This Halloween - Get Visceral

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

Stories that engage a child’s senses - sight, sound, and texture - stick in the mind like nothing else. They create multiple avenues into a child’s brain (and yours), making for robust memories.

This is the perfect Halloween to feel the disappointment of Covid, but it’s also a great time to explore storytelling with your child and how it couples well with real experiences at home. Here’s a few ways to get the ball rolling.

Example 1 - Pumpkins

We all have fond memories of the sloppy work of carving a jack-o-lantern. We remember that unique slimy texture, that earthy pungent aroma, and the way the seeds just shoot right out of our hands. There are the sights, the sounds, and even the tastes, like roasted and salted seeds fresh from the oven.

“Did I ever tell you about the seed spitting contest?”

“The what?”

“Well one year when I was a little boy, I was trick-or-treating. I think I was a ghost that year. Anyway, at the end of the night, after everybody had gone inside, I was walking home. On the porch of an old house sat two glowing jack-o-lanterns. I think they didn’t see me, because, you know - I was a ghost.

“Peeuw-peeuw-peeuw… One of them kept spitting out these tear-drop shaped seeds. ‘Ah, that’s nothing,’ said the other. ‘Watch this!’ Then he spat one out that almost hit me on the head. ‘Watch out!’ I shouted, and they looked up and screamed, ‘Ah! A ghost!’ ‘I’m not actually a ghost,’ I explained, and the three of us spent the rest of the night spitting seeds off the porch. Well, I didn’t spit ‘em, I shot ‘em through my fingers, like this…”

Stories like this can be told in 5 minutes, and lead to fun games like trying to shoot seeds into a metal bowl. Makes a satisfying clang if you land it. Try laying out a few of them, even upside down. Each bowl makes a different sound.

The texture of this experience, coupled with the story, will be preserved as a precious memory for the rest of your life.

Don’t Tell Our Story - Tell Yours

The point of this exercise isn’t to tell this story (but feel free to if you want). It’s just an example. There are hundreds of directions you could go. Use your hands and your senses to guide you. What do you recall when you stick your fingers in that gushy pumpkin? What fond memories can you dredge up that lead into a short story that brings the two or three of you together? Right now. This year.

That’s what we mean by getting visceral. Use your senses to take you into a story you didn’t even know you were going to tell. See where it leads you.

Try Taking Turns

Stories aren’t always a hit on the first try. We still tell duds all the time. Don’t sweat it. Try having Mom go first, then Dad, then the kids - or whatever order seems natural. Not everything has to be a home run, and you can always shift your focus to the stories that do work.

Another idea is to start telling a story, then pass it to your child, Dad, Grandma, and back again. Experiences like this do not always produce great stories. Who cares? They produce shared moments, often funny and precious moments, that everyone can draw upon. In 30 years, your child will remember these moments when she carves that year’s pumpkin with your grandchild. That is what it’s all about.

Example 2 - Candy Robber

When I was a child, a group of older kids ran through the streets at the end of the night and stole my friend’s pillowcase full of candy. Somehow, I managed to hold on to my own, though me and one boy spun around and fell flat on the ground. It’s one of my most potent memories of the night, not so much because of the stress but because somehow I had the dumb luck of being kind enough to split my candy with my friend. As most of us know, a giant bag of candy isn’t all that much smaller when it’s only half a giant bag of candy.

Sniff-sniff, one might start, opening into the first of dozens of tiny 3 Musketeers bars.

“You know, I don’t normally tell scary stories - chomp, chomp, chomp - but I don’t normally eat - chomp, slurp, chomp - three dozen candy bars in one night. But it’s Halloween, so we have no choice. Our hands are tied. Anyway, do you know about the Candy Robber?”

“No…”

“Well he lived at the top of a hill and when I was young, he would sneak through the crowds and steal candy from all the kids. Not all of it, of course, just a few from this guy, a few from the girl dressed like a robot. There was a kid in a ninja costume that lost all his Smarties just like that! You might think he was pleased, but we know better. We’re not that kind of family. We like the bad candy too. Even the banana flavored stuff.”

“Mm-hmm,” chew-chew-chomp.

“Well anyway, one Halloween my friend’s dad caught him. The call went out through the neighborhood and everyone ran over to my friend’s house. ‘Robber! Robber!’ they were yelling. Me too. But you know what?”

“What?”

Turns out the Candy Robber was a she! An old woman who never had children. And you know what she did with the candy?”

“What?” slurp-chomp-chew.

“She collected it and gave it to the kids who didn’t have any. Well that was awful nice, we said. We suddenly thought better of her. But then, just like that - poof! - she disappeared.”

“Where’d she go?”

“Right. Out. Of my friend’s. Dad’s. Hands! And then we noticed how much candy was missing too. All my Krackels were replaced with raisins. Ugh. So you know what we did after that [setting an unwrapped Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup conspicuously under the TV cabinet, one finger to the lips]?”

“We hid ‘em. All our candy. We would hide it all over the house, the neighborhood, the fountains of Rome.”

“The fountains of Rome?”

“Anywhere we liked. Yeah, we did it to prevent the Candy Robber from finding it, but it was also fun. Because after hiding it, we would all have to go and find it again. I remember one July 4th when Tim found the full-size Snickers bar Scout had hid in Boo Radley’s oaks the previous Halloween. Gooey as a nose hole. But that’s another story.”

This is obviously goofy, but you can see how a quick story like this can lead to fun games and lasting memories. The takeaway - use your senses and memories to create quick easy stories that build new memories and activities with your own kids. I promise you that you will have fun. You are better at this than you think.

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Our blog The Storytelling Loop has been read by over 60,000 people across the world. In it we share tips, research, and examples of how to connect with kids through storytelling. It is a joint project of Silke Rose West and Joseph Sarosy, authors of How to Tell Stories to Children.