We humans love stories. We love telling them and listening to them. Stories are how we communicate who we are and who we want to be. One of the best parts of parenting is curling up with kids to read a good story.

But stories don’t always start with “once upon a time.”

We create them when we share a meme or post online. We absorb them from news coverage, conversations, policy statements, video game plots, and advertisements. We add to them with our words, symbols, and frames. Stories shape our understanding of the world and each other. 

Sensemaking in a Senseless Time

For the last couple of months in Minnesota and across the country, caring adults have been working hard to help children “make sense” of their experiences during a time of heightened threat and uncertainty. Many children have witnessed violence unfolding in their neighborhoods and on screens. Children and teens are asking hard questions, making painful observations, and looking to educators and parents for cues of safety and care.

This is why many of us have been seeking out and sharing frameworks to help us respond to these moments with children in mind. This includes resources about how to talk to and support children and how to help young people process viral violence. Today, children everywhere are exposed to events unfolding anywhere.

Well-established research on the cascading effects of violence, family separation, detention, and chronic uncertainty on children’s health and wellbeing makes it clear that even when a particular crisis fades from the headlines, the work is far from over. We must continue to help children and families cope with ongoing threats while also attending to much-needed healing and repair.

Whoever Tells the Stories, Defines the Culture

Through all of this, we continue to hear, watch, and tell stories.

Stories about our history.

Stories about belonging and value.

Stories about the systems that will sustain us.

Stories about who we are and who we want to be.

These stories don’t just live in our minds and imaginations. They have real, material consequences for children and families. 

Stories are the soil in which our ideas, institutions, and policies grow. This is a time to pay close attention to the narratives we are cultivating. Our children are listening and learning.

Consider These Frames

Consider at least three anchors for storytelling that buffer young people from harm and contribute to a more nutrient-rich soil where all children can thrive and grow.

Let’s activate “we” frames that highlight strengths, relationships, and mutuality. When children are invited into stories of belonging rather than “othering,” they are better able to manage uncertainty and stay connected to our communities. The development of identity and purpose within a sense of belonging is integral to healthy development. We human beings experience belonging when we share connection with those around us while staying true to ourselves.

Let’s affirm that human dignity is non-negotiable. All children flourish when they hear consistent, clear messages of unconditional positive regard at home and at school. Children are not valuable or disposable because of their actions, their parents’ economic contributions, or because laws and rules deem it so. They are valuable because they are.

Let’s connect individual experiences to collective solutions. According to the Harvard Center on the Developing Child, “resilience requires relationships, not rugged individualism.” Stories that link family separation, chronic uncertainty, and barriers to education and health care to our collective wellbeing, help clarify why broad, coordinated public action is necessary. 

Tending the Soil

We author stories every day in what we say, what we don’t say, and what we share, read, teach, repeat, and amplify – online and at the dinner table. If you are looking to be intentional about this work, here are a few places to begin:

Look to the artists 

Artists and storytellers have always helped us make meaning of our experiences and create essential opportunities for awe. Awe helps us think beyond our own narrow perspective and consider what it means to be part of a bigger whole. Artists can also help us imagine, and work toward, new or renewed storylines.

Pay attention to the books we read and share

The stories we choose for classrooms, libraries, and bedtime shape children’s understanding of safety, identity, compassion, and care. Books can open and sustain meaningful conversations about race and racism, immigration, and other critical issues to our collective wellbeing.

Lean into family storytelling

The family stories we tell can help build resilience and give children and teens both a strong identity and a sense that they belong to something greater than themselves. Rather than offering frictionless stories of success or failure, family stories are full of ups and downs, growth, setbacks and strengths. These everyday narratives can serve as powerful buffers against isolation and hopelessness.

Cultivate media literacy

Children need support in learning how to question, contextualize, and interpret the stories they encounter online. Media literacy helps young people spot limiting or harmful stories and seek out fuller narratives.

The Stories We Grow

Our children are not only living through this moment. They are interpreting it. They are asking who belongs, who matters, and what kind of future is possible. We cannot control every headline. But we can help shape the stories that surround them. We can help cultivate a healthier soil that will help us all grow.