Using Stories at Home for Character Education
©Heather Forest 2020
Stories are a powerful form of metaphor. Images and action in a story, along with the wise or foolish choices characters make can be like seeds of thought that take root in the heart and mind of a young listener and can blossom over time into new ways of seeing, feeling, and understanding. As a young mother I discovered the power of stories to make a point with my own children when they were just toddlers. Although I nourished my children on a daily dose of traditional tales from around the world, they always asked for Jama and Reema stories at bedtime.
The Jama and Reema stories were ones I improvised at their bedside and were always based on what had actually happened during the day. The boy and girl who starred in these stories were uncannily like my two children Lucas and Laurel. If something went awry during the day and either of them exhibited an unsavory character trait like bullying, greediness, or being physically aggressive, the offending episode would undoubtedly be recounted in the bedtime story adventures of Jama and Reema. I always took the liberty of having the stories I told about Jama and Reema resolve in ways that I would have preferred had happened that day in real life.
The story character Jama came into our household when my son Lucas, who is now a grown man of thirty seven, was two and a half years old. I fondly recall the story of “The Blue Bike.” My husband and I took Lucas to the local bike shop to buy a tricycle. Lucas fell in love with the floor model and quickly figured out how to ride it across the floor. “I want this one!” he blurted.
We said we would buy it for him and he pushed it to the counter. The sales person brought out a big cardboard box. We paid the bill, my husband picked up the box, and we turned to leave. I took Lucas by the hand and attempted to guide him out of the store. Lucas pulled away from me, threw himself on the floor and had his first full-out tantrum. “I want the blue bike!” he screamed, kicking and flailing on the floor.
Embarrassed at the noise he was making I tried to comfort him saying that we DID buy him the bike and it was in the cardboard box Dad was carrying. Lucas looked at the blue tricycle he’d left by the counter and wailed. “No you didn’t! It’s still over there!”
We managed to get both Lucas and the cardboard box into the car without resolving his confusion. I tried to calm him in his car seat by insisting over and over that there was a blue bike in the box that was exactly like the blue bike in the store. But the tantrum continued all the way home and into the kitchen of our house where I opened the box to show him the blue bike. The bike in the box required assembly. When Lucas saw it in pieces, he screamed, “It’s broken!!!!”
We quickly assembled it and soon a smiling child rode a new blue bike around the kitchen. That night as I dressed him for bed in blue pajamas, Jama came into being. I told Lucas all about a little boy named “Jama” who went to a bike store with his parents and didn’t know that the bike in the box needed to be screwed together,. “Just like me?” Lucas said incredulously. “Just like you!!” We laughed about silly Jama.
When Lucas’ baby sister was born, Jama got a baby sister too.
“And do you know her name?” I asked.
“Reema!” Lucas said.
“That’s right! How did you know?” I said.
From then on we had Jama and Reema stories. When Lucas was jealous and had a difficult time sharing me with the new baby, Jama had the same problem. Jama learned to share his toys with Reema at the same time Lucas learned to share his toys with his sister Laurel. “Just like Me!??” was Lucas’ favorite response to each story about Jama.
When Lucas turned three he became diabetic. As I held my sick child in the hospital when he was first diagnosed, the doctors and nurses buzzed around us teaching us how to prick his tiny fingers for blood samples and how to give him three insulin shots a day. That first night as I sat beside his hospital bed wondering how we would cope with our new medical reality and our expanded parenting responsibilities I said. “Guess who just got diabetes!”
“Jama?” Lucas asked.
“Yes!” I said. “He was scared but now he’s brave. And he couldn’t pronounce glucometer.”
“Just like me??” Lucas said.
“Just like you,” I replied and hugged him tightly.
“I love Jama,” Lucas said.
“So do I,” I said.
Heather Forest is a storyteller, musician, award-winning recording artist, mother, farmer, and respected member of the international storytelling community. She lives on Long island, NY.
