Transforming Nap Time Into a Mindfulness Practice

Well, it was bound to happen eventually.  My eldest son, who is almost 5, has been flirting with giving up his nap since the day he was born.  I'm not exaggerating when I say that getting this child to fulfill his basic sleep needs has been a daily struggle since the first day that I cuddled his tiny, warm, body in my arms.

My son as a newborn and infant flat out REFUSED to sleep if he wasn't being held in my arms.  And let's talk about those arms!  I swear that I have gained muscle and tone solely through the efforts I have made to get both of my kidlings adequate rest.   After 6 months of rocking my little angel to sleep and transferring him to the co-sleeper attached to our bed, only to be woken up every thirty minutes to repeat this process yet again, I finally gave up and let him sleep, (through the night, I might add), with his head on my upper arm. My lofty visions of never co-sleeping flew out the window in my desperation to gain enough Zzzs to function.  We moms work hard to assess what is best for the majority of our family with any given decision...  This clearly was what worked best for us!  But even with the co-sleeping breakthrough, sleep routines still included rocking, dancing, cuddling, and massaging my little love to sleep on a daily basis.

So fast forward, 4 years...  My son now sleeps in his own bed, in his own room most of the night but still needs soothing to go to sleep.  And, while we have tried to let him give up his nap on numerous occasions, (which appears to be his dearest wish in life), the complete inability to regulate his emotions that occurs within a few days sans nap, convinces us, yet again that he isn't ready.  Or maybe it's just that we aren't ready for the crisis that follows?!  Regardless, we have reestablished his nap time more times than I would like to admit.  And, yes, a good portion of his naps have required an adult to be physically present in order for him to settle his body down enough to sleep.  The bonus here is that the adult often enjoys a nice nap as well!  The downside?  All that time that could be spent productively flies out the window.

Or does it?  I first played with the idea of starting a mediation practice during this "down" time several years ago, and if I'm not reading on my iPhone, I will still try to "follow my breath" while I wait for him to fall asleep.  I'll be honest here, most of the time I fall asleep long before I reach any sort of meditative state.  Such is the life of a sleep deprived, working mother!  But recently, as we consider full day, 5 day a week Kindergarten this fall, coupled with signs that my son might actually be ready to try a full waking day once again, I've realized that I have an opportunity...  Perhaps I can transform nap time into a time for him to learn and practice mindfulness, one of the practices most highly associated with happiness and well being.  Perhaps, rather than letting nap time turn into yet another frantically energized blur, I can instead reserve a small portion of my child's day for quiet in the hopes that he will learn this important skill for happiness and health.

I can remember, before I had children, meeting a friend of a friend for lunch with her 4 year-old son.  A practicing Buddhist, the mother had instilled a regular mediation practice with her child and the little boy proudly demonstrated his meditation stance at the table.  This image has haunted me since I became a mother.  This serene little boy sitting cross legged, completely still and quiet, with his eyes closed and his hands on his knees is the total symbolic representation of my failure as a mother to teach my own child how to be still.  Truth be told, I can't really imagine my little bundle of energy ever slowing down for that amount of time.

But, the other day, as my son complained for the zillionith time that he wasn't tired and didn't want to nap, and I began my frequent coaching of quieting his body and closing his eyes, it dawned on me that I had done little to teach him how to quiet his mind.  Perhaps it was the fact that he was asking me about the planets, and volcanoes, and what happened to the dinosaurs, while he was lying there still with his eyes closed that triggered my realization that it was his MIND that he didn't know how to quiet.  So, putting my therapist hat on, I asked him to switch to his five senses and notice what he could hear, what he could see up against the backs of his eyes, and to focus on his breathing.  And if the little bugger didn't fall asleep within two minutes of my coaching?!  A fluke?  Possibly.  Though the optimist in me is hoping for a breakthrough!  Regardless, I like the idea of using nap time, when sleep is no longer needed, as a time for mindfulness.  Even if it's only for 5 minutes.

A Rare Occurrence of Sleeping in the Car

The Twelve Days of Giving!

The holiday season is upon us!  And no matter what your spiritual, religious or personal beliefs might be, this time of year presents an opportunity to teach our young children about the joys of giving.  As I explained in my previous post, generosity is a wonderful quality to encourage in our children.  And while the recipient of our child's generosity will benefit, the research shows that our child will benefit immeasurably as well.  It seems that the most generous among us are often the happiest!

Therefore, knowing that my children will be showered with a plethora of gifts from our families on Christmas morning, (and knowing how easily this can become the sole focus for young ones during the holiday season), I set out to create a tradition that would balance this experience with an understanding of the joys giving.

Now don't get me wrong, Dear Readers!  I have nothing against receiving!  I would be lying if I said that I wasn't looking forward to seeing my kiddos' little faces light up as they open their gifts!  Heck!  I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't looking forward to opening a gift or two myself!  But with the traditional focus on making a Christmas list, visiting with Santa to ask for a coveted toy, and the ripped-wrapping-paper frenzy of Christmas morning, this is my attempt to give my children some hands-on experience with the other side of the holiday craziness!

So I will now introduce you to the Twelve Days of Giving;  The positive psychology-informed exercise I created to teach my children about generosity and fostering the holiday spirit.  The idea is to give your child assignments that will help create a desire to "give back" during the holiday season.  This can be incorporated into whatever holiday you recognize within your family.  As we celebrate Christmas in my household, I have created this in conjunction with our Advent calendar.  Instead of receiving the traditional chocolates and cheap plastic toys, my children are waking up to holiday-themed missions that are geared toward experiencing the joys of Christmas.  While most of these missions incorporate some aspect of positive psychology, (mindfulness, savoring, relationship building, etc...), twelve of my children's holiday missions are focused specifically on giving.  

What You Need:

• List of 12 Missions Focused on Giving, (For suggestions, see below!)
• Method of Presenting the Missions to Your Child - We used popsicle sticks, a gold marker, and an Advent calendar with pockets.  You could use slips of paper and a grab bag, a sign taped to your child's bedroom door each morning, or any number of creative, fun ways to present this exercise!

Giving Missions:

Here is the list of preschool appropriate missions I created for my children:

1. Pick out a toy to donate to a child in need.
2. Make Christmas cookies to deliver to our friends.
3. Have a gift making day to create Christmas presents for our family and friends.
4. Bake doggie treats for Duncan.
5. Do something nice for someone.
6. Make and send a Christmas Card.
7. Bring food items to the food pantry.
8. Make an ornament to give to a friend. 
9. Bring Daddy breakfast in bed.
10. Call someone and sing a Christmas carol.
11. Help make a special dinner for Auntie.
12. Draw a picture to give to your sibling.

My goal was to provide structure, introduce our family's holiday traditions, and provide opportunities for my children to make choices about what and to whom they might want to give. Thus, the 12 Days of Giving incorporates recipients who are family, friends, animals, peers and strangers.  We will be giving gifts that we buy in stores, that we create ourselves, and that already belong to us.  Equally importantly, we will be giving of our time, effort, attention and energy. 

When my children have completed their missions and the Twelve Days of Giving have been counted down, I hope that they see the riches of Christmas morning as a wonderful reward for their efforts.  But more than this, my hope is that their experience of giving enhances the joy they feel this holiday season and sets the course for a generous and happy life for years to come!  So, Dear Reader, from my family to yours I wish you a very happy holiday season!  

From Thanks to Giving: An Addendum

Well, Dear Readers, here is the proof that our efforts were not in vain!  While it seems clear that some furry woodland creature must have preceded the visit from Mr. Blue Jay, (as evidenced by the knocked over drip tray and now formless bird seed goodies), we did successfully witness and capture photographic evidence of the fruits of our labor. Mission Accomplished!   :-)

From Thanks to Giving!

My little Viking serving up his treats!

So, Dear Readers...  Now that another gratitude-focused feast has been consumed and the leftover turkey is (almost) a thing of the past, I've decided that it's time to take a little break from the "Thanks" and move on to the "Giving."  What follows, is a little project I concocted to help my munchkins take some of the focus off of the vast piles of presents that are in their futures, so that they can start to learn a little something about giving.

But first, a few words about the research that has been done about happiness and generosity...  Here's the bottom line:  People who live generous lives also live happier lives.  There are literally hundreds of studies that document the relationship between giving to others and happiness.  People who orient themselves toward the happiness of others as opposed to focusing on their own pleasure are more satisfied with life over the long term.  Giving, it seems, is incredibly good for us and an important mindset to instill in our children.

So with the purpose of teaching my children the joys of generosity in mind, (served with a side dish of appreciation for nature), we embarked on a project to give our local birds a Thanksgiving feast of their own.  On one of my late night Pinterest frenzies, I came across the instructions for making heart-shaped, bird seed wedding favors.  You can find the original article here that linked to the instructions that I followed, and ultimately adapted below.  My vision was for my kids to make bird seed ornaments, using holiday shaped cookie cutters, which they would then use to decorate a tree in the front of our house.  This process would be used as a vehicle for promoting within them a spirit of giving.  

Bird Seed "Ornaments"

What You Need:

• 4 Cups of Birdseed
• 3/4 Cup Flour
• 3 Tbsp Corn Syrup, (Add more if you need more "stick")
• 1/2 Cup Water
• 1 Packet (2.5 Tsp), of Unflavored Gelatin
• Large Mixing Bowl
• Cookie Cutters
• Nonstick Spray, (or oil and paper towels)
• Chopstick, Pencil or other hole poking object
• Wax or Parchment Paper
• Jute, Raffia, String or Pipe Cleaner for Hanging.  (Note:  If you run into issues like I did, a Plate, or a Drip Pan for a Plant works in a pinch!)

Instructions:

Before we get to the instructions, I just want to give one quick word of warning.  Please refrain from the temptation of asking overtired, overstimulated, hungry children to engage in a project that requires enough focus to follow step-by-step instructions immediately before dinner...  Just trust me on this one!

Liam preparing for our project...

1.  Using the large bowl, mix together the flour, corn syrup, gelatin, and water.

This picture shows the potential origin of my failure to produce Martha Stewart-worthy results...  Note the Bird seed is already in the mix!

2.  Then add the bird seed and mix well!  The mixture should be sticky.  (In hindsight, my mixture was not sticky enough.  This may be due to my failure to follow step-by-step instructions as evidenced above.  Or, there may need to be more corn syrup in the mix to begin with.  Or, perhaps, I just should have added some nut butter in at this point.  Regardless, this is where things started to go wrong!)

The siblings unhappily taking turns with the mixing...  Much whining and redirection was had!

3.  Grease the inside of the cookie cutters using cooking spray or oil.

4.  On a parchment paper lined cookie sheet, firmly press the mixture into the cookie cutter.  

And here's the sensory part of our project...  My kiddos needed help figuring out how much pressure was enough but not too much.

5.  Using the "poking object," create a hole.  (I struggled with this for our "gingerbread" men.  Do you put the hole through the chest or right between the eyes?  Not a lot of good options, there!)  

6.  Gently remove the cookie cutter and allow at least 6-8 hours to dry.  We let ours dry over night which gave us a supplemental exercise in patience and delaying gratification.

7.  So here's the part where I'm supposed to talk about stringing up the ornaments so they can be hung on trees.  I am still in love with this idea in theory, and direction-wise it's pretty self explanatory.  My plan had been to use pipe cleaners and allow Liam to put them through himself.  I also had decided on pipe cleaners as they would allow me to easily find the "hangers" after the bird seed had been consumed.  However, when I did a trial run with several different mediums, the ornaments broke.  So...  We served ours up on plant drip catchers instead...

Would Martha Stewart poke a hole through the "gingerbread" man's heart?  I think not!

Both kids ceremoniously carried their plates and left them on our back and front porches.  They were so excited to be giving the birds, (or other local wildlife), a feast, and it was wonderful to see them enjoy their good deed.  

Feeding the Birds!

I had fully resolved myself to the fact that the local rodents, and possibly our dog, would be the primary consumers of our gifts.  However, the following morning, I was surprised to be interrupted during my shower...  Wait...  Let me try that again...  The following morning I was surprised with the news that there were eight blue jays feasting on the kids' "ornaments" in the back yard.  By the time I had dried off, dressed and joined everyone with my camera in hand, the feeding frenzy had ended and the blue jays were hanging out in the trees behind our house.  Sadly, I lack photographic proof of this magnificent event, but the smiles on my children's faces were priceless.  

So despite the whining, the botched end result, and the murderous acts committed on my "gingerbread" men, the intended lesson about giving was not lost.  My children enjoy checking their "feeders" every day and I am thrilled to have started a tradition that I hope to continue for years to come! 

Setting the Table for Gratitude!

Due to a comedy of errors, we ended up hosting Thanksgiving this year with only a few days notice.  After I had rushed around like a crazy woman trying to assemble all the fixings, I realized that we were still missing one crucial item:  Place mats.  Now before you think that we are completely uncivilized, we do in fact own a handful of place mats.  The issue at hand was volume.  And, due to a slight case of OCD on my own part, there was the minor snafu that what we do own do not even remotely match.

With one day of lead time, and my older son in tow, I decided to take my oversight as an opportunity to continue to teach my preschooler about the importance of gratitude.  This time, the focus was on expressing gratitude toward other people.

This topic, Dear Readers, is well traversed territory in the Positive Psychology circles. In a 2005 study conducted by Seligman, Steen, and Peterson, participants were instructed to identify a person who had been beneficial to their lives but had never been properly thanked. They were then given a week to write a letter expressing their gratitude for that person and were instructed to deliver the letter in person. During the delivery of the letter, the participants were told to talk with the person about what they had written. While the recipient of the letter undoubtedly appreciated the gesture, the results of the study showed that the people DELIVERING the letter received a month long increase in their levels of happiness as well!  It ends up gratitude gives a happiness boost to both the giver and receiver.

Now clearly my young children can not be expected to compose and read full letters documenting their appreciation of the people in their lives.  However, my take is that any time they are given the opportunity to think in a grateful way it sets the stage for them to continue this practice more automatically in the future.  So to kill two birds with one stone, I created the following table mat-producing, preschooler-appropriate gratitude exercise:

What you Need:

• Ironing Board - (AKA "The Skateboard" as Liam once pointed to ours and asked me why we had a skateboard in our closet.  It goes without saying that we are not big "ironers" in my household!)
• Iron
• Waxed Paper
• Yard Stick
• Construction Paper
• Scissors
• Markers
• Any thin, found items, (confetti, cut up paper, leaves, pine needles, flowers, and Liam's very favorite:  Dirt)

Instructions:

1.  The first step is to interview your child about what they appreciate about each person who will be joining you for dinner.  This is obviously the crucial, positive psychology part of this process.  There are no right or wrong answers and it's fun to hear what your child appreciates about others.  Write their responses on the construction paper and use the scissors to cut each of the answers out.  A selection of Liam's answers are as follows...

2.  Next, gather or create the items you would like to put as decorations in each place mat.  We went outside and found items to include and Liam also got some practice using his scissors to cut out pieces of paper.  

3.  Measure and cut two 24-inch pieces of wax paper for each place mat that you are creating.

4.  Heat up the iron on the warm or low setting.

5.  Putting one sheet of paper on the "skate board", place the gratitude message in the center and allow your child to arrange the decorative items where ever they would like, steering clear of the edges of the paper.

6.  Place the second piece of wax paper on top of the first so that the edges are even and use the iron to melt the wax between the two, paying particular attention to the edges.

7. Trim edges if necessary and you are done!

Liam and I decided to surprise everyone at Thanksgiving with our special creations, which doubled as place cards at our table.  Each person took home their place mat as a keepsake of our time together.  The end result was a tradition that was both amusing and heart warming for the participants, and educational for my child.  As an added bonus, his neurotic mother was happy because we had matching place mats to boot!

Giving Thanks!

Today marks the one week countdown to Thanksgiving, one of my very favorite holidays!  I love everything about Thanksgiving...  The food!  The social gathering!  The pie! The traditions!  And did I mention, the food?!  Any holiday that is centered around a meal is all right by me!

But in all seriousness, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays because it prompts us to focus on gratitude.  The benefits to gratitude are well documented.  If you want better health, relationships,and increased satisfaction with life then gratitude practices are the way to go!  I'm not going to spell out all the benefits and research here, but if you'd like to learn a bit more about the benefits of gratitude you can check out a prior blog posting of mine here!

Given the power of having an "attitude of gratitude," it comes as no surprise that fostering gratitude in our children can powerfully impact their mental well being.  And what better time to focus on helping them to learn this way of looking at the world than at Thanksgiving!

But before I describe various gratitude-based activities and exercises you can engage in with your child, let me first launch into a tangent about the brain.  Because you are not my client, dear reader, you shall be spared from my attempts to draw a diagram and instead I will link you to something that is actually recognizable.  You're welcome!  ;-)

Our brain is hardwired for dangerous times.  Times when threats to our very existence lurked around every corner.  When food and water were sometimes in scarce supply for months at a time.  When Tyrannosaurus Rex stalked us as a possibility for its next meal...  Ok...  I know...  I know...  There was never a time that human beings lived among dinosaurs and I grew up watching too many episodes of The Flintstones...  But you get the drift!  Times were dangerous!  We had  predators who threatened our physical safety and our very lives were at risk on an ongoing basis!

Fast forward to today, and we find that sometimes what's in our best interest in today's world is not what our brain is primed for.  Our brain is hard wired to pick up on any potential threat, problem, and deficit we might have. But our brain can't really distinguish between real, life threatening issues, and luxury problems. Simultaneously, our brain is so incredibly adaptive that the things that are beneficial to us, and what we do have and enjoy, is quickly ferried to the background so that more resources are available to focus on what is wrong.  Therefore, you can rest assured that you will not miss out on anything that might be going wrong with your life....  be that a toothache or your lack of ability to own your dream car.  (Phew!  Right?!)  However, unless you work to bring it into your consciousness, you are quite likely to overlook the things that are good.  Not exactly the prescription for optimal happiness and life satisfaction!

Yes, our brain defaults to the negative, but the good news is that we can learn to override this system.  Our brain is made up of neural networks that we actually create with the thoughts that we choose.  (That brain image I referred to before is here!)  I'm going to avoid going all Biology on you all, and simplify this concept by stating that more or less we create physical pathways in our brain that link together thoughts.  The thoughts we go to frequently become bigger, faster and more automatic.  So the attitudes and thought patterns that are habitual?  Think superhighway!  And the absolute easiest time to create powerful habits of thought, and happiness promoting superhighways, is when our children are young.  It's  much easier to create a brand new neural network that promotes mental wellness than it is to change a habit of thought that is negative.

(And, as an aside, if you are now thinking to yourself: "Oh Crap!  My parents never helped me to create gratitude inspired neural networks when I was young.  I'm doomed to a life of sadness because my habitual thoughts created super highways of fear and sadness."  Be rest assured that any change in your thought patterns creates deterioration in existing neural networks.  So that neural network of negativity can be turned into an overgrown, rarely traveled, dirt path that's been replaced by a superhighway of gratitude with a little bit of work on your part!)

So given the many benefits to focusing on gratitude, it is time well spent as a parent to encourage our children to create habits of thought that are focused on being thankful and appreciating what they have that makes them happy.  Which brings me back to Thanksgiving...

There are so many cool rituals, projects and exercises that focus on gratitude that it's hard to pick which ones to highlight!  At their core, however, is the idea of prompting your child to identify the things that make them happy and encouraging them to take a moment to feel appreciative for these things.  A simple exercise, and one that I've been doing with my own kiddos every day for the month of November, is to simply ask them what they are grateful for. Some of my favorite responses are as follows:

Liam (3.5 years old):  Giraffes, Bats, Kangaroos, Dragonflies, Grandma, and Pets

Gracie (22 months old):  Giraffes, You, Puffies, "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and Poop

You can make this into a daily ritual, (far beyond the month of November if you so choose), that is done at the dinner table, right before bed, or whenever might be convenient for your family.  The fun part is what you do with your children's answers.  I've taken the lazy mom's route and am simply posting them to Facebook along with my own daily contributions.  But the options and creative possibilities are endless!

Some people document their children's responses and read them at Thanksgiving Dinner.  Some people pull out previous years as well.  (Imagine me reading that Gracie was grateful for "poop" the year she decides to bring a romantic partner home for Thanksgiving...)  Books can be created by your children documenting their favorite things through any medium imaginable and can be reviewed long after thanksgiving to continue to solidify the neural networks.  Some families keep a jar where people can add the things that they are grateful for on slips of paper which then get shared at a predetermined time.  Others have or create beautiful wall hangings with pockets for each day of the month where children's "gratitudes" are placed each day.   And families with older children can cut out a tree from construction paper and add leaves of gratitude for each of the things identified.  The possibilities are endless!

No matter what you choose for your family, the crucial component is that you are teaching your children to have a habit of thought that brings to consciousness the things they have to be grateful for.  And you can then know, as Thanksgiving passes and we embark on the season of giving, that you have provided your children with one of the most powerful gifts you can give.  Fewer things brighten up a person's life more than gratitude.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Row, Row, Row Your Boat: Teaching Children To Be the Captain of Their Lives

My twenty-two month old daughter is becoming quite the song bird and we are nearly constantly blessed with her very special rendition of the old family classic, "Row, Row, Row Your Boat."  Her version is belted out with gusto and goes something like this:

"Row Row Boater Da Da Cheese...  Bear, Bear, Bear, Bear, Da, Da, Dream!"

Perhaps, due to the constant exposure that only a toddler can provide, this song has repeatedly come to mind as I've worked with clients this week.  I have used the life metaphor of a row boat more times than I care to admit.  While the context of people's circumstances have differed, my general intervention has gone something like this:

Me:  "So it's like you are in a boat in the middle of the ocean during a storm.  Are you trying to direct the boat by rowing or are you just letting the waves and wind push you around?"

Generic Client X:  "I'm not rowing...  Darn..."

Me:  "In life we need to try to direct the boat or else we just get battered by the storm.  There are things we can't control but we almost always have influence.  We feel better and often have a better outcome when we are at least working to increase the odds of attaining our desired outcome.  So what could you do in this situation to [achieve stated goal?]"

It's a simple concept, but an easy one to lose track of.  Research has shown that when people can see their personal power in a situation they are much less likely to become depressed.  When we direct our lives, and play the hero role in our own personal story, we just feel good.  We see our goals and dreams as attainable through our choices and dedication, and in fact, we are more likely to bring them to fruition.  When we feel like the victim of circumstances, and we let life happen to us, rather than using our choices to lead us in a particular direction, depression is much more likely.

How we approach our life is something that we learn throughout our childhood.  Often, the messages that we are given in the early years of life lead to a habitual way of looking and interacting with the world.  If our parents give us the message that we are helpless in a situation that is difficult, we will feel like we lack power.  If our parents help inspire us and coach us to face challenges head on, we learn that we have influence and choice.

Instilling this awareness in our young child is crucially important.  Our preschoolers are just learning how to understand the workings of the world and their role within it.  As parents, we have a wonderful opportunity to safeguard them from depression and guide them toward empowerment through the interpretations that we teach them on a day to day basis.  As always, our children are watching our own reactions to life's hiccups, so modelling, (or developing), our own internal locus of control is a powerful step.  Similarly, praising and encouraging our children's efforts to take initiative and solve problems during real life situations is the most important tool we have in our toolbox.  But there are other ways to prepare our children to be the captains of their own boats!

Story telling can be a fun and powerful way for parents to help instill an empowered attitude in their children.  For younger children, this can be done by highlighting the choices and actions of a character in a favorite storybook.  For example, you could say something like, "Look Johnny, Captain Ahab wanted to catch a fish so he decided to grab his fishing pole and go the river.  He never would have caught a fish if he hadn't at least tried!"

Open ended stories that allow your child to discuss possible reactions are another powerful way to instill an internal locus of control.  You get to paint the scenario, possibly drawing from real life situations your child might benefit from some coaching on, and then prompt them for an empowered ending.  Here's a real life scenario from my own household:

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away, there was a little boy named Liam who had a little sister named Gracie.  Sometimes, when Liam was playing with his cars, his sister would pull out their drum and would begin singing to herself while banging on it as loudly as she could.  When Liam saw his sister having so much fun with the drum he realized he wanted to play the drum, too!  What do you think Liam will do? 

The story format prompts for creative problem solving, which is the antidote for a dis-empowered attitude.  The key to using this format is to realize that there are no inherently right or wrong answers.  Now if your child comes back with something naughty or wholly inappropriate, like "Liam grabs the drum out of Gracie's hands and then tries to cover her mouth so that Mommy can't hear her scream," then clearly a redirection needs to be made! Something along the lines of:

But Liam's Mommy sees what Liam has done!  She immediately gives the drum back to Gracie and Liam has to sit in time out while Gracie continues to have fun with the drum.  When Liam gets out of time out, he still would like a turn.  What could he do then?

Responses you might reward with a positive outcome to the story might include:

"Ask nicely for a turn."  "Ask if she will let me play the drum with her."  "Ask Santa for another drum for Christmas so we can both play at the same time."  "Offer Gracie her favorite toy to trade with."  "Wait until she's taking her nap."  Or any other step that is both appropriate and shows an attitude that a solution can be found.  The goal is for the child to cast him or herself in the role of "hero" rather than "victim," (or obviously villain!) within the story that is created.  

If there's a particular scenario that is particularly challenging for your child, it can be fun to take the storytelling one step further and create a story book with your child that s/he can revisit whenever they'd like.  This can be done with crayons and paper, pictures cut out of magazines and glued into a notebook, or even by taking digital photos setting the scene and creating a photo book online!  Anything that creates a pictorial reminder of empowered behavior.

An empowered attitude helps build up a child's resilience and is a way of inoculating them against depression.       Teaching your children to row their boats now, will help them to create healthy, happy and satisfying lives from now through their adulthood.