Family pedagogy is an ancient and brand-new science. It is ancient because the family is a social organization with a long history. Since its birth, people have been engaged in family education practice, and accumulated rich historical experience in practice, which is constantly changing and developing. The development of family education science has a historical process. The scientific research of family education came into being after the appearance of characters, which was already a class society. Family pedagogy did not exist as an independent discipline system at first, but only as an educational thought, which was integrated with philosophy, politics, ethics and even religion. In ancient times, there were no thinkers and educators specializing in the theory of family education, but many thinkers and educators discussed family education in their works on philosophy, politics and ethics. Both at home and abroad. In ancient foreign countries, such as ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle, all talked about family education in their works.

In ancient China, many thinkers and politicians talked about family education. For example, Guan Zhong, a thinker in the Spring and Autumn Period, described the family education of the common people in slave society in his book Guanzi, and was the first thinker in China who talked about family education. The Analects of Confucius and Mencius respectively reflect some family education thoughts of Confucius and Mencius. Han Fei, a thinker in the Warring States Period, put forward many valuable views on family education in Han Feizi. During the Western Han Dynasty, Han Ying's Biography of Chinese Poetry, Jia Yi's New Works and the Book of Rites compiled by Dai Sheng all recorded the situation and allusions of ancient family education in China. Liu Xiang's Biography of Women in the Western Han Dynasty, Biographies of Women in the Ming and Qing Dynasties and Biographies of Women in the Ming and Qing Dynasties all recorded the education of hundreds of mothers from the Zhou Dynasty to the Ming and Qing Dynasties in the chapter of "Mother Instrument", which made biographies for mothers who educated their children well in previous dynasties. These are very precious historical records.