Did you know that sharing your family history with your grandchildren can improve their self-esteem and academic competence?
According to Dr. Robyn Fivush who has spent decades researching how happy families communicate, the more children know about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem, and the more successfully they believe their families function.
Children who have the most self-confidence have what Dr. Fivush calls a strong “intergenerational self.” They know they belong to something bigger than themselves.
But talking doesn’t mean simply “talking through problems,” as important as that is. Talking also means telling a positive story about yourselves. When faced with a challenge, happy families, like happy people, just add a new chapter to their life story that shows them overcoming the hardship. This skill is particularly important for children, whose identity tends to get locked in during adolescence.
The bottom line: if you want a happier family, create, refine and retell the story of your family’s positive moments and your ability to bounce back from the difficult ones. That act alone may increase the odds that your family will thrive for many generations to come.
So how can you start sharing your family stories?
Robyn Fivush and Marshall Duke developed the “Do You Know…?” scale, sometimes called “The 20 Questions,” that tap into different kinds of family stories. These questions are designed as a starting point for sharing family stories.
They emphasize that it’s not the knowledge of these specific facts that’s important – it’s the process of families sharing stories about their lives that is important. So these questions are a way to begin to ask and to tell and to begin a family tradition of sharing the stories of your lives.
Can your grandchildren answer these questions?
- Do you know how your parents met?
- Do you know where your mother grew up?
- Do you know where your father grew up?
- Do you know where some of your grandparents grew up?
- Do you know where some of your grandparents met?
- Do you know where your parents were married?
- Do you know what went on when you were being born?
- Do you know the source of your name?
- Do you know some things about what happened when your brothers or sisters were being born?
- Do you know which person in your family you look most like?
- Do you know which person in the family you act most like?
- Do you know some of the illnesses and injuries that your parents experienced when they were younger?
- Do you know some of the lessons that your parents learned from good or bad experiences?
- Do you know some things that happened to your mom or dad when they were in school?
- Do you know the national background of your family (such as English, German, Russian, etc.)?
- Do you know some of the jobs that your parents had when they were young?
- Do you know some awards that your parents received when they were young?
- Do you know the names of the schools that your mom went to?
- Do you know the names of the schools that your dad went to?
- Do you know about a relative whose face “froze” in a grumpy position because he or she did not smile enough?
