Show a four-year-old a picture of you at their age, and you’ll hear one question. “Is that really you?” Children that young can hardly believe the grown-ups they love were ever small. So first they want the proof, and then they want the story.
My granddaughter turned four in March. Right now her favorite bedtime request is “Tell me about when you were little.” After fifteen years of teaching children her age, I can tell you she’s in good company.
So that’s what a grandparent memory book is for. But most of the ones you’ll find are fill-in journals, made for a grandkid to read when they’re grown. A child of two to eight can’t read a journal, and a page of dates won’t hold them. They need pictures and one good story. Below is what to put in a memory book for a little one, the questions that bring out your best stories, and how to make one by talking.
Children who know their family’s stories do better
Psychologists at Emory University have studied this for more than 20 years. Robyn Fivush and Marshall Duke wrote 20 questions for children, like “Do you know where some of your grandparents grew up?” Children who knew more of the answers had higher self-esteem and fewer behavior problems.
Fivush says what helps is the family sharing the stories. Knowing the right answers matters less. And the small stories count too. One of the 20 questions asks about a relative whose face “froze” in a grumpy look from not smiling enough. Fivush picks an example as plain as it gets: peeling the carrots for pot roast every Friday.
So your stories don’t need to be big ones. A dog or a Friday dinner will do. What matters is that you tell them while your grandkid is small enough to climb into your lap and listen.
What is a good memory book for grandparents to fill out?
It depends on who will read it, and when. If you love to write and you’re picturing your grandkid as a grown-up reading it, a fill-in journal is a fine pick. For a grandkid of two to eight, choose a book with pictures and one short story you can read to them at bedtime.
Here’s what you’ll find, and who each kind suits.
Fill-in journals. Each page of a grandparent journal has a question at the top and lines for your answer. They hold a whole life, from your first job to your wedding day. They also ask for a lot of writing in your own hand. A child under eight can’t read them yet, so a journal is a gift for later.
Photo books. You choose the photos and write a line under each one. They’re lovely if you have pictures of yourself as a child. If you only have a handful from those years, the early pages run thin. And a photo of a kitchen in 1960 doesn’t tell a four-year-old what happened there.
A year of emailed questions. Some services email you a question every week, then print your answers as a book. You end up with a long life story book, all in writing. It’s made for grown-up readers, and it’s built around a year of weekly emails.
A picture book of your childhood. You tell your memories out loud, and they become one short bedtime story with paintings of you as a child. It’s made for reading aloud to children under eight. This is the kind Groovd makes, and I’ll tell you how it works further down.
What should a memory book for a little grandkid include?
Plenty of pictures, one story with a beginning and an end, and small moments from your own childhood. Then put your grandkid in it, too.
Pictures do half the telling. At three and four, children read the pictures while a grown-up reads the words. When a page has no picture, they turn it.
One story works better than a list of facts. “I was born in 1957 in Dayton” means nothing to a four-year-old. “I had a dog who followed me to school and waited by the fence all day” does. Tie your memories together so the story starts somewhere, builds, and ends.
Tell them about when you were their age. A child of five wants to know what you did at five: the games you played and the trouble you got into.
Keep the trouble story in. In my classrooms, the story children begged to hear again was the one where a grown-up broke a rule and got caught. It tells them the people they love were small once, and still learning, just like them.
Keep it short enough for bedtime. The American Academy of Pediatrics says even 15 minutes a day of reading aloud together helps a child’s language and social skills. A story that takes five minutes to read fits on any night.
And put them in it. Their name on the first page. The two of you together on the last. Children go back again and again to a book that has them in it.
What questions should a grandparent memory book ask?
Ask about one moment at a time. “Tell me about your childhood” is too big to answer. “Tell me about one time you got in trouble” brings out a story.
If one of your children or grandkids is helping you, hand them these. On your own, read each one and answer it out loud.
- “Where did you live when you were little?”
- “Who was your best friend, and what did you two get up to?”
- “Did you have a pet? What was its name?”
- “What did you get in trouble for?”
- “What toy or game did you love most?”
- “What food did you love, and which one did you hate?”
- “Who was your favorite teacher?”
- “What did you do on summer days?”
- “What was your favorite holiday like at your house?”
- “What scared you when you were little, and who helped?”
- “What did you want to be when you grew up?”
- “What happened the day my mom or dad was born?”
After each answer, ask one more: “What happened next?” Oral historians lean on that question, because it turns a memory into a story.
When an answer starts with “we always,” ask for the one time you remember best. “We always went to the lake” is a memory. “The summer the boat tipped over with Dad’s lunch in it” is a story.
How do I make a memory book for my grandchildren?
Pick three or four memories, tell them out loud, and shape them into one short story with a picture for each part. End with your grandkid on the last page, by name.
Talking is easier than writing for most of us, and it keeps your own words. Your grandkid will hear you in it.
That’s how our book maker at Groovd works. It’s called Once Upon a Time, I Was Little. You add a photo of yourself, pick up to three things to talk about, and talk for three to five minutes. You don’t write anything.
Everything you tell becomes one bedtime story: 26 pages, with 12 full-page paintings. Your photo becomes two of them, you today and you as a little girl or boy. The first page is for them, “For Emma. With love, Grandma,” with their name and the name they call you, whether that’s Nana or Pop. It’s a big A4 hardcover, and shipping is free.
You see every page before it’s printed, and you can change anything. If you don’t love it, write to support@thegroovd.com before we print it, and you get 100% of your money back.
Grandpas make them too, and so do moms and dads. If you have more than one grandkid, each book gets its own name inside.
