How much do you know about the pasts of your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles or other older relatives?
Are there things you’ve always wondered about, but have been too afraid or not had the opportunity to ask — as in what their childhoods were like, what they are most proud of or what they regret?
In “5 Questions to Ask Your Elders Over the Holidays,” Dana G. Smith suggests using holiday family gatherings as a time to reconnect with these family members and ask some of the questions that have been on your mind. She begins:
My favorite aunt, Bea, died over the summer. She wore frosty pink lipstick and snorted when she laughed (and she laughed a lot). She lived in Hawaii, Japan, Hong Kong, Alaska, on a houseboat in Florida and, longest of all, in California. She was a breast cancer survivor. She was married four times — twice to her first husband, and last to her brother’s best friend from high school. (They reconnected in their 60s, and he took care of her until the end.) She and my mom called each other Ducky.
Bea was 81 when she passed away, diminished by dementia. I regret not asking her more questions about her fascinating life when I had the chance.
Renée Alexander Craft feels the same way about her father, who died a little over a decade ago from complications related to Alzheimer’s disease. An oral historian and professor of communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she was determined not to lose the opportunity twice. So she began interviewing her 92-year-old mother about her life last year.
If you’ll be with family over the holidays, consider doing the same with your elders. These conversations can offer a window into the past and a way to preserve memories for the future. They can also provide an opportunity to spend quality time together now.
For the person being interviewed, the experience can help with “a sense of life completion and a sense of being heard and understood and being able to tell their story,” said Dr. Ira Byock, an emeritus professor at the Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine specializing in palliative care.
Here are some of the questions Ms. Smith and others recommend asking:
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Did you ever get in trouble as a child?
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Do you have any secret talents?
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What did your childhood bedroom look like?
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What did a typical Saturday morning entail when you were growing up?
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What was one of your favorite trips?
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What major historical events did you live through?
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What are you most proud of?
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Is there anything you regret?
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Who were the loves of your life?
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What were your major heartbreaks or disappointments?
Students, read the entire article and then tell us:
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What are your relationships with your older family members like? How close are you? How often do you talk to them about their lives? Are you inspired by the article to learn more about these relatives?
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Who is an older adult in your family you would like to learn more about? What makes you curious about that person?
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Which of the questions listed above might you like to ask, and why? What other questions would be on your list?
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How do you think interviewing this person would benefit you? How might it benefit them?
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Is there someone in your family who has passed away whom you wish you had known more about? What would you have liked to ask that person?
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How often do you interact with older people in general? How important do you think these kinds of intergenerational connections are? What can you learn from one another?
Bonus Challenge: Interview one of your elders and report back in the comments. What was the experience like? What did you learn from this person? Are you, as Dr. Alexander Craft said in the article, “more grateful for having done it than not having done it”? Why?
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.
Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.
Natalie Proulx is an editor at The Learning Network, a Times free teaching resource.
The post What Have You Always Wanted to Know About an Older Family Member? appeared first on New York Times.
