Orsolya Nemet is a psychologist, educator and PhD candidate at Eötvös Loránd University, Faculty of Education and Psychology (ELTE PPK). Her research focuses on narrative-based social-emotional learning, emotion comprehension, reflective engagement and children’s meaning-making processes in early school years. She is a practitioner of the Metamorphoses Folktale Method and the developer of the T.A.L.E. (Tale Activates Learning and Emotional-Growth) programme, a school-based preventive programme designed to support children’s social-emotional learning and mental health promotion. A recent co-authored mixed-methods study on narrative participation and emotion comprehension in the T.A.L.E. programme was published in Frontiers in Psychology in 2026.
Orsolya Nemet
Speaker
How Stories Help Us Grow: Storytelling, Human Connection and Social-Emotional Development
Speech
In the age of artificial intelligence, children are surrounded by fast answers. Yet emotional growth still needs time, presence, imagination and shared meaning. This talk explores how tales and storytelling can create a deeply human space in which children begin to understand feelings, relationships and their own lived experiences. Drawing on the Metamorphoses Folktale Method and the T.A.L.E. programme, it shows how stories, embodied practices, creative reflection and shared dialogue can support social-emotional development. The talk includes a short tale about storytelling itself and introduces findings from a published mixed-methods study with 197 children aged 7-9. The results suggest that stories may become small, memorable resources that children can carry into everyday emotional situations. At a time when many answers can be generated instantly, stories remind us that meaning cannot simply be delivered. It has to be lived, shared and slowly integrated.