When You Can't Be There: What The Method Actually Builds

I’m writing this from upstairs. Quarantined in my bedroom with my dog, trying not to get the rest of my family sick before we leave for vacation on Saturday.

My son is downstairs. It’s spring break and he’s been home all week. And every night this week, bedtime has happened without me.

My wife has been doing all of it. Working virtually from home, making dinner, entertaining the kid, and bedtime. All week. She’s a superhero and I’m not just saying that.

From up here I can hear bedtime happen every night. She doesn't always use the method I teach. She does her own thing a lot of the time. Reads him books, makes up her own stories… in her own way, mixes it in however she wants. And it works.

She's actually been doing this longer than I have. Before I ever built the Story Strong Parenting Method into an actual framework, I would hear her telling our son stories she made up. Just sitting there, making something up in the moment. I always admired that. She's part of the reason I started doing it myself.

What’s Inside

THE INSIGHT

The Story Strong Parenting 4-Step Method is simple. Four steps. Character, obstacle, transformation, moral. I stand behind every word of it.

I don’t use it every night. And I don’t think you should either.

My wife doesn’t always use it. Sometimes she does. Sometimes she reads him a book from a series they’re working through together. Sometimes she makes something up on the spot with no structure at all. She’s been making up stories for our son since before I ever formalized anything. Hearing her do that is part of what got me started.

I don’t always use it either. Some nights it’s a story with Ember and a value I’m intentionally working on. Other nights it’s a book we’re reading together, or jokes out of a kids joke book my son likes, or just talking about his day until his eyes get heavy.

Life is about variety. And bedtime should be, too.

The 4-Step Method gives you a base. It’s the structure you reach for when you want to be intentional, when your child is working through something and you want to plant a seed that lands. It’s the thing that keeps you from freezing when you sit down and don’t know what to say or what story to tell.

And it’s not the only thing that works at bedtime.

Find a book series you both love and read that together. Especially when they’re learning to read, there’s enormous value in that.

Tell your own stories without worrying about the four steps. Storytelling will start to come more naturally anyway the more you tell them.

Use the same characters from the more structured stories in looser, lighter adventures.

Then you can weave those more structured stories into a bigger rotation of things you do together.

Once bedtime becomes something your child looks forward to, something you both look forward to, almost anything works. The 4-Step Method helps you get there.

What you do once you’re there is up to you.

THE REGULATED CHILD SUMMIT

I’m honored to be part of The Regulated Child Summit™, hosted by Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge. I think every parent on this list should join.

It’s free. 30 experts. 4 weekly email digests. April 13 through May 13.

I’m one of the contributors in Week 1, on emotional and sensory regulation.

If your child struggles with meltdowns, big emotions, transitions, or sleep, this covers all of it. 

Each week focuses on one theme and gives you 6 to 8 expert tips you can read in a few minutes and use the same day. No overwhelm, just one digest per week.

PICKS

CHALLENGE

If you’ve been telling bedtime stories consistently, pause and notice: does it feel like something you do, or something you are?

If you missed a night, would it bother you?

Notice that feeling.

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