GOD MADE MAN BECAUSE HE LIKES STORIES.

Elie Wiesel might have been on to something.  Knowledge of family stories links to positive youth outcomes.  That's a peer-reviewed stylized fact, dear reader.

We had just published our first few articles demonstrating that if adolescents knew more about their family history, where their grandparents went to school, how their parents met, and even difficult events such as a terrible illness that a family member suffered, they showed more positive outcomes: lower anxiety, higher self-esteem, a higher sense of family cohesion.

Those conversations around the kitchen or dining room table -- assuming everyone is able to gather around, and has put away the electronic shackles -- are valuable.

Some adolescents and young adults know more stories, tell stories in more elaborated ways, and especially tell stories from the perspective of their parent, what their parent was thinking and feeling, and how their parent interacted with their parents. The life lessons they may have learned from these experiences. These adolescents and young adults really benefit from knowing these stories – we have replicated again, and again outcomes such as lower anxiety and higher self-esteem and have further found that these adolescents and young adults have a higher sense of meaning and purpose in life.

We have also determined that it is storytelling that is important. Certainly, open communication plays a role, but even in those families that report high levels of open communication, trust, and engagement, knowing family stories still predicts higher well-being. And it is the stories about families that matter. Stories about friends and mentors are important but do not have nearly the same impact as stories about parents and other family members. Critically, although the 20 questions is a good predictor, it is not whether adolescents know these specific stories – rather, these question index the extent to which a family frequently engages in storytelling.

So why family stories? Parents remain critical identity figures for adolescents and young adults; they look to their parents as they explore their identity: who am I and who do I want to be? How am I like my family (or possibly not like my family)? How do I understand my life as it unfolds? What are the important lessons and values? Answers to these questions are embedded in the stories that adolescents and young adults tell about their parents – stories that chart their parents' successes and their problems, difficulties, and challenges.

How parents and their parents before them met the inevitable obstacles of life, provide models of perseverance and hope. Family stories make abstract values concrete; they embody a way of being in the world, and adolescents and young adults model themselves on these stories – this is the kind of person I am. These are the kind of people I come from.

Perhaps, pace those Russian novelists, every happy family is alike in that it shares stories, even though the stories are different.