The historical reason that learning Gregg shorthand was often involved family is that, in the era before digital or even tape recorders, to increase speed meant getting someone else to agree to dictate – a lot, and often.  I have read profiles of stenographers in the Gregg Writer magazine. They would reach a certain level (around 125 words per minute) but want to get to 200 wpm, to reach a higher level court, more prestigious, better pay in the Depression, very important. Often, they would cajole siblings or spouses to spend evening after evening dictating – sometimes they could get hold of typewritten testimony, and this was the best, for those who aspired to be court reporters.  Besides family members, another major source was the radio – for speeches, sermons, and lectures.  The first woman court reporter in the NY State Supreme Court did all this, and she purchased a dictaphone – it was run by hand crank! (her family couldn't afford electricity). She would use it to record dictation, for repeated practice, then have the cylinders "shaved" to permit new dictation to be recorded.  Today, we can use digital recorders.  I find making my own recordings at slow, the slightly faster speeds, of exercises in the Anniversary Manual and doing my best to write from the playback, is pretty good practice.  So family support today is for different reasons than originally.  Not to get help with writing practice from dictation, but for morale.  My wife is very supportive in that regard.