17． Researchers have recently discovered how to make families work, more successfully. A surprising idea has appeared:the single most important thing you can do for your family, it seems, is to develop a family story.
I first heard this idea in the mid-1990s, from Marshall Duke, a professor at Emory University. Duke was studying stories in families when his wife, a children's learning specialist, made a discovery: "The students who know a lot about their families will do better when they face challenges (挑战)," Sara said.
Interested, Duke set out to test her conclusion. He and Emory workmate Robyn Fivush developed a method called the "Do You Know?" degree that asked children to answer 20 questions such as: Do you know where your grandparents grew up? Do you know where your mum and dad went to high school? Do you know about an illness or something really terrible that happened in your family?
Duke and Fivush asked those questions to members of four dozen families in 2001. They then compared the children's results with a group of psychological (心理学的) tests the children had taken and reached a conclusion that agreed to Sara's theory. The more children knew about their families' histories, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-respect, and the more successfully they believed their families worked from generation to generation (代代传承).
"We were really surprised," Duke said. The researchers mentioned the children after the terrible events of September 11, 2001. "Once again," Duke said, "the ones who knew more about their families proved to be stronger."
Why does knowing where her grandmother went to school help a child overcome something terrible and difficult? Duke said that children who have the most self-confidence have what he calls "a 'strong intergenerational self". They know that they come from something bigger than themselves.
Duke suggested that parents do the same activities with their children again and again. Any kind of activities work to teach the sense of history:holidays, vacations, big family get-togethers, even a drive to the shop. "These traditions become part of your family," Duke said.
Years of research have showed that most happy families also communicate successfully, but it's not simply a matter of talking through problems. Talking also means telling a positive (正面的) story about yourselves. When faced with a challenge, happy families, like happy people, just add a new chapter (章) to their life story that helps them overcome the difficulty. This skill is very important for children when they are growing up.
The bottom lines: if you want a happier family, create, refine and retell the story of your family's best moments and your relations' ability to overcome difficulty. That act alone may prove the fact that your family will thrive (兴旺) for many generations to come.
