The Time Gnome - Stories That Reduce Time Stress
Do you ever have the feeling that you’re rushing through life? That there isn’t enough time to finish one activity before you’re running off to the next? Your kids try to help, but even though you give them constant reminders they seem to have a hard time staying on task?
Here is a little storytelling trick to help. We call it The Time Gnome, but it could be the Time Thief, the Time Owl, or whatever character you prefer. And if you’re a teacher, it works great in school too.
The Time Gnome can be invoked anytime you find your family stressed about time – either too much or too little. The goal isn’t to recreate the story as we tell it. It is to comprehend how stories and characters help shed light on worn-out or stressful routines.
Stories take real events or circumstances and make them more fun, meaningful, or interesting. This is the essence of The Storytelling Loop, and it can help take the pressure off both you and your kids. It can give you something to laugh about when no one’s in the mood to laugh.
Let us know how it goes!
Practice Story - The Time Gnome
The next time you find you and your family rushing from one activity to another, take three big breaths and sit everyone down.
Begin your tale with a vision. Perhaps just last night, as you were getting ready for bed, you saw him – the Time Gnome. He was setting up obstacles for you to trip on, hiding your daughter’s lunch box, even spilling a glass of water on the bathroom floor. “They’ll never arrive on time!” you heard him say.
Make the story fit your circumstances. What little goofs and traps have you run into recently?
Then, you and your child become a team. “You can’t trick us!” you shout together. "We know your game! And before you know it, we’ll win!” Then you quickly set to task.
Stories like this take away the confrontation sometimes inherent in parenting. “Clean up because I'm asking you to,” becomes “Hurry, or the time gnome will get us!”
Try it on your wife or husband too. The Time Gnome doesn’t just set traps for kids. And remember - the Time Gnome is mischievous but friendly. He's funny and troublesome, not fearful and hidden.
Perhaps you lost to the Time Gnome this morning and you’re planning your strategy for tomorrow. "What can we do so that we can beat him tomorrow?" we might ask our child, a cunning smile on our lips.
The goal of this story is twofold. It can guide your children toward responsible behavior, but more importantly it can bring levity and joy to otherwise stressful moments. This is what storytelling does for us as a whole, and the more stories you tell the more you will find new and helpful ways to use them.
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Each practice we offer is based on a method we call The Storytelling Loop. Don't worry about the details. You can always change the story. The important thing is to learn the method – start with reality, tell a story, then end up with a new reality.
