The Importance of Grandparents’ Stories
If you’d met my late father-in-law, you probably would have heard his thick accent and assumed that he was a recent immigrant. You’d be wrong: despite living in the US for over 70 years, he never lost the accent that sometimes made him impossible to understand. It took careful listening to get the full impact of his stories, but, Oh! What stories they were! Growing up in Nazi-occupied Greece. Skipping school to go to the movies. Trying to run away from home twice before his parents gave their blessing and he joined the Greek merchant marines. Traveling the world before jumping ship and settling down in California.
The Benefits of Sharing Stories
Every grandparent has a lifetime of stories. Not all are as dramatic as Papou’s, but all of them are worth sharing. There are so many reasons to share them with your grandchildren. Let’s start with the most obvious: kids love them! They are fascinated to hear that their grandfather used to skip school or that their great-grandmother was a champion skier. They feel as if they are getting a peek into another world. Even children know that being trusted with someone else’s stories is a privilege, and they feel special when you share yours. So in addition to entertaining them, you are building a strong and enduring relationship.
Grandparents stories are also a way to connect grandchildren with their heritage and cultural identity. Rafael’s tales about his childhood in Mazatlán help his grandchildren learn about their Hispanic roots and understand that the world is bigger than their own experience. Lisa’s stories about her great-grandparents’ homesteading years show her own grandchildren that they are connected to a long line of farmers.
The stories you tell can impart your values and life lessons, too. When Donna tells her grandsons about the shame she felt when she got caught peeking at a classmate’s paper during a test, they’ll understand why honesty is important to her (and also that Grandma D is human!). Jeff’s stories about his time in the military will help his grandchildren understand that “Honor, courage and commitment” are not just words on his office wall.
Sharing stories builds a sense of belonging our grandchildren, and this has amazing benefits for them. In fact, studies show that adolescents who grow up knowing family stories have less anxiety, higher self-esteem, better self-control, and fewer behavioral problems.
The “Do You Know” Scale
Researchers Marshall Duke and Robyn Fivush developed the “Do You Know…?” scale to study how families pass along their history. Sometimes called “The 20 Questions”, the DYK Scale is made up of questions that tap into different kinds of family stories. These questions have been used in research to learn more about how knowing family stories benefits a child.
For grandparents, the questions on the DYK are useful starting points for sharing family stories. The questions include:
Do you know how your parents met?
Do you know the source of your name?
Do you know some of the illnesses and injuries that your parents experienced when they were younger?
Do you know some of the jobs that your parents had when they were young?
Take a look at the full list of questions here, and use them to inspire your next story. I’m not sure my own grandchildren know that their dad spent a summer working at a tire store, or that Pops used to work at a service station pumping gas. (And when we tell them, we’ll also have to explain what a gas station attendant is!)
Remember, though, the 20 Questions isn’t a list of facts your grandchild should memorize to guarantee their future mental health. It’s the gift of sharing the stories that gives children a sense of self and belonging, not the specific knowledge in the stories themselves.
Make sharing stories part of your role as a grandparent
How can you make sharing stories a regular part of your family life? For some people, telling stories comes naturally and no effort is required. For others, it will take being more deliberate. Like any other part of grandparenting, work it into your routine. Maybe you have Storytime Saturday, when everyone shares their favorite family stories. Maybe your yearly family reunion has a night devoted to root beer floats and stories.
Sometimes distance makes it hard to share all we want, and that’s where technology can really help. Use video chats and emails to share your stories with your grandchildren no matter how far away they are. If time zone differences make video chats tricky, try the Marco Polo app: you can record a story and your grands can watch and respond later. Use an app like Novella to capture and preserve stories. Or go old school and share your stories in letters—our Grandparent Love Letters makes this easy.
Grandparents play a vital role in sharing family stories. However you share yours, don’t wait. Your stories will only outlive you if you share them while you can still remember them.