WHAT’S IN THE STORY?
Although we want to show respect to our children and interest in their lives by listening to their stories, there are those who go on and on and on. Running out of time to listen can be a problem!
The story-tellers may begin with a report of an important experience or event. Or they may begin with a seemingly random account of a situation. Or they may be expressing anger, sadness or frustration. Whatever story they have to tell, hey want to be heard and acknowledged.
If the point of the story is sometimes hard to find, how do you help the story-teller get to it? Counselors have the same problem. Their job is to listen and make sense of what the client is directly or indirectly saying in order to meet the client’s needs. Here’s one way to listen for both content and concern. It’s the tracking device known as “What? So What? Now What?” This is the idea:
The WHAT is listening for what happened that triggered a strong reaction.
“Kevin brought his pet snake to school today and he put a real, live mouse in the snake’s cage and the snake ate it.” Possible Response: ask for more details about the snake and Kevin’s reaction to the situation.
Nest, the SO WHAT is about how what happened impacted the story-teller. What meaning does she make of what happened? Asking for more information and encouraging the expression of feelings is a great way to help children report how the situation impacted her.
“ Were you feeling excited?” Possible Response: “No, I was very surprised and I was scared when the snake ate the mouse.”
The NOW WHAT part is a chance to ask the child to think about what they might learn from the circumstance/incident.
“Do you think Kevin takes good care of the snake?”
“If that happens again, what would you want to do?”
Feelings give us valuable information. Listening for feelings is what can take a child (or adult) from merely reporting an incident to highlighting the meaning of the incident to the one who experienced it.
Sadness signals that something is changing, that we’re experiencing a loss and life has an empty place now, at least for awhile. Take account of grieving.
Fear tells us that something or someone in our environment is not safe and we would do well to take measures to get to a safer place.
Feeling anger says there’s a problem to solve. We may have been discounted, taken advantage of, ridiculed, or deceived. Anger says: Recognize the problem and take action that moves toward solving it.
Feeling joy signals that we should be doing more of what is joyful and being with others with whom we experience joy. Joy can signal we’re taking good care of ourselves or allowing others to take good care of us. Joy nourishes the soul.
That’s the Stuff of listening to the stories of children. Adults too, for that matter. What? So what? Now what?
C. Dawson
Parenting Reflections 