FAMILY STORIES

FAMILY STORIES Help Kids Cope During Tough Times

by Ronica O’Hara I n these challenging times as our versity, in Atlanta. “The stories provide a children struggle to cope with a swiftly sense that they belong to something larger changing world, one of the best things than themselves.” In the midst of unsettling we can do is simply to let them know what events, she says it’s especially important for strong stuff they come from. Decades of children to know that the family has been research show that children that know through hard times before and persevered. their family’s stories—especially how their Emory research shows that chilparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and dren, teens and young adults that know other forebears overcame adversity—have more of their family’s narratives have a the ability to handle societal and personal greater sense of control over their lives, trauma better. more self-esteem, better grades, higher

“Family stories help children feel safe, social competence, less anxiety and desecure and grounded,” says psychology pression, and fewer behavior problems. professor Robyn Fivush, Ph.D., director of After 9/11, children that tested high in the Family Narratives Lab at Emory Unimeasures of family narratives proved to

Getting Started with Family Narratives Read more about family narratives at Robyn Fivush’s

Psychology Today blog:

PsychologyToday.com/intl/blog/the-stories-our-lives

Ideas for writing and craft projects: Tinyurl.com/

CreatingAFamilyNarrative

Questions kids can ask family grownups:Tinyurl. com/ClassroomRoots

be more resilient and less stressed.

Family stories can be of loss—“Once we had it all”—or of triumph—“We came up from nowhere”—but the most powerful stories are those that show both the peaks and the valleys, the hilarious escapades and deep losses. “Even simply hearing what other people wish they could have done differently helps to offer children a broader perspective to current experiences,” says Carrie Krawiec, a family therapist at Birmingham Maple Clinic, in Troy, Michigan. Accounts of the deepest trauma also prove formative: Knowing how their great-grandparents survived the Holocaust gave young adults a sense of gratitude, pride, courage and a greater religious commitment, a University of Pennsylvania study found.

Stories unfold easily at holiday dinners and during long car rides; even during an ordinary dinner, some kind of story—“Guess what happened today at the store?”—occurs about every five minutes, Fivush’s research shows. But summer vacation or days spent together inside a house provide a special opportunity for kids to dive deeper into their family background. For example, they can write an essay about a grandparent or aunt, write and direct a play with siblings, make a scrapbook, read history or novels to study events that took place during a specific time period, write a song or story from the ancestor’s point of view, research and draw a family tree or create a mini-documentary based on an interview with an older relative.

This is the quiz used in family narrative research, but Fivush cautions that the 20 questions are only a starting point, and many more can be created. Nor does getting the facts exactly right matter—those can easily be in dispute among family members. “It is the telling, the sharing and the listening that is more important than the story itself,” she says.

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 broth- ers 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 expe- rienced 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 or ethnic background of your family? 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?

Ronica A. O’Hara is a Denver-based health writer. Connect at OHaraRonica@gmail.com.