Sitting at Grandma’s Feet: Connecting the Generations

Traditions connect families across generations and over time. As family members from multiple generations gather to share traditions, your children can learn about their cultural or religious heritage. Many family traditions revolve around specific foods, music, seasonal or cultural events, or other activities of importance to your family. Your children can learn about where they come from and family values as you teach them to prepare special foods from family recipes, to hunt or fish, climb a mountain, milk a cow, ice skate, or play kick the can. Involve multiple generations if possible. Learn to make Aunt Beth’s scones or Grandpa’s secret sauce, whether Auntie or Grandpa is still around or not.
​

Tell stories. Talk about your family history. Tell your children about the fun, happy, good things that have happened in the family and about the hard times as well. Tell them how you beat your own time in the last 10K, how your cousin got over her fear of heights, the goldmine Great grandpa discovered. Also tell them about the time Uncle Joe lost his job, Grandma had cancer, you dropped out of school. Tell them how the family celebrates and savors the good times, and how they get through the tough times, struggle, and come out stronger on the other side, and even how they don’t, or haven’t yet. Children who know the stories of their family’s struggles and triumphs develop resiliency as they come to understand that they are part of a long line of people who have survived, and even thrived, and lived to tell the tales. Fortified by this history, they become more resilient and able to face their own rough spots, their own griefs, their own scary transitions, with greater perspective and confidence.
​

Tell stories about what is happening now. Weave your children and their experiences into the fabric of the family story. The generations are marching on, and your children are a part of the on-going saga. Tell them stories about when they were born, what they were like as a baby, all of their funny, scary, crazy shenanigans. Help them see the growth they’ve already had and appreciate their unique personality and strengths.
​

Here is what I remember about Grandma Call and her stories:

​
I loved visiting Grandma Call and seeing the pictures she painted in my mind as I listened to her stories.  I could see her father flooding the pasture every winter to make an ice-skating rink for her family and friends. I felt I was there with her family sitting on the front porch on hot summer evenings, fanning themselves and slapping mosquitoes, singing and visiting with their neighbors. I crept along beside Grandma in my mind’s eye, playing night games with her and her young friends in the warm, soft darkness. 

​
Imagine the excitement when a dashing young man, destined to become my grandfather, came courting and invited her to accompany him to the popular Saltair resort on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, a daring 40 miles from home!  What delicious thrills: a ride on the old Bamberger Railroad; a swim in the salty lake; a picnic; buckling into the rickety, old roller coaster, chugging slowly up the first hill, the pause at the top, the sudden swoop down, around, up again--all under the spell of newly blossoming love.

​
And then, there we were in Wendell, Idaho, and Grandma was a farmer’s wife. My mother, Lois, was born right there, on the kitchen table, in the farmhouse, while Grandpa talked pigs with the doctor and Grandma  kept calling for help, insisting the baby was coming, but the doctor didn’t believe her and said, “No, Mrs. Call, it will be a little longer.” So, the menfolk talked on and on, before finally listening to Grandma just before she gave birth to little Lois. I don’t know if Grandpa ever lived that one down.

​
I learned the details of how my mom’s head and face got burned by hot grease, and felt the pain and guilt Grandma carried for more than 60 years as she described the accident. I saw her anguish as she lovingly cared for her injured baby, not knowing if she would live or die, be blinded or disfigured, but determined to provide whatever care it was humanly possible to give to help her little girl. From my grandmother’s lips, I gained a deeper appreciation for my mother’s struggles and triumphs. The time spent sitting at Grandma’s feet, listening to her stories, instilled gratitude in me for who I am and for my heritage. 

​
Current research shows that sharing family history with our children helps them connect with their inner selves and learn more about who they are. It helps them develop pride, confidence, self-esteem, and motivation to keep working towards the positive things in life.
 
​
Hearing family stories over and over again will help your children become more resilient when facing their own life challenges. Tell them about the fun times and the successes and be sure to also tell them about the hard times and the challenges, even the mistakes you’ve made, your parents made, their aunts and uncles and cousins made … Tell them how they faced their problems, how they made repairs, how they moved forward. If you do this, they will come to know at an unshakeable level that good things and bad things happen to everyone and that they belong to a family who can find a way to overcome whatever happens. Your children need to hear stories about your real life and your real family. Start today. It only takes a minute. “Did I ever tell you about the time …”   

​
Add to the history. Tell stories about your children’s lives, their adventures, good and bad. Can you think of something silly or sweet or cute or just plain crazy that your children have done?  Tell them the story, and then tell them again.  Just as family photo albums preserve family memories, telling and re-telling stories about our children and their antics, their triumphs, and very carefully and with great sensitivity, even their missteps and how they overcame them, creates a strong family narrative.  Maybe you’ll decide to take it even one step further and write these stories down, or help your children write them down or illustrate them.  Whether or not you write them down, make it a tradition for your kids to hear you say, “Remember when you ___________.”

​
This is personal. This is family. This is life changing.

​​
A tradition of telling family stories is one of the most powerful ways to help your children develop many of the resiliency skills research shows will prepare them to learn and grow from their own challenges. Through stories, you can help them appreciate the values you hold dear and why, learn wisdom from other people’s mistakes, appreciate the power of forgiveness to free them from suffering, understand the satisfaction of hard work and perseverance, and so much more.”