For Your Journal: Writing Prompt

Do you keep a journal – or wish you could get one started? Literary Mama wants to help.

Three times a month, I’ll post a writing prompt. Open a notebook and write for 10 minutes. Don’t worry about grammar or punctuation – just write. Then let the writing simmer and your mind wander for awhile.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Family Stories

A 2010 study by psychologists Robyn Fivush and Marshall Duke and former graduate student Jennifer Bohanek of the Emory Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life found that adolescents who reported knowing more stories about their family’s past showed higher levels of emotional well-being and identity achievement.

Researchers tape-recorded dinnertime conversations of 66 middle class, two-parent families with children between the ages of 14 and 16 and then asked the teens to respond to 20 yes/no questions and several standardized measures of family functioning, identity development and well-being.

Ten of the Do You Know questions are listed below. Use them during your next dinnertime conversation.

• Do you know how your parents met?
• Do you know where some of your grandparents met?
• Do you know where your parents were married?
• Do you know which person in your family you look most like?
• Do you know which person in the family you act most like?
• Do you know some of the illnesses and injuries that your parents experienced when they were younger?
• Do you know some of the lessons that your parents learned from good or bad experiences?
• Do you know some things that happened to your mom or dad when they were in school?
• Do you know some of the jobs that your parents had when they were young?
• Do you know some awards that your parents received when they were young?

 

Read the entire report here.

 

Journal Entry: Ask your child the 10 questions listed above. Choose one of his/her “no” responses and answer it.