Storytelling

Whew!  October was a very busy month.  I am finally able to post again...

In our parent meetings for the 3/4 and 4/5 parents we talked about a way to help kids process difficult or distressing experiences using empathy and storytelling.  This is also relevant for the T-3 families and I will have the hand-outs ready for us to discuss at our next T-3 parent ed meeting.

So what is the storytelling technique?  It is a simple and useful way to help our kids make sense of their experiences.  It is way of creating a cohesive narrative for an upsetting situation which helps our children feel comforted and resolve overwhelming emotions.  

My guess is that many of you use this in some way already, so this may seem familiar to you.  Every child responds differently to storytelling, so feel free to adapt this in whatever way is needed for your child's temperament.

When kids are upset by something that happens, they can  move on more quickly when the experience makes sense and they feel understood and emotionally held by their loving parent/caretaker.  Putting words to feelings and creating a story together after the upsetting event really helps wrap it up in a way that allows a child to move on and not stay stuck in the emotions.

How do we do this?  It is best to create a story out of an upset after it happens with enough time lapsing so that the child is not in the immediacy of the experience.  I have used puppets and stuffed animals to help tell the story about a "third party" who had the same experience as the child, especially if the child resists the storytelling about him or herself. 

Then tell the story of the upset together: 

"You were so sad today when Joey pushed you down"
"I cried a lot" 
"Yes you cried"
"He hurt me!"
"Yes, your knee was hurting"
"I don't like him!"
"You were mad at Joey for pushing"
"Yes. He shouldn't push"
"Teacher talked to him and he said he was sorry"
"Yeah"
"He seemed very sorry didn't he?"
"Yeah"
"What happened next?"
"We played pirates"
"That's right! You played pirates, now I remember..."
"Yeah, he was a funny pirate and I had a parrot"
"You had fun after that"
"Yeah.  Can Joey come over after preschool tomorrow?"
"Let's ask his Dad!"

Helping our children to put words to big feelings allows the right and left brain to communicate and put order to the experience. Small children are right brain dominant, meaning they do not have enough language to understand that the pain of the hurt knee will not last forever. They need an adult to help manage the intensity of the pain and fear.  The child in this example may have returned to school the next day without telling the story with his Mom and acted out his upset with Joey, but now he has an integrated experience that helps him to move on. 

This is a very simplified example, but I invite you to try this out and report back to our group at the next meeting.  With practice this can be very helpful for both parents and kids.