WebParenTips - The Online Parenting Newsletter vol.6 no.8, August 2005

            ONCE UPON A TIME

Here we are in the middle of summer. The kids may be
getting restless. They won't admit it but they probably
miss the structure of school and are getting a bit bored
with all the usual summer fun.

Try something we did at our house when summer
boredom set in: story-telling.

Turn off all non-human noise like TV and radios.
Gather the kids around and tell them a story. Then ask
each child to make up a story to tell you You can do
this around a camp fire out in the wilderness or make
a circle of chairs in your own back yard.

Make the story you tell interesting to get the children's
attention. The ones my kids liked best were basically
about me as a child but with very elaborate exaggerations
and fantasies that obviously never happened, superimposed.

How do you help children to make up their own stories?
Tell them to start with "Once upon a time---" If young
children are hesitating prompt them about their interests. If
they are into dinosaurs ask them to make up a story about
T. Rex. If they flag a bit ask, "What happened next?"

Another trick is to do a round robin story. One person
starts a story and stops at an exciting part. The next
person takes up the narrative.

Still another family story-telling trick is to turn the story
into a serial. Every time I see my twin grandchildren I
provide them with another episode of, "Mary McMotter,
Girl Wizard" who goes to a day school for girl wizards
called Warthogs. Mary carries her magic wand with her
everywhere but no one ever suspects because it looks
exactly like a #2 yellow pencil.

The basic idea is to foster creativity by offering and
encouraging outrageous ideas, people, and events in
your own personal family fiction. Of course if it's really
good and not derivative or downright plagiarism (like my
McMotter saga) it could even get published one day!

Have a cool, happy, and SAFE summer!
    
Happy Parenting,
Marilyn Heins, M.D.


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Dr. Marilyn Heins is a Tucson pediatrician, parenting
columnist for the Arizona Daily Star, author of the book,
ParenTips, as well as a mother, stepmother and grandmother.

She is available for workshops and lectures to groups of
parents, teachers, and grandparents. See: Dr. Heins' Lectures
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More parenting information can be found in Dr. Heins' book, ParenTips