How to Tell Stories to Children

Explore the science and art of joyful learning with Joseph Sarosy, co-author of How to Tell Stories to Children and the creator the Juniper School.

Listening to family stories helps children develop:

• self-esteem
• empathy
• a sense of purpose and belonging
• less depression and anxiety

In this 12 minute episode, we share some of the research on the impact of sharing family stories on children, followed by a simple game to help take the pressure off and make sharing stories more spontaneous and fun.

Storytelling is a tool for creating connection. We wish you and your family a relaxing and meaningful holiday season.

A child hears a secret message every time you tell a story - you care. You're willing. You took the time to share yourself, and the intimate corners of your imagination.

This is an important message, one we all need to hear from time to time, especially as we grow. We need to hear our fathers getting playful and creative. We need to hear our mothers, grandparents, and uncles. Teachers. It helps us feel recognized, valuable, and proud.

It's easy to think that storytelling is about exciting stories. It's actually about building connection between you and your kids, or between friends, family, and neighbors. It's fluid. It's flexible. There's room in the world for your own unique expression, amidst a diversity of voices that spans the planet. It's your birthright as a human being.

That's why we tell stories. Sharing stories from the heart takes guts. It takes courage. We don't do it to entertain ourselves (though that's fun) - we do it to build relationships.

After three years of focused work on How to Tell Stories to Children, Joseph Sarosy is moving on. Silke and Joe tell a shared story to commemorate this shift, followed by some of the directions they'll both be taking in the next few weeks and months. Rest assured, their common interests are growing closer, not apart.

In part, Joe is stepping away to make more room for Silke to take center stage. Look for more Randolph Roots stories in the near future and some refreshed energy and direction from her. However, Silke is right now in Germany with her mother and her dying father. It is a little uncertain when she will return to this podcast, but return she shall.

Joe is shifting his focus back to writing about education, children, and wilderness. His blog Off Grid Kids led to the creation of How to Tell Stories to Children over three years ago, and he's returning to that subject matter with a new blog titled Rare Earth. He is also working on a second book - about trees, neural development, and education. You can find his work at www.josephsarosy.com.

Thanks for all your support!

Willie Wichtel, the Christmas gnome, is tired and ill. He worries that no one will be able to make all the Christmas magic happen.

When Randolph Roots shows up to give Willie some rest and attention, Eddie Elf takes charge. He helps all the helpful little wichtels get organized, for they have much work to do.

Wichtels are helpful little creatures that arrive at our hearths each year to help parents and grandparents with the extra tasks of the holiday season. Chopping kindling, washing dishes, sweeping floors - they do it all silently while the people rest.

You can be a wichtel too! But shh...every kind deed they do is a well kept secret.

This is Season 2 - After the story, Silke & Joe discuss the story's context and meaning. The story comes first, so that listeners with little children can access them easily.

Our goal is to inspire you. We love telling stories, but we love it even more when you feel empowered to tell your own. Whether you find inspiration in the stories, or something of value in the discussion - let that be your guide to opening your own voice.

The Storytelling Tree has a special talent: when a story is told underneath its branches, characters and images from the tale appear in the shapes and twists of its canopy. Summer brings fantastical stories, and in fall the mosaic of colorful leaves paint scenes of incredible richness, surpassed perhaps only by the sparkling frost and prismatic colors of winter's sunlight.

World class storytellers visit the tree in dazzling seasonal festivals - till one day little Annabel Rattigan reminds everyone that sharing stories is not merely about spinning wild and elegant yarns, but sharing the sweet, intimate, and sometimes small connections between mother and child.

Today, some say the tree never existed. But we know that’s not true for one simple reason - children still find them. Chances are there is a storytelling tree in your backyard this very moment. It may even be peaking in your window, waiting for just the right child to sit underneath its branches.

Randolph and Naughty Foot wake to find a rum-tumbling witch capering through the forest. She loves Halloween and Thanksgiving, and she's a bit of a mischief maker. After turning the forest pond into a giant pumpkin pie, all the animals are invited to the feast.

Thanks to elegant research from some of the best scientists in the world, we are finally beginning to understand why stories wield unique significance for Homo sapiens - including why our brains are able to comprehend them in the first place.

If you have ever watched a child act out a story, you have observed something exceptional about the impact of stories on human behavior. Not only do we understand them, we move our bodies and limbs in tandem with the stories in our minds – even if, as is often the case, we know them not to be true. No other animal, so far as we know, possesses this remarkable trait.

The human relationship between story and behavior sheds new light on the question of whether a particular story is true or false. Better to ask - is it effective? If it motivates behavior, and that behavior impacts the individual and/or others, then the story is of consequence.

But stories aren't just play things. They are the root of our religions, nations, and the precious possessions of our cultures. We may sacrifice much in life, but we will often live and die for the right story. To understand why, we need to take a deeper look into how stories take up residence in our brains, and what happens when they depart. This is your brain on stories.

Randolph visits a corn field, where he listens to the story told by the Corn Mother to the little seeds within the cob. He is gifted a few of the seed babies, which he takes on his journey.

On his way home, Randolph comes across a house where the mother and father are arguing. Their child is saddened by their arguments, and Randolph talks with her. He gives her the seed babies, which bring a magical blessing into the home.

This is Season 2 - After the story, Silke & Joe discuss the story's context and meaning. The story comes first, so that listeners with little children can access them easily.

Our goal is to inspire you. We love telling stories, but we love it even more when you feel empowered to tell your own. Whether you find inspiration in the stories, or something of value in the discussion - let that be your guide to opening your own voice.

Amalgamesh was a mid-level wizard who wished to be a great wizard. For that, he needed a crystal ball. But not just any crystal ball - one crafted by his own hands.

In return for a few chickens with which to feed his family, a stone mason helps Amalgamesh polish and craft his crystal ball. Finally, after months of work Amalgamesh discovers a fatal flaw - something he could not see until the crystal was nearly complete.

Feeling dejected, Amalgamesh resorts to anger and frustration - till a young child helps him recognize that his place in the community is what makes him a great sorceror, not his greatness above others.

This is Season 2 - After the story, Silke & Joe discuss the story's context and meaning. The story comes first, so that listeners with little children can access them easily.

Our goal is to inspire you. We love telling stories, but we love it even more when you feel empowered to tell your own. Whether you find inspiration in the stories, or something of value in the discussion - let that be your guide to opening your own voice.