Storytelling Parenting Strategy

Storytelling Strategy 
When things are calm is a great time to practice some chill skills with our children and practice building more emotion regulation, distress tolerance and empathy. I’m going to share one of the key strategies I use with my children. This is used when we are out of the moments of distress; when things are chill. (I have two toddlers, so rare, I know!) I have three that I mainly use for this; storytelling, practicing and modeling. Today I am going to highlight storytelling. 

Let me keep it real
Before I was a parent, I led workshops called “Healthy emotions for kids.” In this, I recommended parents practice 15 minutes of “chill skills” daily with their kids. Now that I am a parent of two toddlers, let’s just say, that is not happening in my home sweet home. I find it difficult to muster up the energy and time to consistently use these strategies and my use of them goes in waves. Some seasons I’ve used them daily, multiple times a day, and other times they have not been used for weeks.

Storytelling 
Storytelling can be done with all different mediums to help a child learn about an emotion, skill or process a past or upcoming event. This is a great strategy and definitely one of my go to’s. My kids are typically very interested in the stories so it seems effective in my family. This can be used for essentially everything you are facing as a family. 

Areas to use storytelling
Behaviors you are trying to reduce (hitting, biting, yelling)
When one of our kids was biting their sibling, this was one of our strategies to help them gain insight into the behavior, triggers and impact on others. Hitting has been another one focused on in our home; the hitting, oh my. So often and seemingly so automatic for  toddlers. Demonstrating characters relating to this can teach our kids other options for frustration.

Preparation for a change or new experience (move, divorce, dentist, going to childcare)
We’ve used this frequently for preparation for shots at the doctor or an upcoming dentist appointment. We invite our kids to be the doctor on us, or the toy and we model different steps the doctor will take with toys. 

Recently someone asked me about how to use toy play for potty learning and here are some ideas I shared; showing the steps of using the potty, what happens after an accident, addressing possible fears by providing information about;  poop, where it goes, the noise of flush, falling into potty, show toys having a hard time stopping play to use the potty, invite your kid to help the toys use the potty.

Processing a past event (injury, conflict, a loss)
I used this many times after one of my kids had a scary fall to help them process their feelings around it, help them formulate a coherent narrative about it and to highlight points of safety in the experience. Once when one of my kids was caught off guard by a large dog jumping on them,, I used storytelling to process the event later.

Increasing awareness of emotions and coping skills (sadness, anger, fear)
Lately in our home this is used the most for demonstrating taking turns. We use toys to show characters taking turns, not taking turns, how adults respond to the situation, pause and ask our kids for ideas on how the characters could solve the problem. I’ve used this for normalizing nervousness and providing information that sometimes it takes time to warm up, that it’s ok to feel that way and ways to look for safety or comfort. 

Mediums for storytelling
Words
Just tell them the story as you are holding them, on a walk. You can tell the story using their names, made up kid names and/or featuring toy names or characters. You can also sing the story. 

Pictures
You can draw the story or create a  story with printed pictures. You could separate one page into four sections and show different parts of the story or make a book with a handful of pages. You can invite your kid to also draw or color in what you drew. Invite them to help you write it or come up with a title for it. I’ve most created stories around adjustments to changes in sleep; no more pacifier, milk overnight and the, transition to potty. 

Toys
Use toys (or anything you have handy) to tell the story. I once used blueberries, crayons and colored pencils to tell a story and because it was not the usual toys, it caught my kids off guard and helped with the unpredictability factor in maintaining their attention. 

Acting
You can act on the story through role play. If you are able, use silly voices, make extra large gestures,  add some silliness, do things incorrectly, ask your kids for ideas for coping along the way. 

Play away parents!