Description

Your teen picks one person and one thread of story to explore - a relative, a longtime family friend, or someone else who feels like family - and puts together a short record of what they learn through a conversation and, where they exist, old photos. There is no single "right" family or story to trace; whose history to explore is entirely your teen's choice.

What to prep

• writing_materials
• call_device
• recording_device
• old_photos_or_keepsakes
• storage_folder

Play guide

1. 1Ask your teen to choose one person and one angle they're genuinely curious about. It could be a grandparent, another relative, a longtime family friend, or anyone else who feels like family, and any thread that interests them, such as a specific time period, a place someone lived, an object, or a big change someone lived through. If family history feels complicated, sensitive, or hard to get to for any reason, say clearly that a family friend, a chosen family member, or a different kind of story altogether, such as their own life so far or the story of the family they're part of now, works just as well. This is a real option, not a fallback.
2. 2Help your teen figure out how to reach the person they've chosen, an in-person conversation, a phone or video call, or a written list of questions if neither is possible. If that person has passed away or isn't reachable, shift the whole project to old photos, letters, or objects as the source instead.
3. 3Before the conversation, have your teen write down 5 to 8 open questions about their chosen angle, things like what a typical day was like, what surprised them, or the story behind a specific object or photo. Encourage them to ask real follow-up questions in the moment rather than sticking rigidly to the list.
4. 4Sit nearby during the conversation if your teen wants company, but let them lead the questions and follow their own curiosity. Step back entirely if they'd rather do it solo. If they want to record the conversation, that's fine as long as the person being interviewed knows and agrees.
5. 5Afterward, have your teen gather any old photos, letters, or objects connected to what they learned, if the family has them, and match them to the stories to sort out who's who and what happened when.
6. 6Have your teen put what they've gathered into whatever form suits them best, a few written pages, a set of captioned photos, a short recording, or a simple timeline, and share as much or as little of it with the rest of the family as they want.