Can writing about your children strengthen your bond – even (especially?) when they aren’t there — and long after they are no longer children?
Theresa Puckett, founder of Relational Parents, invited me to explore this question in a virtual workshop on Milestones and Magic Moments, delivered by Zoom, on Tuesday, September 21, 2021.
From the comfort of our living room sofas and kitchen stools, a dozen parents, grandparents and loving aunts gathered to revisit the events that mattered most to the kids who matter most to us.
I adapted this workshop from an exercise in The Playwrights Process, by Buzz McLaughlin. McLaughlin teaches authors to reconnect with their childhood selves in order to gather a war chest of writing ideas. I use a similar technique, with the inverse motive: I guide participants to write about their kids’ formative developments so as to understand them better, and connect with their past and present selves. If the power of empathy makes you a better writer, the power of writing can also build your empathy muscles.
The three step process takes about 20 minutes. First, each participant wrote the name and date of birth of a child they loved at the top of a fresh sheet of paper. I set a three-minute timer, and tasked participants with writing down as many events as they could remember in the life of that child – just a word or two for each, with no attempt to filter or edit. Participants logged up to 25 memories. Next, they circled the six that had been most important to that child. Finally, participants turned to a fresh sheet of paper, and wrote out the six events they selected, in chronological order. In silence, they visualised each event on their list, as a kind of edited highlights reel of their children’s lives – or, as one participant described it, “a deep mine of sight, sound, smell and touch.”
Participants debriefed about the experience in pairs, in separate chat rooms. When we regrouped, each selected an event from their top six and wrote a short monologue about it–not from their own perspective but rather, through the eyes of the child who had experienced it.
“My event was six months ago. VERY powerful to look at it through HIS eyes,” commented one participant.
“It makes me wonder to what extent I really know my child’s inner life,” added another, with raw candor. “I wonder what she would think if she read it.” The author added that she might show the monologue to her daughter, to find out.
I asked participants to share some of the discoveries they made along the way.
One described the thrill of remembering her son’s first dive – and realising that he was far better able to overcome his fears than she herself had ever been. Another felt a boost in parental confidence as she considered the balance with which her son navigated the ups and downs of sports competitions that had been agonising for her, as a spectator. For my part, in doing the exercise alongside the participants, I traced my ten year old’s obsession with small animals back to the Ant Club she started in kindergarten, and wondered if she is responding to a calling.
Sometimes, we can build our relationships with our loved ones all the more powerfully when they are at a distance. The space allows us to survey the arc of their lives and marvel at the patterns and progress that we were barely able to register at the time, amid the background din. Taking time out to appreciating these makes the granular details more meaningful, when we re-immerse ourselves in family life.
Distance also proved to be no barrier in a virtual workshop, where we were separated by oceans and time zones, but linked by a common purpose. My deepest thanks to the parents who gave me their wholehearted attention and offered me a glimpse, not only of their kitchens and living rooms, but also of their hearts and lives.
Would you like to join me for a Milestone workshop? Get in touch at joanna.norland@gmail.com.
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