[acb-hsp] The Stories That Bind Us

[peter altschul]

The Stories That Bind Us
  By BRUCE FEILER
  I hit the breaking point as a parent a few years ago.  It was 
the week of my extended family's annual gathering in August, and 
we were struggling with assorted crises.  My parents were aging; 
my wife and I were straining under the chaos of young children; 
my sister was bracing to prepare her preteens for bullying, sex 
and cyberstalking.
  Sure enough, one night all the tensions boiled over.  At 
dinner, I noticed my nephew texting under the table.  I knew I 
shouldn't say anything, but I couldn't help myself and asked him 
to stop.
  Ka-boom! My sister snapped at me to not discipline her child.  
My dad pointed out that my girls were the ones balancing spoons 
on their noses.  My mom said none of the grandchildren had 
manners.  Within minutes, everyone had fled to separate corners.
  Later, my dad called me to his bedside.  There was a palpable 
sense of fear I couldn't remember hearing before.
  "Our family's falling apart," he said.



"No it's not," I said instinctively.  "It's stronger than ever."
  But lying in bed afterward, I began to wonder: Was he right? 
What is the secret sauce that holds a family together? What are 
the ingredients that make some families effective, resilient, 
happy?
  It turns out to be an astonishingly good time to ask that 
question.  The last few years have seen stunning breakthroughs in 
knowledge about how to make families, along with other groups, 
work more effectively.
  Myth-shattering research has reshaped our understanding of 
dinnertime, discipline and difficult conversations.  Trendsetting 
programs from Silicon Valley and the military have introduced 
techniques for making teams function better.  The only problem: 
most of that knowledge remains ghettoized in these subcultures, 
hidden from the parents who need it most.
  I spent the last few years trying to uncover that information, 
meeting families, scholars and experts ranging from peace 
negotiators to online game designers to Warren Buffett's bankers.
  After a while, a surprising theme emerged.  The single most 
important thing you can do for your family may be the simplest of 
all: develop a strong family narrative.
  I first heard this idea from Marshall Duke, a colorful 
psychologist at Emory University.  In the mid-1990's, Dr.  Duke 
was asked to help explore myth and ritual in American families.
  "There was a lot of research at the time into the dissipation 
of the family," he told me at his home in suburban Atlanta.  "But 
we were more interested in what families could do to counteract 
those forces."
  Around that time, Dr.  Duke's wife, Sara, a psychologist who 
works with children with learning disabilities, noticed something 
about her students.
  "The ones who know a lot about their families tend to do better 
when they face challenges," she said.
  Her husband was intrigued, and along with a colleague, Robyn 
Fivush, set out to test her hypothesis.  They developed a measure 
called the "Do You Know?" scale that asked children to answer 20 
questions.
  Examples included: Do you know where your grandparents grew up? 
Do you know where your mom and dad went to high school? Do you 
know where your parents met? Do you know an illness or something 
really terrible that happened in your family? Do you know the 
story of your birth?
  Dr.  Duke and Dr.  Fivush asked those questions of four dozen 
families in the summer of 2001, and taped several of their dinner 
table conversations.  They then compared the children's results 
to a battery of psychological tests the children had taken, and 
reached an overwhelming conclusion.  The more children knew about 
their family's history, the stronger their sense of control over 
their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more 
successfully they believed their families functioned.  The "Do 
You Know?" scale turned out to be the best single predictor of 
children's emotional health and happiness.
  "We were blown away," Dr.  Duke said.
  And then something unexpected happened.  Two months later was 
Sept.  11.  As citizens, Dr.  Duke and Dr.  Fivush were horrified 
like everyone else, but as psychologists, they knew they had been 
given a rare opportunity: though the families they studied had 
not been directly affected by the events, all the children had 
experienced the same national trauma at the same time.  The 
researchers went back and reassessed the children.
  "Once ageab Dr.  Duke said, "the ones who knew more about their 
families proved to be more resilient, meaning they could moderate 
the effects of stress."
  Why does knowing where your grandmother went to school help a 
child overcome something as minor as a skinned knee or as major 
as a terrorist attack? "The answers have to do with a childbs 
sense of being part of a larger family," Dr.  Duke said.
  Psychologists have found that every family has a unifying 
narrative, he explained, and those narratives take one of three 
shapes.
  First, the ascending family narrative: "Son, when we came to 
this country, we had nothing.  Our family worked.  We opened a 
store.  Your grandfather went to high school.  Your father went 
to college.  And now you. ..."
  Second is the descending narrative: "Sweetheart, we used to 
have it all.  Then we lost everything."
  "The most healthful narrative," Dr.  Duke continued, "is the 
third one.  It's called the oscillating family narrative: `Dear, 
let me tell you, we've had ups and downs in our family.  We built 
a family business.  Your grandfather was a pillar of the 
community.  Your mother was on the board of the hospital.  But we 
also had setbacks.  You had an uncle who was once arrested.  We 
had a house burn down.  Your father lost a job.  But no matter 
what happened, we always stuck together as a family.`"
  Dr.  Duke said that children who have the most self-confidence 
have what he and Dr.  Fivush call a strong "intergenerational 
self." They know they belong to something bigger than themselves.
  Leaders in other fields have found similar results.  Many 
groups use what sociologists call sense-making, the building of a 
narrative that explains what the group is about.
  Jim Collins, a management expert and author of "Good to Great," 
told me that successful human enterprises of any kind, from 
companies to countries, go out of their way to capture their core 
identity.  In Mr.  Collins's terms, they "preserve core, while 
stimulating progress." The same applies to families, he said.
  Mr.  Collins recommended that families create a mission 
statement similar to the ones companies and other organizations 
use to identify their core values.
  The military has also found that teaching recruits about the 
history of their service increases their camaraderie and ability 
to bond more closely with their unit.
  Cmdr.  David G.  Smith is the chairman of the department of 
leadership, ethics and law at the Naval Academy and an expert in 
unit cohesion, the Pentagon's term for group morale.  Until 
recently, the military taught unit cohesion by "dehumanizing" 
individuals, Commander Smith said.  Think of the bullying drill 
sergeants in "Full Metal Jacket" or "An Officer and a Gentleman." 
But these days the military spends more time building up identity 
through communal activities.  At the Naval Academy, Commander 
Smith advises graduating seniors to take incoming freshmen (or 
plebes) on history-building exercises, like going to the cemetery 
to pay tribute to the first naval aviator or visiting the 
original B-1 aircraft on display on campus.
  Dr.  Duke recommended that parents pursue similar activities 
with their children.
  Any number of occasions work to convey this sense of history: 
holidays, vacations, big family get-togethers, even a ride to the 
mall.  The hokier the family's tradition, he said, the more 
likely it is to be passed down.  He mentioned his family's custom 
of hiding frozen turkeys and canned pumpkin in the bushes during 
Thanksgiving so grandchildren would have to "hunt for their 
supper," like the Pilgrims.
  "These traditions become part of your family," Dr.  Duke said.
  Decades of research have shown that most happy families 
communicate effectively.
  But talking doesn't mean simply "talking through problems," as 
important as that is.  Talking also means telling a positive 
story about yourselves.  When faced with a challenge, happy 
families, like happy people, just add a new chapter to their life 
story that shows them overcoming the hardship.  This skill is 
particularly important for children, whose identity tends to get 
locked in during adolescence.
  The bottom line: if you want a happier family, create, refine 
and retell the story of your family's positive moments and your 
ability to bounce back from the difficult ones.  That act alone 
may increase the odds that your family will thrive for many 
generations to come.