Loving parents want their children to be successful and self-confident people. But how to cultivate these qualities in them? The journalist stumbled upon an interesting study and decided to test it on her own family. Here’s what she got.
I did not attach much importance to conversations about where my grandparents met or how they spent their childhood. Until one day I came across a study from the 1990s.
Psychologists Marshall Duke and Robin Fivush from Emory University in the United States conducted an experiment and found that the more children know about their roots, the more stable their psyche, the higher their self-esteem and the more confident they can manage their lives.
“The stories of relatives give the child the opportunity to feel the history of the family, form a sense of connection with other generations,” I read in the study. — Even if he is only nine, he feels unity with those who lived a hundred years ago, they become part of his personality. Through this connection, strength of mind and resilience are developed.”
Well, great results. I decided to test the scientists’ questionnaire on my own children.
They easily coped with the question “Do you know where your parents grew up?” But they stumbled on grandparents. Then we moved on to the question “Do you know where your parents met?”. Here, too, there were no hitches, and the version turned out to be very romantic: “You saw dad in the crowd at the bar, and it was love at first sight.”
But at the meeting of grandparents again stalled. I told her that my husband’s parents met at a dance in Bolton, and my dad and mom met at a nuclear disarmament rally.
Later, I asked Marshall Duke, “Is it okay if some of the answers are a little embellished?” It doesn’t matter, he says. The main thing is that parents share family history, and children can tell something about it.
Further: “Do you know what was happening in the family when you (and your brothers or sisters) were born?” The eldest was very small when the twins appeared, but remembered that he then called them «pink baby» and «blue baby».
And as soon as I breathed a sigh of relief, the questions became delicate. “Do you know where your parents worked when they were very young?”
The eldest son immediately remembered that dad delivered newspapers on a bicycle, and the youngest daughter that I was a waitress, but I was not good at it (I constantly spilled tea and confused garlic oil with mayonnaise). “And when you worked in a pub, you had a fight with the chef, because there was not a single dish from the menu, and all the visitors heard you.”
Did I really tell her? Do they really need to know? Yes, Duke says.
Even ridiculous stories from my youth help them: so they learn how their relatives overcame difficulties.
“Unpleasant truths are often hidden from children, but talking about negative events can be more important for building emotional resilience than positive ones,” says Marshall Duke.
There are three types of family history stories:
- On rising: «We have achieved everything from nothing.»
- On the fall: «We lost everything.»
- And the most successful option is a “swing” from one state to another: “We had both ups and downs.”
I grew up with the latter type of stories, and I like to think that children will also remember these stories. My son knows that his great-grandfather became a miner at 14, and my daughter knows that his great-great-grandmother went to work when she was still a teenager.
I understand that we live in a completely different reality now, but this is what family therapist Stephen Walters says: “A single thread is weak, but when it is woven into something larger, connected with other threads, it is much harder to break.” This is how we feel stronger.
Duke believes that discussing family dramas can be a good basis for parent-child interaction once the age of bedtime stories has passed. “Even if the hero of the story is no longer alive, we continue to learn from him.”
About the author: Rebecca Hardy is a journalist based in London.