The Parent Story | A Five-Day Therapeutic Pilot Group for the Parent Community to Reflect on the Parent-Child Relationship

The Parent Story was a small pilot program, rooted in the principles of child and developmental psychology and narrative therapy. The 5 days were experiential in nature. The sessions were designed as a reflective space and were meant for participants and the facilitator to co-discover the various stories we have of ourselves: as individuals, as parents, and as family members. We explored the many stories of happy and unhappy families, where the ideas of happiness and unhappiness come from, and how that impacts our own parenting styles.

Day 1: The focus for day 1 was 'The Many Stories of a Family.' Here are the goals we set to achieve:

• To understand that ideas of “functional” and “dysfunctional” families are socially and culturally constructed and not defined by a single story.
• To explore dominant cultural and personal parenting stories, and open space for alternative ones.
• The explore the many nuances of violence and what it means to be violent towards a family member

Day 2: The focus for day 2 was 'The Many Stories of a Child and Me.' Here are the goals we set to achieve:

• Explore how the parent–child relationship and family stories have evolved over time.
• Introduce mirroring and the Window of Tolerance through lived experience, story, and reflection.
• Reflect on how one person’s Window of Tolerance impacts the others’ in the family.

Day 3: The focus for day 3 was 'The Parenting Club.' Here are the goals we set to achieve:

• Reflect on your own childhood stories and create your own club of life. 
• Identify all the little actions and roles that make up parenting, represent them in the club of parenting, and assess each relationship carefully.

Day 4: The focus for day 4 was 'Authoring My Future Parent Story.' Here are the goals we set to achieve:

• Thinking about how Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) and Benevolent Childhood Experiences (BCEs) impact our Club of Parenting
• Thinking about how we want to use this knowledge to author our Parent Story.

Day 5: The focus of day 5 was 'The Relationship Certificate.' Here are the goals we set to achieve:

• Revisit the conversations from the last 4 days
• Reimagine and plan our Life Certificate
• Reimagine and author our Parent Story by writing our Parent-Child Relationship Certificate