International Journal of Emergency Mental Health and Human Resilience
Open Access

Abstract

The study explored the influence of storytelling and child-directed play as modalities of expressive arts in addressing the selfesteem, moral reasoning and prosocial behavior of children with histories of marijuana use. Five male preadolescent and adolescents were purposively sampled from the two areas in Barangay UP Campus, Quezon City based on the measures assessing the three constructs. Data were gathered through the implementation of a program consisting of storytelling and child-directed play that lasted for seven to ten sessions conducted bi-weekly for a month. Results show that there were no trends seen on the scores of the participants. All of the participants obtained a low to normal range of self-esteem while majority of them had a decrease of scores on their moral reasoning and an increase of scores on their prosocial behavior. It is to be noted that while majority of the participants had a decrease on moral reasoning, all of them had an increase in their internalized type of moral reasoning indicating that the participants may have internalized the healthy norms and values while in the program. Thus, this allowed them to distinguish the right from wrong and reason the possible consequences of their actions and the responsibility that it entails. Storytelling and childdirected play had varying elements that influenced the improvement of the self-esteem, moral reasoning and prosocial behavior of the participants. However, the most common element observed was the free and accepting environment of the program that enabled the building of a healthy relationship and experiences between the facilitators, participants,and their peers. From the thematic analysis of the results, themes such as the role and influence of the facilitator, evoking component of the program and the individuality of the participants enriching the experiences in the program were used to create considerations for program development to further improve interventions intended to study similar modalities and constructs.

Keywords: Children on the street, self-esteem, moral reasoning, prosocial behavior, child directed play, storytelling and program intervention

Biography

E-mail: jullakatrinajose@gmail.com