ing by setting up an assignment that has the metaphoric intent of helping clients develop the appro-
priate levels of competency to reach their desired outcome.
If a child needs time out for processing certain life events, is it helpful to assist him in finding a
time, a place, and the means for doing so? If a child wants or needs to develop problem-solving skills,
would it be beneficial to set her an assignment such as exploring a maze, bicycling around an un-
familiar suburb, doing a jigsaw, or tackling another kind of puzzle? If the therapeutic goal is build-
ing a new skill, whether in bladder control, aggression management, or saying no to a drug supplier,
could the child first build competency in a metaphoric task like learning to juggle, ride a unicycle,
or sail a wind-surfer? If children want to stop biting their nails, or grow friendships, would it be
helpful to set them the experiential metaphor of buying a seedling and learning what is necessary
for its healthy growth and development? (How do you prevent insects from eating it? What does it
need to nurture it?)
Some of our most important learning is experiential. No one has to tell children how to walk.
Parents may lend a hand, but children acquire the skill through their own experience. They experi-
ence the unsteadiness, the falls, perhaps the hurts, and the initial difficulties of attempting to put one
foot in front of the other. Each time they fall, they get up a little stronger, a little more confident, a
little more capable, until soon they are running, hopping, skipping, and dancing. If there is some va-
lidity in the statement that experience is our best teacher, then it follows that the more experiences
we have in life the more we are capable of learning. One important way of helping our young clients
grow in skills, competence, and confidence is to create and facilitate opportunities for them to have
a broader range of novel experiences. And one useful way of doing this is through experiential
metaphors.
This subject is elaborated, with much greater detail, in Nature-Guided Therapy(Burns, 1998), in
which a whole chapter is devoted to the subject of experiential metaphors and their application with
adult clients. The principles for setting up such therapeutic assignments are much the same for chil-
dren and can easily be extrapolated for the different age groups. Setting experiential metaphor as-
signments for children needs to be done with special regard to ethics and safety. As well as being ther-
apeutically relevant, the assignment needs to be age relevant and competency relevant, and may even
need to be carried out under parental or therapist supervision. Parental consent and involvement is
important even with adolescent clients.
40 Effective Storytelling for Kids and Teens
EXERCISE 3.6
■ Find the things a child can dothat will metaphorically represent both the resources
they need to develop and a therapeutic outcome.
■ Set the assignment as an experiential metaphor, an activity for the child to go and
do.
■ Follow up with questions about what they learned from the experience and how they
can use that learning to benefit them in the present and future.