When was the last time you felt guilty and inadequate as a parent?

A year ago? Last week? This morning?

We’ve all been there.

You get a call from your child’s teacher, and they want to set up a conference about his behavior. And you can’t help but wonder what you could have done differently.

Your teenage daughter is not happy, and you just know it’s your fault.

Your son is struggling to make friends. If only you had been more attentive.

Your aunt criticizes your handling of your child, saying she would certainly be behaving differently in their house. And she probably wouldn’t have ADHD either. And you want to crawl into a tight ball.

Your toddler fell out of a highchair and hit his head. In the middle of a restaurant. With patrons all around. And you just…

That last example is mine.

We were just finishing up lunch and getting ready to leave when my rambunctious toddler tried to climb out of his highchair and fell backward, hitting his head on the floor. SPLAT.

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Gathered around a fire, a mother and child talk in quiet voices.

The flames leap as the mother tells the child stories of ancestors, faraway lands, and fantastic situations. Drowsy, the child falls asleep, her head on her mother’s lap.

This could be a scene from 10,000 years ago or 10 days ago.

Storytelling is a core part of what makes us human.

And yet, it’s not a tool parents use often — or are taught how to use — when talking to our kids.

This is unfortunate because storytelling is a powerful way we can communicate values, empathize with our children, show our support for them, and have fun.

Storytelling works whether your child is a tiny infant, just learning to recognize the sound of your voice, or a hardened teenager who spends much of their time trying to block you out.

The Benefits of Storytelling

Storytelling is an essential part of our fabric, and offers a whole range of benefits that other forms of communication lack.

Teach Values

As any parent who has tried lecturing, knows, children often ignore the message. Stories are an amazing way to pass on values, without hitting kids over the head with them.

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We all know the expression, “Sharing is caring.”

But sharing is also so much more than just caring, isn’t it?

Teaching our kids to share their toys, story books, or at times their favorite food, is another way to teach our kids how to be compassionate—not just towards other kids, but in general with people around them as they grow up.

Sharing is not always an easy habit to instill though.

If you are a parent with two or more kids, you’re likely more than sick of the constant sibling fights related to not wanting to share. Somehow, a toy never looks quite as appealing to a child as it does when her sibling is playing (peacefully!) with it.

And like me, if you are a parent of a single child, instilling the sharing habits takes on a completely different form. I have a 3.5-year-old son, and considering that he doesn’t need to share his toys with anyone during the course of regular play at home, I find it really hard to introduce the concept of sharing to him.

I’m an aspiring positive parent. As with other things I teach my child, I want to go about this as positively as I can. I have been trying a few things, and I’m happy to say that things are certainly looking up when my son has play dates with other kids.

Here’s what I’ve found: 

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“Six kids? You guys probably don’t get out much.” We hear that all the time.

Truthfully, no matter how many children are involved, parental self-care and relationship maintenance often fall by the wayside when seemingly “more urgent” life concerns intrude.

In our house, these concerns include the many responsibilities involved in raising half a dozen children, four of whom have significant emotional, behavioral, and developmental challenges due to a very unstable childhood characterized by neglect, homelessness, multiple caregivers, and a final traumatic entry into formal foster care when the oldest was nine and the youngest was two.

However, we brought these children into our home to give them a chance for stability and healing, and we want to provide that first of all with stable caregiving and healthy relationship modeling—showing adult connections that are loving, supportive, forgiving, and nurturing.

Staying with them, and staying together. Refusing to be divided. Refusing to give up on our love for each other. Refusing to put anything—or anyone, no matter how small, cute, angry, and needy—ahead of family well-being.

In her parenting guide Raising Adopted Children, Lois Ruskai Melina says it this way—“[If] the marital relationship is neglected, it will eventually need critical attention, leaving [parents] with little energy with which to nurture their child.”

Conversely, when parents care for themselves, everybody wins.

With that in mind—we do get out. Much.

Our family’s special needs require advance planning, tight routine, and intentionality with the budget, but my husband and I have made weekly date nights a non-negotiable priority from the moment our children moved in and initiated takeover proceedings.

There has been a learning curve, but by following these steps, our family has reached a point where our babysitters rarely encounter behavioral problems, making our date nights mostly stress-free.

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We’ve all had it said to us.

Your boss has said it:

“You did really awesome on the project, but your teamwork could use some improvement.”

Your mom has said it:

“I am proud of how successful you are, but when are you getting married?”

Your best friend has said it.

“You look really pretty in that dress, but you would look so good with your hair down!”

Do you even remember the first part of that sentence?  The part that came before the ‘but’?  You know, the compliment?

It turns out no one does. Especially not our kids.

But we’re supposed to give feedback, right? Isn’t that how we help our kids develop grit and resilience?  Isn’t this how we help them build up and develop their talents?

How can we help them grow and achieve wonderful things if they think we don’t value them? If they believe they’ll never be good enough?

Don’t worry. There is a way.

We’ll get back to it in a second. First, though, let’s explore…

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