Reading into the emotional life of a child

HEALTH PLUS: Offering children the opportunity to tell their own stories can be very revealing

HEALTH PLUS:Offering children the opportunity to tell their own stories can be very revealing

CHILDREN LOVE stories. They love the routine of hearing their favourite stories read over and over again. No deviation from the text is allowed. The stories must be read, precisely, accurately and in their entirety.

Time constraints do not allow favourite stories to be shortened, summarised or altered in any way. The child’s mind is scrupulous in this regard.

What happens must happen, and it must be conveyed according to the one, only, authentic, sequential account of events, which the child has memorised with obsessive meticulousness.

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Faithfulness to fictional narratives is imperative. Anything else offends the child and may require going back to the beginning to re-tell the story in its correct form.

A story is a story, but it is often, also, a bedtime ritual. Rituals are sacred. They are not to be tampered with. Security lies in their predictability.

But there is another kind of storytelling that is available to parents and delightful for children. That is the personalised narrative. This is the story the parent offers to tell their child that contains characters that include the child itself, siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents and relations and friends.

This is the evolving narrative about the child’s life and it is one in which the child may participate as co-author.

This is intriguing for children. It puts them into third-person observer positions of their lives and the people in them, and it allows them to describe themselves and their families in all their individual, quirky, endearing, irritating, engaging or unique ways.

It invites elaboration in whatever direction seems best, depending upon what is happening in the child’s life at the time. As the story introduces the characters in the narrative, and as the recognisable places and events unfold, it becomes apparent to the child that this is a special story. This is a story that tells about his, or her, own life.

This is a story that is located, at least initially, in the familiar environment of the child’s home and it contains the people the child knows best.

When children realise that this is a personal and evolving story about themselves and their families and friends they usually find it exciting. The storyteller pauses for the child to assist in providing details, (for example “and he had a little sister called . . .’’).

Equally, children may take over the story and pause for parents to fill in details.

Once children can contribute to the narrative, a most important psychological process begins.

It is a process that allows description of life, expression of relationships, articulation of emotions, the formation of identities and insight into the child’s particular world.

The evolving personal narrative is best begun with concrete descriptions that are clearly positive and affirming ascriptions of the child. For example, “Once upon a time there was a wonderful child called N whose parents loved him/her so much that they were happy every time they thought about their terrific child. The family lived at (give address).”

This may be followed by detailed descriptions of the home and other factual data that would be fun to describe.

Co-constructing personal stories with children also allows parents access to the emotional world of the child in a gentle and respectful way. At the remove of third person, it is much easier for children to express what makes them happy, sad or angry than if asked these questions directly.

For example, using the third person, the story can introduce, “The things that made N really happy were . . .’’ It can look at a range of emotions, for example, “The things that made N sad were . . . ” These may be inserted into the story at the appropriate junctures.

If parents want to know how a child is coping at school, for example, they can say, “The best thing about school was . . .’’ or “the worst thing about school was . . .’’ and pause for the child to fill in the response.

Through personalised story- telling, parents can convey affirmation, understanding, concern and appreciation of the child in the narrative.

Personalised storytelling is always done by invitation, not imposition. It should be fun. While it provides useful insights that assist parenting, it should not be intrusively strategic. Children must be comfortable and, conceptually and linguistically, able to engage in the process.

But when they are happy to do so the possibilities in personalised narratives are endless. The benefits are enormous. Creativity is encouraged. Imagination has free reign and storytelling gives children narrative control over their lives.

  • Clinical psychologist and author Marie Murray is the director of the student counselling services in UCD