A dear friend of mine, who is a marriage and family therapist, recently sent me a piece of research because, as she put it, it reminded her of my family.
This is both a compliment and a small accusation.
I’ve often felt I know more family history than the average person should. Not just the sweet stories. Not just the “your great-grandmother made the best biscuits” stories. I know the uncomfortable ones, too. The ones most families might tuck away in a drawer labeled “Let’s not bring this up over brisket.”
One of those stories is about my paternal grandparents. When I was seven or eight years old, I learned they had once been on the brink of divorce. This was decades before I was born, and the story was shared at a family gathering over barbecue with the same casual tone someone might use to discuss a Christmas memory.
I was stunned.
We had recently celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary. They seemed so in love. Even in their early 60s, they held hands, laughed together and seemed genuinely delighted to be in the same room. This stood out to me because many of my friends’ grandparents appeared more “mildly annoyed roommates” than “true life partners.”
As I got older, I asked more questions. I learned their near-divorce was not the end of their story. In many ways, it became the turning point. The almost collapse of their marriage helped catapult them into the beautiful relationship I later witnessed. It also explained why they were so adamant that my dad and his brothers not only “get married and stay married,” but adore their wives. Date them. Laugh with them. Play together. Enjoy each other.
I did not realize how much that story shaped my own understanding of marriage until I was married myself.
This is exactly the kind of thing psychologists Robyn Fivush and Marshall Duke at Emory University have studied for years: the power of family stories. Not just the shiny stories. The whole story.
Duke, Fivush and their colleagues developed what is called the “Do You Know?” scale, a set of 20 questions designed to measure how much children know about their family history. The questions are simple. Do you know how your parents met? Do you know where your grandparents grew up? Do you know the source of your name? Do you know about an illness, injury, hard time or lesson your parents experienced when they were younger?
The point was not to see which children had memorized the most family trivia. This was not Ancestry.com meets standardized testing. The researchers wanted to understand whether children who knew more about their family’s past also showed stronger emotional well-being.
In one study, Fivush, Duke and Jennifer Bohanek looked at 66 adolescents, ages 14 to 16, from broadly middle-class, mixed-race, two-parent families. The teens completed the “Do You Know?” scale along with standardized measures of family functioning, identity development and well-being. The results were striking. Adolescents who knew more about their family history showed higher levels of emotional well-being and stronger identity achievement, even when researchers controlled for general family functioning.
Earlier work found similar patterns among younger children. Higher scores on the “Do You Know?” scale were linked with higher self-esteem, a stronger sense of control over life, better family functioning, lower anxiety and fewer internalizing and externalizing behavior problems.
But here is the important part: Fivush and Duke were clear that simply stuffing a child’s brain with facts about Uncle Larry’s old Ford truck does not magically make them resilient.
The power is not in the facts alone. The power is in the process.
Families who tell stories are usually doing something deeper. They are creating connections. They are showing children where they come from. They are giving them a larger narrative to stand inside when life gets hard.
And, according to Duke, the healthiest family narratives are not only ascending stories, where everything gets better and better. They are not only descending stories, where everything falls apart. The most helpful stories are often “oscillating” stories: We had hard times. We got through them. We had good times. We lost our way. We found our way again.
That matters because children do not need a family tree full of perfect people. In fact, good luck finding one.
Children need to know their family has survived real life. They need stories of grandparents who struggled, parents who made mistakes, relatives who repaired relationships, people who changed, families who grieved and laughed in the same kitchen.
Of course, this does not mean every story is appropriate for every age. We do not need to hand a six-year-old a full documentary on generational trauma while they are trying to eat macaroni and cheese. But we can tell the truth in age-appropriate ways.
“We had a really hard season, and we had to learn how to love each other better.”
“Grandpa made some mistakes when he was younger, and he worked hard to make things right.”
“When I was your age, I felt left out sometimes, too.”
“Our family has been through hard things before, and we know how to take the next right step.”
So how do we use this research in real family life?
First, tell stories at ordinary times. The best family storytelling often happens in the car, at the dinner table, on the porch, during holidays or while washing dishes. You do not need a formal family history night, although if your people will tolerate that, bless them.
Second, tell the whole story, not just the polished one. Share the wedding day and the almost-divorce. The job promotion and the job loss. The answered prayer and the season of waiting. Children learn resilience when they hear that struggle is not proof their family is broken. It is proof their family is human.
Third, connect the story to meaning. Do not just say, “Your grandmother lived through a hard time.” Say, “That taught her to be generous,” or “That is why she cared so much about keeping family close.” The lesson helps the child carry the story forward.
Fourth, ask questions. Try a few from the “Do You Know?” scale. Ask your children what they know about where you grew up, how you met their other parent, what you were like as a child or what mistakes taught you the most. Let them ask follow-ups. Let the conversation wander.
Finally, remember that family stories are not about creating pride in perfection. They are about creating belonging.
When I think about my grandparents now, I do not think less of their marriage because it almost ended. I think more of it. I saw the fruit of repair. I saw two people who had weathered something hard and built something beautiful on the other side.
That story gave me more than information. It gave me imagination.
It helped me believe that love can mature. That repair is possible. Those hard seasons do not have to have the final word.
And maybe that is one of the greatest gifts we can give our children: not a flawless family history, but an honest one sturdy enough to hold them.
Lauren Hall is the President and CEO of First Things First. Contact her at lauren@firstthings.org
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