The Kids Coronavirus Storytelling Challenge
Schools are closing. Parents are feeling anxious. Social distancing and empty shelves have us gasping for normalcy. We need skills for handling the disease, but we also need tools for managing the boredom and anxiety that treads in its footsteps.
That’s why we created The Kids Coronoavirus Storytelling Challenge. As the nation struggles to catch up with the disease, let’s help parents and children connect at home, have a little fun, and turn the stress meter down just a notch.
Check Out Our Growing List of Stories from Global Storytellers
How it Works
We invite children of all ages to submit original stories that bring healing and levity to the subject of coronavirus. Here’s an example - The King’s Crown. Stories could be about life in quarantine, an adventurous virus, handwashing gone terribly wrong, or a funny twist on the run on toilet paper. We created a couple prompts too.
The goal is to create stories that inspire others to tell theirs.
We will publish stories as they come in, and collect the best as a free resource for families during the Covid-19 crisis. During the final competition, everyone will have a chance to vote on their favorite. Winner gets bragging rights and a roll of toilet paper.
The real winner, of course, is each family that participates.
Stories can be any length – typed, written, photographed, or recorded on video or audio. Due to the virus, we are only able to accept digital submissions. We will post updates via our Facebook page and on this website.
The Science Behind Storytelling
Scientists have been piecing together facts about storytelling for decades. What we’ve learned is that storytelling helps us remember information, focus our attention, and build empathy and trust – critical tools for social creatures like you and me.
But it’s only recently that some academics have started gathering this info into a unified theory. What they’ve suggested is that, far from being just entertainment, storytelling is one of the primary cognitive tools humans evolved to make sense of our sometimes complicated world.
In other words, stories help us connect socially and make meaning of life. This leads to close-knit social groups that, historically, have been more successful at survival than individuals. That’s why we see stories at the center of our religions, cultures, nations, neighborhoods, and families. It bonds us.
Storytelling is exactly what families grappling with coronavirus need right now, not the kind of storytelling you get from professionals, but the kind of stories that arise within the family.
This is about helping families grow together. That’s real power.
Return to the Coronavirus Storytelling Home Page
The Storytelling Loop is a newsletter bringing you tips, science, and real-life examples of how storytelling builds the connection between parent and child. It is a joint project of Silke Rose West and Joseph Sarosy, authors of How to Tell Stories to Children. Originally published in August of 2019, a new edition is due out from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2021. You can find more from Joseph Sarosy at Fatherly. Are you interested in storytelling? Join Us.