Storytelling

I used story Telling as a tool with the situation I had with the young boys in the  area that I live, I am a soccer coach and I coach young boys between the ages  of 16years and 22years old. I spend time teaching them soccer and the  disciplines of soccer every week days from 18h00 to 19h30. Most of the boys  that I coach come from a humble background where there is either no father  figure present or no parents at all and the only breadwinner in that house  might either be the mother alone or the grandparents. With my experience as  a coach I share stories with the team about games that I coached previously  and how we managed to overcome difficult situations. I use the information to  find ways that can motivate them to find their own ways of resolving a  problem on the field or even at home.

Application

I have one such story where I used storytelling to change one of the players  thinking and how he should change his situation at home and helping him to  feel better about him self and being able to assist others.

My team was not doing well on the field of play and I noticed for the past few  weeks on of my star players seemed a bit distracted and he was very disruptive  at training and sometimes during the game he was fighting with his team  mates not contributing to the team. I could tell that there was worrying him  and that I would have to sit him down and try and find out what was worrying  him. I invited him to my house to come and have a chat and assist me with  repairs that I was doing on my car and I promised to pay him for his assistance.

When he was at my house, I told him that I have noticed a change in his  behaviour for the past weeks and I was wondering what was causing this.

He informed me that he was living with his grandparents and his grandmother  was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and that worried him that he was going to lose  her.

Insight & Approach

His story about the fear of his grandmother passing away was a concern to me  and so I decided to tell him the story of the time I had the same fear when my  mom was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 10 years ago, I told him about the 1st  thought that came to my mind how difficult it was going to be if my mum was  not there for me anymore and how it made me angry at everything, I told him

that only after I started reading up and understanding the disease I realised  that it was not an immediate death sentence an that there are things that we  can do to treat the disease.

I started reading up on the disease understanding how this disease progresses  and what you can do to for the person.

When I had all the information, I called him back sat down with him gave him  all the reading material I had gathered and explained what it is he can do to  assist his grandmother.

One of the key inputs I gave to him was to tell him that he needs to spend time  with his grandmother and let he know that he was there for her because that  was something that I did, and I found it to be very helpful to me and my  mother.

After a few weeks I noticed that there was some improvement to his behaviour  at the training and on the file of play. I decided to sit him down again to try and  understand what in his view caused the change in him.

He explained that after he read al the information that I shared with him he  was able to sit with his grandparents and explain how this Alzheimer’s was  going to affect his grandmother and how long it might take before she really  became ill and while explaining that to them it placed a calmness over him and  he felt in control.

Insight for me was that understanding a situation helps you to cope with that  situation in a better way.

