Social Studies: Family

The Family is the foundation of society--a nation is only as strong as its families.

It is important for children to study families.

It's just not easy right now. Unfortunately, "family" is one of the few universals (you can't exist without having had parents at some point) that is divisive and poorly understood.

Most public school units that I've experienced personally are designed equally to tear down what children think a family is and to introduce broad, socially-acceptable beliefs about families (many of which conflict with many religions). For fear of offending any of the children who come from non-traditional families, the entire concept of "ideal family" is not taught. It isn't generally taught that there are things that are both good (fun activities) and bad (divorce) for families, the importance of family to the nation, or even that people are researching families. In the name of fairness and non-offense, the units on families which SHOULD be powerfully taught as the foundation of everything we study in Social Studies are sterilized and watered down to the point of being ineffectual. Even ideas that are backed up by solid research, like that a two-parent family (or "traditional" family) has significant positive influences on children. Even scientific truths, like you must have a female and male to produce offspring, are glossed over or skipped entirely!

I totally understand not wanting to hurt children's feelings. Are you going to tell a 6 year old being raised by a beloved Grandma that her family is "less than ideal"? NO. There are healthy and good families of many flavors, and it's good for children to be aware of that and not judgmental.

It's also good for them to know that they should be preparing themselves to be an active part of a healthy family--that there are things that make families healthy and things that make families unhealthy, and that there are ways of putting families together that are proven to be more effective, or better, or whatever you need to teach.

This is a LOADED topic right now, and extremely difficult to find information on. Even the Wikipedia article on "Family" is biased in dozens of ways (many contradictory).

Here is my recommendation: Teach your children about families from the perspective of your own background. The Catholics have websites on families. The Evangelical Christians do. Disney even does!

Most of these sites are not truly helpful for teaching a lesson about families--rather, they are resources for families.

Here is what I teach my children: "The Family: A Proclamation to the World".

We do this in a discussion format--talk about the families we know, different kinds of families,
different activities we can do as a family, things that make families healthy, things that make families unhealthy, resources available to families (like where to get help). This discussion is going to be different based on the ages of the children. We tend to repeat it once a year or so as new kids enter school and other kids get old enough to grasp that "so and so's Dad died" or "so and so is adopted" and what that means. I recommend you teach but do not alarm children. And, while I do believe there is an ideal family, I also believe that it's vitally important for children not to judge one another by their family make-up--even if I completely disagree with what the parents have chosen.

In addition to that, we talk about immediate family, extended family, and building a stronger family (both immediate and extended) and what each individual child can do (to build a stronger family, to contribute to the family, to help resolve conflict, etc). We also work hard to help our children understand their value in our family--that our family wouldn't be the same without them and that they are important to us. We feel like giving children a sense of security and value within the family is one of the most important gifts they can be given--and it will positively influence their entire life.

Resources that might be of help to you:

Fun Activities

Wayback on Family

Sesame Street Family Videos: