Resources for Your Family Stories
How family storytelling positively affects children and teens: advanced narrative skills, higher self esteem, better coping skills, lower anxiety. Parents shouldn't sanitize stories for their children -- just tell it like it was.
Family Life
From a Christian perspective, but has good points about preserving family heritage through story. The last section of the article lists ways to put your story together: interviewing relatives (or asking them to write their memories), a video camera at family gatherings, create a collection of the family's favorite things, a family scrapbook, and keeping a journal.
Huffington Post
Tell grandkids: how you met your partner in grandparenting, the day the grandchild's parent was born, the day the grandchild was born, what school was like for you, your first job and your favorite job, your proudest moment.
A Place for Mom Senior Living Blog
Ways for seniors to pass on their stories and heritage to younger family members: collect family recipes, make an audio/video recording, make a family tree, make a family time capsule, write out favorite memories, or dedicate a tree/bench (not sure this one really applies).
Caring.com
Similar takeaways to previous articles, but what I liked best was the suggestion to get the stories associated with things -- knickknacks, lamps, dressers, etc. What stories do those items hold?
Interesting article about how the way we tell ourselves our own stories shapes who we are. Heavy on the idea that all of life is story and how the brain is wired for story (not necessarily how stories are passed down through the generations).
How families often talk about the past when getting together for birthdays or weddings, everyone reminiscing. These are concrete ways to preserve those stories and memories. My favorites (of the 11): It will teach you about yourself, sometimes your mind plays tricks on you, and it will change your life.
Telling a Family Culture: Storytelling, Family Identity, and Cultural Membership
Interpersona (professional journal)
A study about the public vs. private stories family tell and how they go about it. Most families focus on positive stories that make them seem pro-social and happy, with negative stories showing how the family has overcome.
Psychol Trauma (professional journal)
A study about how the way families tell stories can help them heal when dealing with trauma.
Examples of how being candid with your kids can give you an avenue to talk to them about your own experiences when you demonstrated (or didn't demonstrate) a particular character trait, like courage.
"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 everystory app incorporates photo, video, and audio narration to tell family stories.
CoolmomTech
The stories etc app creates what is essentially an interactive e-book with audio, video, photo, narration, and text.
A helpful app created by this celebrated non-profit, StoryCorps, which is often linked with NPR, but has so much more to offer than its weekly syndicated snippits. The app is simple to use, comes with many great questions to ask your love ones, and choose to arhive (or not) the interview in the library of congress.