A Return to Presence Through Storytelling and Puppetry
Long before children are able to analyze, reason, or articulate their inner world with words, they live in the realm of their imagination and emotions. To children, stories are not simply entertainment; they are soul nourishment, and they can shape how a child experiences safety, meaning, and belonging. Storytelling and puppetry are recognized as profound ways to support healing as they strengthen emotional integration and also provide a way for children to process life’s experiences without pressure or explanation. In a time when children are increasingly surrounded by the speed of life, an excessive amount of stimulation, and abstract concepts they are expected to quickly learn and understand, the slow, intentional language of story and puppetry becomes not only relevant, but truly essential.
Young children do not experience life primarily through the intellect. They live through their bodies, their senses, and their emotions. When something feels overwhelming, like separation, frustration, grief, or fear, it becomes stuck in the body rather than being verbally expressed, and this is why asking a young child to “talk about it” does not meet them where they are developmentally.
Developmentally appropriate stories meet children where they are. A well-told story speaks directly to the child’s inner world. It offers images rather than explanations, rhythm and repetition rather than analysis. Through stories, children can encounter life’s challenges in symbolic form, which allows them to feel, process, and integrate experiences at their own pace. This indirect approach is precisely what makes a story healing, as it does not demand understanding and instead offers a healing balm.
One of the most healing aspects of storytelling is its use of symbol and metaphor. Inner experiences that we all have, like fear, courage, loss, and hope, are given an outer form in stories. A child may recognize themselves in a small animal that’s lost in a dark forest trying to find its way out, or in a shy creature learning to trust its own strength. Through images like these, children are left free to explore difficult emotions without being overwhelmed by them. This is because in the story the struggle belongs to the character, not to them, and by listening to the story and watching the puppets, the child lives into the experience and absorbs what they need. When stories are intentionally chosen with care, the narrative journeys toward restoration, balance, or finding the way back home. This journey is what nourishes the child’s sense of trust in the world, supports emotional resilience, and allows healing to begin.
Now let’s explore how puppetry deepens the healing power of stories by making the narrative visible and alive. When puppets join with a story, the story becomes visible, and it can make it easier for the child to follow along. Puppets that are made from simple natural materials like wool, silk, cotton, or linen with minimal facial features do not limit the child’s experience of the character, instead simplicity is an invitation that awakens the child’s imagination by allowing the child’s imagination to complete the picture and feel a range of emotions. Even a single puppet can carry many emotions depending on how the child perceives it.
Puppetry engages the senses with a richness, and unlike screens, stories with puppetry unfold slowly. Space is left for breathing, for feeling, and for inward activity, and this alone has a regulating and healing effect on a child’s nervous system. Puppetry offers a unique form of emotional safety as the puppet is neither the adult nor the child but exists in a middle space. Because of this, children often feel free to project feelings, fears, and questions onto the puppet that they may not be able to directly express.
A puppet can:
voice uncertainty without shame
model courage without pressure
express sadness without overwhelm
resolve conflict without blame
In the therapeutic context, puppetry has long been used to support emotional processing, and when time and space allow for a therapeutic process, it makes space for healing to happen.
Another essential healing quality of storytelling and puppetry is rhythm and repetition. Children thrive on rhythm and repetition because it creates predictability, and predictability creates safety.
Each time a child hears the same story, they experience it from a slightly different place within themselves. What was once frightening may later feel reassuring. What was once confusing may now have more meaning. Repetition allows stories to work deeply and gradually while supporting emotional integration, which is so much more effective than quick solutions.
Even in their young years, children encounter challenges like separation anxiety, frustration, jealousy, loss, and difficulty with change. Yet they lack the language to name or make sense of how they feel about these experiences. Here’s where stories provide a bridge. Rather than addressing the challenge directly, a story can mirror the experience symbolically, and this is the space where the potential for healing is created. A story about a small creature finding its way home can support a child struggling with separation anxiety. A story of a seed growing slowly can reassure a child who feels “behind.” A journey through a dark cave towards the light can gently support sadness or grief. Because the story does not explicitly name the child’s name and direct situation, it avoids shining a spotlight on the child and causing the feeling of being exposed. The child then takes what they need, when they are ready, and healing happens quietly.
Today’s children are surrounded by fast imagery and constant stimulation that overwhelms the nervous system. While screens may capture attention, they often leave little room for the imagination or inner activity. Storytelling and puppetry offer a healing counterbalance. Here’s how: stories require a level of participation. Children cannot help but imagine the images, and this is when they feel into the characters. They are compelled to inwardly complete what is only suggested when there is simplicity. This inner activity is deeply healing and strengthens attention, emotional regulation, and the capacity for presence. In a world that often overwhelms the senses, stories and puppetry offer rest for the nervous system.
Storytelling and puppetry also heal by building community as they offer a shared language of meaning which everyone feels. When children and adults gather around the storyteller, they enter a collective experience, one that fosters connection and belonging. Stories that reflect archetypal human experiences and connect children and adults to the wider rhythms of nature and humanity create an environment where everyone is nourished. Storytelling and puppetry also invite us to slow down, rest our nervous system, and reconnect with our imagination.
Storytelling and puppetry remind us that healing does not always come through explanation, correction, or instruction. Often, healing comes through images, connection, and experience.
When children are given stories that honor their inner world, they feel seen without being exposed, guided without being controlled, and allowed to go at their own pace without being rushed. Through story, children learn that challenges can be met, emotions can be expressed, and the world has meaning. In a fast-paced, overwhelming world, storytelling and puppetry offer something radical, a return to presence, imagination, and connection with oneself.
Let us remember that sometimes, the most powerful healing happens not through words or explanations, but through stories and puppetry that are lovingly told.
Join us on January 21, 2026, for an amazing experience of storytelling and puppetry. For more information and to RSVP, click here.
By Chinyelu Kunz
Joint Head of School