Narrating the good life

Abstract

The aim of this article is to study children living with their mothers in shelters for abused women and their narratives about the future. Voices of five children and adolescents (11–17 years old) and their hopes and concerns about the future are analyzed using narrative analysis. The analysis shows that the children narrate ‘the good life’, which can be understood as narrating ‘ordinary life’, for example, everyday life with school, a safe home and friends. The article proposes that ‘the good life narrative’ is part of a master narrative at the shelter. Although the children do not narrate past events, their stories are positioned against their lives both prior to and during their shelter stay. These narratives can be understood as narratives of solutions and, as such, provide important knowledge about children living in shelters for abused women and their hopes for the future.

Keywords

Children exposed to domestic violence domestic violence future narratives shelters for abused women

Introduction

Children in shelters for abused women in Norway

As a result of men's violence to women, a substantial number of women and children in Norway are forced to leave their homes, schools and everyday lives each year and seek safety at shelters for abused women. Norway has a population of approximately 4.7 million. In 2008, 1,506 children stayed with their mothers at a women's shelter (Sentio Research Norge, 2009). The corresponding figure for women staying at a shelter at some time during 2008 was 1,742, which makes it eminently clear that the shelters have almost as many children as women under their roofs. The length of stay varies greatly. Some of the children stayed one night, others several months. Many children have repeated stays at the same or different shelters.

Each year statistics from the 51 shelters for abused women in Norway are collected, systematically analyzed and published. These statistics tell us about the women and their situations. Women who are about to move out of the shelter are asked, for example, where they will be living. Nearly a quarter of these women report that when they leave the shelter they intend to move back in with their abuser. Thus, many children move back to a living situation where they are again at risk of emotional, physical and sexual abuse.

Children who experience domestic violence

Since the late 1970s when the first articles on children who ‘witnessed’ or ‘observed’ domestic violence were published, the number of scientific articles and books focusing on this group of children has increased dramatically. Research shows that children who experience domestic violence are at increased risk of developing psychological and behavioral difficulties such as anxiety, depression and aggression (for an overview see Holt et al., 2008; Øverlien, 2010). Since 1997, studies have shown that children who experience domestic violence are at increased risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Jarvis et al., 2005; Rossman, 1998). Furthermore, children who experience domestic violence are at increased risk of becoming victims of physical violence and sexual abuse themselves (Edleson, 1999; McGuigan and Pratt, 2001; Strauss et al., 1980).

Most research in the field of children who experience domestic violence is quantitative and situated within a medical discourse focused on measuring symptoms and effects. However, there are examples of qualitative research that has deepened our understanding because the researchers have listened to and analyzed children's voices, such as Cater (2004), McGee (2000), Mullender et al. (2002), Ornduff and Monahan (1999), Överlien and Hydén (2009), and Peled (1998).

The narrative skills of children

This article takes its theoretical point of departure in narrative analysis (Bruner, 1991; Mishler, 1986, 1999; Riessman, 1993, 2008). The fundamentals of narrative analysis are that we are all homo narrans, that is, we shape ourselves and our world by telling stories.¹ Through narratives we learn about personal and social phenomena that make up the day-to-day lives of individuals (Josselson, 1996). The narrative approach of understanding human beings and their everyday actions has influenced the social sciences for several decades. As discussed by Andrews et al. (2000) and others, the social sciences have experienced a linguistic and narrative ‘turn’. This ‘turn’ has brought with it increased interest in, and awareness of, context, culture, and subjective experience.

Broadly defined, narratives can be understood as ‘talk organized around consequential events’ (Riessman, 2002: 219) or a sequence of events in time (Berger, 1997). At the age of nine, children's narratives have been found to be causally structured and can include numerous details about both negative and positive experiences (Trabasso and Stein, 1997). Along the same lines as adults, children narrate to present themselves and their everyday lives to the surrounding world, to position themselves in relation to others and to find meaning in their day-to-day experience (Davis and Harré, 1990; Goffman, 1959; Mishler, 1999; Nelson, 2000). Narratives are of great importance to the development of a child as, among other things, they facilitate language development (Stadler and Ward, 2005) and develop the understandings of concepts (Applebee, 1978).

In 1991, Bruner published his now classic work on the narrative construction of reality. In it he argues for the idea of narratives as cultural products that can be defined in terms of ten points, two of which are related to the normative aspect of narratives, i.e. what is culturally accepted and expected within a specific setting. Bruner, and long before him Aristotle, argue that one function of narratives is that they have the capacity to ‘bridge’ what is actually happening with the canonical, normal state, i.e. how one ought to act and how things ought to be. Canonical ways of thinking are made available to children through stories (Bruner, 1990). Young children learn to narrate from listening to the narratives of older children and adults, who, in turn, learn to narrate within a specific time and context. As time and context change, so do narratives.

Method

The study of children living in shelters for abused women

This article draws on a larger study of children in shelters for abused women in Norway. The study by Øverlien et al. (2009) was the first nationwide research study conducted in Norway on children in shelters.² The aims of the study were to collect systematic knowledge about the children and adolescents in the shelters and to obtain a better understanding of their experience, both before and during their stay at the shelter, as well as their thoughts about and hopes for the future.

Informants

The informants in this study were 22 children (from 4 to 17 years of age) who were staying or had recently been staying at any of seven different shelters. All of the children had experienced domestic violence, most for many years, and some had themselves been subjected to physical violence from their stepfathers/fathers. As the majority of women staying in shelters in Norway have immigrant backgrounds, most of the children in this study have other ethnic backgrounds than Norwegian.³ Voices of five children (11–17 years old), three with non-Norwegian ethnic background, are represented in excerpts in this article. All five children are girls. The reason for this is that although great efforts were made to find male informants, only six boys could be recruited.

Data

The data consists of 22 interviews with the children conducted in a quiet, separate room at the shelter, such as the kitchen. The interviews were between 20 and 90 minutes long and were audiotaped. An interview guide was developed (adjusted for three different age groups, 4–7, 8–12 and 13–18) and used primarily when preparing for the interview rather than as a checklist with questions to be answered. To stimulate narratives, open-ended and narrative-oriented questions such as ‘tell me what happened then’ were used, as they open up narrative opportunities (Hydén, 2000; Riessman, 2004). The aim was an interview in which the child was the focus, and in which the interviewer had the position of listener rather than interrogator (Hydén, 2000). To allow for narrative analyses the transcription followed the data closely (see appendix for transcription conventions). However, since the primary focus was on content rather than structure, the selected transcription level was quite simple (cf. Oachs, 1979). My aim was to follow the data closely (thus including pauses, stressed words etc.), and to respect the children's narratives without dividing or restructuring them. I hope this gives the reader insight into the interview situation and an opportunity to make alternative interpretations.

This article is also based on ethnographic data collected during the 1–2 days the researchers/interviewers spent at the shelters before the interviews took place and during the preparatory visits for the interviews. During this time, the researchers took part in the everyday life at the shelter, playing with the children, sharing meals and helping with homework. The data consists of fieldnotes taken during or directly after the stay. This short fieldwork allowed the researchers not only to gather data, but also to become acquainted with the informants, which had a modifying effect on the power relationship between adult and child or interviewer and informant. In line with Gubrium and Holstein (2009) I take the view that ethnographic data can make a valuable contribution to narrative analytic insights.

A narrative approach

As noted by Riessman and Quinney (2005), because a central area of interest in narrative analysis is human interaction, the methodological and theoretical utility of narrative analysis in social work research is apparent. Fraser (2004), too, outlines a number of things narrative approaches can offer social work. However, Riessman and Quinney (2005: 405) conclude that ‘social work has embraced narrative concepts for reflective practice and teaching, but only to a very limited degree in research’. In this article I show how research on an area of great concern for the field of social work – children living in shelters for abused women – can elicit important knowledge using a narrative approach. The aim was to investigate how children in shelters narrate their future. I drew on the parts of the interviews with the children that focused on the questions: How do the children imagine their lives after their stay at the shelter? What hopes and expectations do the children have? In this article I specifically ask: How can we understand children living in shelters for abused women and their narratives about the future?

Findings

Life at shelters for abused women is of limited duration. One day it will end, a reality of which all the children were very much aware. In fact, when the interviewer used the word ‘live’ the children objected strongly. One boy corrected the interviewer and said ‘No, we don't live here, we are not staying here forever’. The thought of moving evokes an array of different feelings. Three narratives which in genre dominated the part of the interview that focused on the future are presented below.⁴ Two other narratives which represent less common but clearly visible themes are also presented. The selected narratives can be seen as representing the data as a whole, i.e. no narratives about the future deviated strongly from the selected narratives.

Lidija is 16 years old and has been staying at the shelter with her mother and four siblings for one month.⁵ The interviewer asks her earlier in the interview how she wants things to be when she moves out of the shelter. Lidija returns to the interviewer's question later and responds with the following narrative.

Excerpt 1.

L: You asked how I want things to be after we move out of here (.) I hope we get our own house (.) but first that she (her mother) gets a job and then the two smallest [kids] they have to start school again and they can make friends there and (.) I and (name of sister) we might not be able to start school but maybe we can find jobs or (.) and (.) at least we'd have something to do then.

Narratives take place in a specific time and context. They are not isolated episodes but created in dialogue and interaction with others. As stated by a number of narrative analysts, narratives must therefore be understood in the cultural context in which they are produced (Gubrium and Holstein, 2009; Mishler, 1986; Phoenix, 2008). The context, in this case, is shelters for abused women where families live together without the abuser. They are in transit, on their way to what they hope will be a better and happier life. For security reasons, their everyday lives at the shelter are dictated by rules and regulations. They live close to other women and children, and their private lives are drastically reduced. Their everyday lives before the shelters were permeated by violence and threats, by fear and anxiety. Many of the children describe a home environment where it was difficult to bring home friends because of their father's moodiness and because their mothers might be physically hurt.

Lidija used to live in a remote part of Norway and had to move a long way when her mother sought help from the shelter. She and her siblings used to have an active life with friends, school and after-school activities. At the shelter she leads a passive life where the majority of her time is spent in front of the TV. Lidija and her siblings don't go to school and their mother is unemployed. Like children living at refugee centers, her everyday life is marked by uncertainty about the future, worries about friends and family, and hopes for a better future, a life situation refered to as ‘The Waiting Room’ by Meyer (1999). This context is essential to understanding Lidija's narrative, as she positions her narrative about the future in relation both to her life prior to moving to the shelter and her experience of staying at the shelter. In the future, she will have a job and spend her time with friends. This image of an active life stands in stark contrast to her passive life at the shelter. Her story is also positioned against the life of the family before moving to the shelter when her mother was employed and her siblings went to school. This is an important story for Lidija to tell, as indicated by her reminding the interviewer of a question that never got answered earlier in the interview.

Saida, 11 years old, has been at the shelter for five and a half months with her mother and little brother. At the end of the interview, she is asked about how she feels about moving out of the shelter.

Excerpt 2.

I: How do you feel about moving?

S: That it will be over and I can stop lying.

I: Yes that you can stop lying and then it will be over.

S: And I can cuddle with the cats.

I: Cuddle with the cats you look forward to the cats?

S: Yes.

I: Yes they are so cute.

S: I want to go there right now I can't wait.

I: You are so much looking forward to it?

S: I can't wait one more month.

I: How do you think life will be when you get there?

S: I eh (pause) that things will be normal (.) that I'll get friends (.) and my friends can visit me (.) perhaps I will get semi-best friends but not best friends because then my best friend will get really angry (.) because only we are best friends.

I: mm

S: And maybe I can dare to shower and bathe because there are no Iranians there.

I: No.

S: It is a safe place (.) they have a beach there and a small grocery store so there is food there (.) is a bank (.) a post office and lots of things (.) but we'll have to buy clothes here in town it only takes ten minutes to drive.

…

I: I think you really are looking forward to it your face looks happy when you talk about it.

S: Yes I ask mommy every day how it looks there what the weather is like (.) if it is cold (.) and how the cats look.

Earlier in the interview, Saida talked about the adults' expectations that she should keep secret from the outside world the fact that she is staying at a shelter. She explains that she feels that she is lying to the new friends she meets in school and she develops a number of strategies for keeping the secret and limiting the lying. There are a number of issues in Saida's narrative that are worth analyzing more closely. Saida is originally from Iran. At the shelter she has had difficulties showering and bathing because there are other Iranians living there. The reason for this fear is not known. It could be that showering in the same room, a practice common among persons of the same sex in the Nordic countries, violates the cultural norms of Iranians. However, Saida does not mention being uncomfortable or embarrassed, but of being in ‘a safe place’. Here she is possibly positioning her narrative both in relation to her life before the shelter, filled with severe violence and threats, and in relation to the shelter where she has not felt safe enough to shower. ‘A safe place’ stands in opposition to a violent home and a place where one feels fearful.

Saida is one of the many children in the study (Øverlien et al., 2009) who wish the future would also include their fathers. However, most children who include their fathers in their narratives clearly state that he can only be included if he stops being abusive. ‘Being safe’ is brought up in the interviews as a priority for the children, and can be understood as a canonical way of thinking (Bruner, 1990). Many of the children are aware that children have rights and that being safe is ‘the normal’ way for a child to live. Saida knows that her father will probably not live with them ever again, but she hopes that he can ‘eat with us now and then’. She worries about him when she is not there to look after him and hopes that he ‘will buy a pet so that he will not be so lonely’.

As Jefferson (1979) describes it, the informants signaled when the narrative was to be told. Although the narratives did not follow the structure described by Labov and Waletsky (1967) with entrance talk (‘abstract’) and exit talk (‘coda’), the informants used other language cues to signal their narrative. These signals were emphasized by the use of body language, tone of voice and facial expression. Saida's whole face and posture lit up when she was asked how she felt about leaving the shelter soon. Her talk is active and fast, her tone of voice happy and she uses body language when explaining about life after the shelter. The narrative about it comes easily to Saida, as opposed to her responses to many of the other questions in the interview. Her narrative, tone of voice, face and body language can be interpreted as her talking about something pleasant and joyful.

Eva is 12 years old and has been at the shelter with her mother, sister and brother for two and a half months at the time of the interview. Her family is originally from Romania. Her biological father has subjected both her mother and the children to severe violence. The violence escalated after the family moved to Norway. Eva's Norwegian vocabulary is limited and she has some problems understanding the interviewer, as Norwegian is not her first language and she also has an accent. Toward the end of the interview, the interviewer asks Eva about her wishes about the future.

Excerpt 3.

I: What hopes do you have about the future do you understand that word (.) not today but tomorrow and the day after?

E: Yes yes.

I: How do you want things to be?

E: First (.) I want us to get up in the morning (.) go to school (.) or to daycare (.) talk to some friends in school (pause) after I want to come home (.) clean some (.) cook dinner (.) pick up my sister from daycare (.) mom comes home [from work] and my brother and I can play some on the computer we can buy Internet that does not cost that much money but

C: mm

E: Then I want to be in touch with my friends from Romania (.) I want to have contact with them (.) 'cause now I don't have any phone numbers and when I get to Romania they will have forgotten me

…

E: and then when I have finished school then I want to move back to Romania but I want to visit them (.) twice a year otherwise when I visit they will have forgotten me and I don't want that (.) I don't want to forget them.

Eva's narrative is clearly structured around a sequence of events in time (Berger, 1997) and includes numerous details about both negative and positive aspects (Trabasso and Stein, 1997). She effectively uses the word ‘first’, followed by many pauses to underline the aspect of time (line 5–7). One way to make meaning of narratives is to consider the problem of interpreting what is not said (Josselson and Lieblich, 1999). When the children tell us what they hope for, they are also telling us what they don't hope for. Eva does not want her father to be included in her future, she does not want her mother to be unemployed and she does not want to be without any friends. She does not hope for a future of luxury and fame, but to simply enjoy the basic things in life such as caring for family members and having a home.

Friendship is an important issue for Eva, and something she returns to often during the interview. In the future, she hopes to get back in touch with her friends in Romania as well as not losing touch with her new Norwegian friends. Like all the other children in the wider study (Øverlien et al., 2009), Eva brings up later in the interview the problematic issue of having friends to visit. At most shelters for abused women in Norway, no visitors are allowed. If they are allowed, it is only in a certain room, and never overnight. Children living in shelters have a number of severed friendships behind them, both with children outside and inside of shelters. Being from another country and having most of their friends there, like Eva, makes the issue of friendship particularly complicated.

Realities of the good life

Although the most dominant genre in the narratives about the future was the narratives of ‘the good life’, other troublesome issues concerning the future were also brought up in the interviews. Cecilie, age 17, will be moving out of the shelter a few days after the interview. She talks at great length about how ‘nice’ and ‘good’ life after the shelter will be. However, towards the end of the interview she brings up an issue that is troubling her.

Excerpt 4.

C: The apartment will be nice (.) but (.) it is kind of weird that this is our last day here and that we are moving out… (.) but several people come back again (.) who have stayed here before (.) stayed here with us and then they got an apartment and moved out but then they came back because they couldn't make it.

M: Yes.

C: I remember (.) remember is not right (.) I noticed yesterday that (.) I told my mom too (.) that I don't want that (.) I don't want it to be us who come back again (.) feel so very sorry for them who can't make it out there but have to come back again.

M: Yes (.) can't make it (.) what do you mean when you say that.

C: Like (.) here we are looked after all the time (.) and we are (.) there are three of us (.) but those who don't have children (.) who are only one (.) like (.) have to move all by themselves to an apartment (.) and who (.) who are not (.) like (.) not able to (.) look after themselves (.) that you become (.) there are several who have come back and said that it was too hard out there and that (.) they were not ready for it and stuff.

M: No.

C: And I don't want that.

In her narrative, Cecilie is relating to two different scenarios. One scenario involves the family succeeding in living on their own and creating a ‘happy’ and ‘nice’ life for themselves. The other scenario, dreaded and unwanted, is described in except 4.

Anna is 13 years old and will soon move out of the shelter. At the beginning of the interview Anna talks about life before coming to the shelter. She talks about her stepfather Sam and the abuse to which he subjected her mother. Although she has not seen him for many months, her voice becomes tense and she shows signs of fear when talking about him. The interviewer asks her about this fear.

Excerpt 5.

I: Are you afraid of him?

A: I used to be afraid and I have been afraid while living here (.) now if I met him then yes I would be afraid.

C: If you met him on the street or what do you think could happen then.

A: Once when I was at [playland] I saw the back of a man and it looked a lot like Sam and then I got somewhat scared I wasn't thinking of anything but I just stood completely still and was really very scared (.) but then he turned around and it was not Sam (.) and I was really relieved.

Reality for Anna is that moving out of the security of the shelter means that the risk of meeting Sam will increase dramatically. The everyday lives of children who experience domestic violence are frequently marked by fear, often long after their mothers break up with their violent partners. The abuser, or someone who resembles him, can turn up like a ‘Jack-in-the-box’ in many possible situations, such as in the park, at the grocery store or at playland.

Discussion

This article shows how children at shelters for abused women narrate their future. How are we to understand these narratives?

Personal narratives

Narrative analysts are particularly concerned with narratives of personal experience, i.e. with the informant's narrations about events she/he has experienced at some point in her/his past. However, as introduced by Riessman (1990), some narratives have a hypothetical form, i.e. they are neither recapitulations of the past, nor event-centered. The narratives of the children in this article cannot be called personal experience narratives or retellings in the sense that they are claimed to be on the basis of experience. The children do not narrate past events, places or situations they have experienced, and their narratives can therefore be understood as hypothetical. However, they do narrate future events they hope will happen that are directly related to their experience prior to and during their stay at the shelter. The content of their narratives about the future depends on the children's experiences in the past, and concerns their own lives (as opposed to tellers retelling about others, cf. Överlien and Hydén, 2003). They are personal in the sense that the children position themselves in relation to their life situations before the shelter and to their lives at the shelter. Through the narratives the children position themselves in relation to:

life before the shelter, marked by psychological, physical and sexual violence,

rigid rules at the shelter,

an often passive, slow everyday life at the shelter,

not being able to go to school while living at the shelter,

demands to keep location of the shelter a secret,

difficulties keeping friendships/making new friends (no visitors allowed),

sharing showers and other facilities,

mothers who are unemployed or unable, for security reasons, to work,

rules about no pets being allowed at the shelter.

Ordinary life narratives

At first glance, the children's narratives about the future can be understood as stories about a good life. The children seem to enjoy answering the interviewer's questions, their tone of voice is happy and the discourse more elaborate and detailed than in other parts of the interview. However, the children are not talking about things that O'Connor (2002) would define as ‘stories one likes to tell’, such as graduating from school, throwing birthday parties or winning the lottery. They talk about what most of us would define as ‘ordinary life’ i.e. a life with school, friends, jobs for the adults and pets. These are all parts of life the majority of us take for granted. Some of the children's hopes, such as going to school and living a life without violence, are covered by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been ratified by the Norwegian government.

Halldén (1998) collected drawings and written stories from 13–14-year-old boys about their future family lives. The boys' narratives were filled with dreams about long summer days, winning large sums of money, and giving parties. The narratives of the boys in Halldén's study stand in stark contrast to the narratives of children in women's shelters given here. While the narratives of the children in Halldén's study are ‘pictures shaped by dreams, fantasy, role models and cautionary examples’ (p. 65), the narratives of the children in shelters are pictures shaped by an everyday life filled with violence and fear and by days, weeks and sometimes months of living in hiding. We don't narrate what we take for granted, we narrate the exceptional (Bruner, 1991). While the children in Halldén's study can narrate the abundance in life since the basic necessities are already in place for them, the children in the shelters narrate ordinary life, i.e. a life with jobs for the adults, school for the children, a safe home environment and warm clothes for the winter. First and foremost they want peace and quiet, a place where no one is angry, where there is security and an end to violence and arguments. I contend that the narratives about the future told by children without experiences of domestic violence, such as the boys in Halldén's study, as compared with the content of narratives about the future told by children in shelters, differ not only in style but also in genre.

While the children in Halldén's study are boys, the voices of the children included in this article are girls. In the interviews with the six boys in Øverlien et al. (2009), there were few narratives (as opposed to reports or ‘question/answer responses’), perhaps because several of the boys were younger, and narrative skills develop with age. However, the content of the interviews with those boys concerning their hopes for the future did not differ from those of these girls. As shelters for abused women are run by and for women, an important question for future research is to focus on the situation for the boys, both those staying at the shelters and those who are left with their abusive fathers.

The master narrative of a better life

As argued by Bruner (1990) the canonical ways of thinking are made available to children through stories. Saida's, Lidija's, and Eva's narratives could be understood as parts of a master/grand narrative or a dominant discourse (Bamberg, 2005) at the shelter. The master narrative, used as a sort of ‘script’ to communicate canonical thinking, becomes part of an institution such as a women's shelter by being repeatedly shared over time and woven into the personal stories of the inhabitants and staff. On similar terms, members of Alzheimer's support groups (Gubrium, 2008) and Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) self-help groups (Cain, 1991) use words and phrases which is part local culture (for example, ‘in denial’ or ‘being ready’) and use them in their narratives shared with the interviewer. In Saida's narrative, the phrase ‘a safe place’ is central. It is possible that the master narrative of the shelters involves the help-seeking women and children moving to a safe place where they can lead a better life, and that Saida has adopted this phrase and made it her own (cf. Bakhtin, 1981).

A few narratives of the older children spoke of worries of failure (excerpt 4) and fear of the abuser (excerpt 5) as part of their future. Although Saida and others talk about the importance of safety, the themes of the narratives in excerpts 4 and 5 are different, in that they are very open about fear and worries. We can assume that being safe for Saida signals fear of the abuser, but the dominant theme for her, Lidija and Eva's narrative is that of hope for a better life. The optimism evident in excerpts 1–4, the children's posture, tone of voice, and readiness to speak, are clearly different in excerpt 1–3 as compared with excerpts 4 and 5. This could, in part, be understood by the fact that Cecilie and Anna are among the oldest of the informants. Research suggests that older children, having more life experiences and therefore a more realistic outlook on life, have less optimistic solutions to issues than younger children (Woodhead, 1998).

Narratives as solutions

The children's narratives in this article can be understood as narratives of solutions and, as such, provide important knowledge about children living in shelters for abused women and their hopes for the future.⁶ In their narratives the children suggest solutions to difficult situations. In the narratives they cast their mothers and siblings in positions mothers and siblings have when things are, what Saida calls, ‘normal’. When things are normal, people come home from work, go to the post office, and play games on the Internet. In this sense the narratives bridge (Bruner, 1991) what is actually happening (staying at a shelter) and with how people ought to act and how things ought to be (own home, mother employed, etc.).

The children give us an optimistic story of future events they hope will happen. Narratives of solutions are what Bamberg (2004) calls ‘big stories’, as opposed to the ‘small stories’ we tell each other in our everyday encounters. Big stories have the potential to change matters, to matter for the listener, for the teller or in the context in which they are told. In this sense they are of great relevance to the field of social work. By understanding the children's stories as narratives of solutions, we gain knowledge about not only what the children hope for and fear, but also about the children as competent storytellers and experts on their own lives.

Conclusions

In this article I show how narrative analysis can provide a theoretical framework in which issues of relevance for social work, such as children at women's shelters and their hopes about the future, can be fruitfully analyzed. By listening to the children's stories we can obtain new knowledge about the thoughts and life-worlds of children who experience domestic violence and who are at shelters for abused women. In spite of hardships and traumatic experiences, these are not stories of resignation, but of resilience. By listening to the resilient, we can learn that it is not until the ordinary is in place that there will be room not only to dream but also to heal.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received funding from the Norwegian Ministry of Children and Equality.

Notes

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