You Relax, I’ll Entertain The Kid – 2 Examples Of Quality Time With Children

I was sitting calmly on the Marmaray. Right in front of me, I witnessed a conversation between a mother and her 5-6-year-old daughter:

“Mom, tell me another story.”

“Honey, I’ve told all the stories. There are no more left.”

“Come on, mom, one more story.”

“Oh, enough already.”

“I want a story, I want a story!”

“Giiiiiirl!”

“Waaaaaaah (Crying)”

Seeing that the conversation was heading toward disaster, I couldn’t stand it and jumped in:

“Excuse me, I’m a drama teacher!”

Oh, if only at that moment, the background music from *Deli Yürek* with “Haydarinna rinna rinna ninanaay” had been playing, it would have been amazing.

I quickly took out a printed photo from my bag. The photo showed a young deer fleeing from a fire. I asked the child questions about the picture; despite seeing the photo for the first time, the child answered all my questions. When we arranged these answers, we had a big and new story. The mother started explaining the story from the beginning, and the child came up with a name for it. Everyone felt relieved. I gave the photo to the child and got off the Marmaray.

(It would have been great if that background music played while getting off too… “Haydarinna rinna rinna ninanaay”)

So why am I telling you this? I want to offer you a method for spending “effortless” quality time with your children: Creating Stories. Yes, you read that right; you will create your own stories. And stories in the type they want… After reading storybooks to your children for so long, it’s time to write your own story. As the master said, “I want to sing, not just listen to songs. – N. Hikmet”

Let’s get started:

HOW TO WRITE A STORY

The structure of the stories and novels you read, and the series and films you watch, can be broken down into four elements:

1. Hero and Situation

2. Objective

3. Obstacle (Bad Development)

4. Solution

Every story has a hero. This hero has a desire due to the circumstances. To achieve this desire, they take action. But during this process, they face many problems. And our hero solves these problems not through physical strength but through intelligence.

CREATING A STORY FROM A PHOTO

You can have fun creating new stories by showing your child interesting and suitable – text-free – photos from newspapers, magazines, the internet, or even your home photo album. Photos contain expressions, emotional states, appearances, and actions. This method helps your child pay attention to details and facilitates understanding cause-and-effect relationships.

To illustrate, let’s use the photo at the beginning of the text.

A Young Deer Caught in a Forest Fire

You can create a story by asking your child questions about the photo. These questions should help build the structure of the story. You can ask the questions in any order:

HERO AND SITUATION: “What animal is this? Is it big or a baby? Who does it live with? What happened here? How did the fire start? What was it doing here alone before the fire?”

OBJECTIVE: “What does it want to do? Will it escape, or find its family/friends? Will it ask for help, from whom?”

OBSTACLE AND SOLUTION: “How will it find them in this fire? What will it do to avoid the smoke? How will it put out the fire? How will they heal the injured? What can they do to prevent another fire here?”

You can add more questions. Finally, ask your child to come up with a name for the story. When you arrange the answers into the story structure and tell it, you will have a wonderful story. (You’re welcome).

Enjoy quality time with your children. I’m off now.

“Haydarinna rinna rinna ninanaay”

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