The “Do You Know” Family Stories Game for Thanksgiving

Do you know how your parents met? Where your grandparents went to school? Your mother’s first job? My friend (and travel agent!) Carol Shaddux came up with a fun way to use the Do You Know Scale, a 20-item questionnaire I developed with my colleague Marshall Duke to assess knowledge of family stories. Carol suggests writing out each of the 20 questions on a strip of paper and having each family member pick one and then either tell or ask to hear that story. It is not any one of these stories that matters – rather, it is that these 20 questions are a rough index of whether this is a storytelling family: To know the answers to these questions means that your family tells stories about themselves and their family history, and this is a fun way to get the storytelling started.

As we have found in the Family Narratives Lab, family stories are important because adolescents and young adults who know more of their family history show higher self-esteem, fewer behavior problems, lesser depression and anxiety, and a higher sense of meaning and purpose in life. Knowing intergenerational family stories provides an anchor, a sense of belonging, and a way of understanding how the world works. And family members who tell these stories also reap benefits. Members of the older generation who share their stories with the younger generation show a higher sense of generativity—the sense of leaving a legacy, of mentoring and caring for the next generation.

Thanksgiving may provide special opportunities for this kind of family storytelling. Thanksgiving is, for many Americans, a time of fraught travel, frantic cooking and baking, and last-minute hassles to finally put that long-anticipated meal on the table and sit down among friends and family. But then we can finally breathe a sigh of relief, lift a glass, and reflect on why we actually do this. For me, it is the chance to sit around the table, long after everyone is well-fed, to bond over the stories that make us laugh and those that make us cry, stories that tell of who we are as a family, whether that family is venerable ancestors or those newly arrived into the circle. It is through sharing our stories that we become entwined.

The Thanksgiving dinner table is special because, often, members of multiple generations are present – grandparents, parents and children, aunts, uncles, and cousins, as well as longstanding family friends and new family members: the “framily." And we often take more time across the Thanksgiving dinner table. Once the turkey is carved, we relax, sit back, and tell stories. Even in families that may be facing tension, disagreement, and discord, these stories can help connect us, better understand each other, and generate empathy. Connecting across the generations through the stories of what individual family members experienced is life-affirming and builds a sense of belonging and purpose..

Some of these stories may be iconic family tales that are told every year, like the epic story of a particular family member told word for word – the time uncle Joe drove like a maniac thorough a blinding snowstorm to make it home for Thanksgiving dinner, or Great Grandma Louise tried to bake a pecan pie for the first time, served a gooey mess and broke down in tears until everyone ate a piece and exorbitantly praised her efforts. These kinds of family stores may make us laugh, cry, or perhaps cringe, but they tell us who we are, our beliefs and values, and what matters in the world.

Some family stories have yet to be told. Stories of elders we have not yet heard, stories from newly-embraced friends and family that we do not yet know. This Thanksgiving, make a special effort to tell family stories – often-told beloved stories and some new stories as well. Make a game of it, as suggested by my friend Carol, or ask an elder to tell stories of their early life, or engage a new friend or family member in adding their stories to the mix. However you choose to do it, take this opportunity. Thanksgiving is a time of reflecting on what we each have to be grateful for. This year, as always, I am grateful for my framily (friends and family) and for all the stories we have yet to share.