Early Narratives Establish the Best Story of You: How Parents’ Understanding of Memory Development and Narrative can Enhance a Child’s Identity

By: Adam Mydland & Michael Cusack

The goal of our project is to provide you with detailed answers related to how children develop an identity, and what role parents play in this process. The first thing to answer is, where does identity come from? Next is diving into memory and finding out if memories are really as accurate as they were once believed to be. Considering our memories of ourselves help create the perception of who we are, it is quite important for them to be accurate. Lastly, we will look at how parent-child narratives can influence memory and identity. By diving into the topics and improving our understanding of identity, memory, and narrative; we hope to offer suggestions that shift parent-child interactions and enhance children’s identity development through the positive and helpful narratives parents share with their children.

Video Presentation Series

Identity & Self

WATCH TO LEARN:

The dynamic development of self conception and Identity
Why achieving a coherent identity is essential within a westernized culture
How malleable our identity is throughout childhood and how our self intertwines with our identity

Memory, Power of Beliefs, & Importance of Coherence

WATCH TO LEARN:

When we began questioning the accuracy of our memories
Our current understanding of the memory processes and the accuracy of memory
How beliefs affect our thoughts, behaviors, and memories
Why coherence of our memories is important for our identity

Narratives & Parent-Child Interactions

WATCH TO LEARN:

The power of narratives
How parent child narratives influence memory and identity
What can parents be doing to improve these narratives to best support their children
How to enhance narratives throughout childhood

"without you, there is no me"

Identity & Self

Identity is a coherent sense of self to which one is strongly committed. The self intertwines with our identity throughout childhood and helps us develop how we feel, act, behave, and come to view ourselves within the world.

Belief Systems/Memory Wars Background

Pop culture lags behind science and sometimes cultural beliefs become misguided when empirical research is ignored or undermined by those beliefs. These Cultural beliefs can be far from the truth and spread exponentially.
Within the power of Belief systems, there is the ability to influence children's autobiographical memory. Making sure those beliefs are coherent is important for their social lives and identity development.
With belief systems, there is no objective awareness of reality that drives our decisions, rather it is the implicit theories that we believe in. These theories are deeply held beliefs that guide many of our actions and decisions by shaping or maintaining our understanding of the world.

Beliefs are at the center of our identity

Memory - As we understand it today

We now understand that episodic memory entails our best effort at a conscious and vivid recollection of previous experiences.
Semantic memory is our general knowledge of the world that we have accumulated over our lifetime.
Both episodic and semantic memory play into our autobiographical memory. A form of memory that integrates individual experiences of self, with semantic cultural frames that helps us makes sense of our identities and experiences.

Narratives/Role of Parents

When we refer to narratives, we are referring to the way we interact with our children through shared storytelling and reminiscences of past experiences. Narratives also encompass the language and tone we use in our everyday interactions with our children.
Parents' narrative are used as a medium of innovation, a means by which children transform their experiences into their identities.
Children’s minds are quite malleable, which allows for narratives to easily shape their recollection of experiences and their general knowledge of the world. Otherwise known as autobiographical and semantic memory.

We color in the template for our children of how the world works

Together we can inspire change

Suggestions Moving Forward/How Parents can Enhance Narratives

Our takeaway suggestions moving forward is to shift the way we engage and interact with our children. By focusing on these shifts, we can hopefully begin to offer them the best support needed for building a functional identity.
We also need to start spreading awareness that parents matter in almost every aspect of their child's life, especially through memory and identity development. Therefore, we can begin to enhance the way parents view their role as a caregiver and offer ideas on how to improve the development of their children.
We should also support and influence belief systems that we feel will benefit our future generations, as these have influence on our children's developmental outcome and on the culture or environment they will continue to grow up in.

References

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About the Authors

Michael Cusack

Michael is a senior Psychology Major at Pacific University who hopes to attend a graduate school for Speech Language Pathology. He has an interest in language and development and has worked with children in a variety of settings. He hopes to keep working with children and help in developing healthy and supportive futures for the next generations to come.

Adam Mydland

Adam is a senior Psychology Major and Philosophy minor at Pacific University. After graduating, he plans to further his education to pursue his dream of being a school counselor. He is a father to Hensley and she is the joy of his world.

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