6 Powerful Ways to Share Family Stories with Your Children
Written by Marci Renée
There are gaps in my life story. I will never know some things about my family.
My maternal great-grandmother died just before her 100th birthday. On her deathbed, she divulged a deep secret that she had been hiding in her heart and carrying alone for almost a century.
“I am a Jew. My father was Jewish,” she confessed, much to the shock of those in her presence.
She died shortly after she spoke those words, so no one was ever able to sit down with her, ask her questions, and fill in the blanks of our family’s narrative. A part of my identity will forever be a mystery.
One of my cousins later wrote my great-grandmother’s biography, but there are holes in our family’s story, dots that will forever remain unconnected.
My great-grandmother had passed down many stories about her life, but not all of them.
There is power in telling our stories—all of our family's stories.
“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.”
Story Questions—Do You Know?
In the mid-1990s, Dr. Marshall Duke and Dr. Robyn Fivush developed a measure called “Do You Know?” It had a series of 20 questions, including:
Do you know where your grandparents grew up? Do you know where your mom and dad went to high school? Do you know where your parents met? Do you know an illness or something terrible that happened in your family? Do you know the story of your birth?
It turned out that having the answers to these questions was the single best predictor of children’s emotional health and happiness.
Children who know more about their families tend to do better when they face challenges, be more resilient, and moderate the effects of stress.
Our family’s story—our history—is linked to our own personal identity and knowing that we belong to a larger family.
“Children who have the most self-confidence have . . . a strong 'intergenerational self.’ They know they belong to something bigger than themselves,” said Dr. Duke.
Types of Family Narratives
Duke and Fivush have further identified three common types of family narratives:
The Ascending Family Narrative: Families who started out with nothing and reached a successful peak.
The Descending Family Narrative: Families who had it all and lost everything.
The Oscillating Family Narrative: Families who have been through ups and downs but who have made it through. The family has stuck together through it all.
The Oscillating Family Narrative is the healthiest type of family story in which both the good and the bad stories are shared and remembered. The core message is, “No matter what happened, we always stuck together as a family.”
These ups and downs can be easily seen in our cross-cultural family lives—surviving tumultuous transitions, leaving loved ones behind, making new friends, learning foreign languages, adjusting to different cultures, etc.
In Your Child Year by Year, author Claire Halsey states, “Our identity is strongly tied to our family and its history; not only where we’ve come from but the family characteristics such as adventure, courage, creativity, and even the jobs or achievements of family members.”
Family storytelling powerfully reinforces a shared past, common experiences, and characteristics. Sharing stories also builds family traditions and rituals that bind families together, creating stronger family relationships.
Jonathan Douglas, director of the National Literacy Trust, says, “The stories children read in books help them to become part of other people’s worlds, but the stories they hear from their family help them to understand their own world, who they are, where they come from, and where they might want to go. The stories of our childhood shape the people we become and the world we create.”
Photo by Michael Olsen on Unsplash
Ways to Share Stories With Our Children
1. It’s never too early to share family stories. Younger children may be more open to hearing your family’s tales. When they reach their teenage years, they may just roll their eyes at you, but opportunities often open up again as children become mature adults.
2. All families have traditions and a story to tell about them! If your traditions are steeped in history, encourage your child to do some research and find out everything they can. Get your child to speak to as many different family members as possible about the traditions—from grandparents to aunts, uncles, and cousins.
3. Keep objects and images visible to remind you of key events and moments. Create a memory box of special treasures. Whenever you open the box, use the objects to prompt the retelling of a family memory.
Or, scatter the objects around the house as visual reminders of your family’s story. One friend said that her family kept old drawings, shells, sea glass, and other fun treasures from her family’s years in North Africa.
4. Don’t be afraid to share your story and experience with your child, especially if he or she is going through a difficult situation which you can relate to. Family storytelling enables children to learn about powerful emotions and cope with life’s challenges in a safe environment.
5. Write a Memory Book, a collection of short stories from your family’s life. You can begin by writing one short memory down in a journal each day for 100 days and compiling them chronologically into a “Family Story Book.” For further suggestions, here are “6 Steps to Writing a Memory Book.”
6. Ask your children, “Do you remember when?” The director of the Society for Storytelling, Paul Jackson, says “Personal stories are very powerful and can pull families together. The listener has a personal connection to these reminiscences. Even just asking, ‘Do you remember when?’ can trigger images and memories and a deep emotional response.”
In my great-grandmother’s biography, there are pages and chapters left blank. There are parts of our family story that I will never know. Our family’s narrative isn’t complete.
I have committed to do my best to tell all of my life story to my children and my grandchildren. I want them to know our family’s narrative.
There is power in telling our story to our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren. There is power in passing down all of our life stories.
After all, our story is their story, too.
Guest author, Marci Renée, along with her French husband and four boys, is a global nomad who has traveled to more than 30 countries and has lived in the United States, France, Morocco, and Spain. She loves to travel, speak foreign languages, experience different cultures, eat ethnic foods, meet people from faraway lands, and of course, write and tell stories. She is a published author of children's picture books, memoirs, short stories, and poetry.
You can find Marci and her books on her website.
"The Cultural Story-Weaver," at www.culturalstoryweaver.com