giving him a necklace and with each step in his passages awarding him with trinkets. Dog tags symbolizing how life is a fight and you have to be strong and fight to survive and to do what is right and fight for good. Also a ring to symbolize commitments and following through and doing what you say your are going to do and keeping promises. Each award will be symbolic and have meaning tied to wisdom value and serve as a reminder of his achievements that he can keep and look back on. We also want to award him a symbolic name upon completion a badge of honor to be proud of in the tradition of going from little wolf to running bear. We are still developing our rituals and what we wish to incorporate in it for him. He just turned 10 about two weeks ago and soon his journey into manhood will begin. We are already preparing him and psycing him up. I just wanted to share this because I feel like the necklace with the physical reminders marking his progress and steps in his path are very much conceptually in line with the topics and themes in this video so I thought I would share that for others who may want to incorporate something like that themselves.
  • @thaliakate444
    Wow! What a powerful event. I noticed it was missing from my life, as I just left home in a rush at age 15 and as a result crashed into reality many times. Now, I'd like to create for others what I didn't have for myself. It's also never too late to have a coming of age ceremony! I had one at age 31. 🐛🦋13 is really the ideal age to make it happen though. I wish every child had a man like this in their life and a coming of age team on call for life. 💖
  • @May8Day
    Really loved the Ritual idea!
  • @alejandro1979x
    This works in a functional family. Not the screw ups families some of us experienced. So...
  • @Survivor-xs9gv
    Ron Fritz, I hope you read this. Unlike tribes, societies focus not only on survival but also development so instead of one day ritual testing physical strength, society needs to have ritual carried over multiple year where a pubescent makes foundational developments in multiple sectors of life: Social, Economical, Psychological, Physical and Political for which he receives dog tags and finally a ring to indicate that the pubescent is ready for marriage. I would like your opinion on this Ron Fritz
  • @Northern-adventurs
    How can I contact Ron Fritz. I am writing a book at the moment and would love his input.
  • @ilinez23
    I will do this to my future kidss