I wrote the following poem for my daughter for valentines this year. She may only be four, but I hope that her mum puts it (I wrote it on a nice letter) somewhere safe for her so that when she’s much older, she comes across it and is reminded just how much she is loved by her soppy old dad. Continue reading A Poem for my Daughter on Valentines
We are all told through the media and parenting magazines that story time is very important and that (depending on which study you read) a minimum of 15-20 minutes a day or reading time is essential to helping our children develop. Other benefits that are perhaps a little less obvious or publicised :
Your child lives in a world of unknowns where each day is filled with new learning experiences.
As they grow they are faced not only with the scary world around them, but new social situations as they encounter new friends, lose friends, attend school, learn what criticism is from their peers and learn to speak up for themselves.
It is a constant “trial by error” situation without the maturity or adult skills to deal with these pressures.
Adults get frustrated when they cannot succeed immediately, and we (try to) live by the old adage “if you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
If we adults get frustrated, imagine how your child must be feeling! Children do not have this same adult ability to cope with failure and rejection.
By being aware of this and sharing stories which mirror their experiences, you can help your kids relate to characters they can identify with. They can learn to express their emotions through these characters, and ask questions on how the characters act. Our children can in turn understand how to deal with these turbulant feelings.
Another added benefit to this type of story is that your child learns what is “normal” and that certain negative feelings are “OK” to express and needn’t be hidden.
You can also use the mirror effect in the story to discover your child’s emotions without risk of being humiliated or worse.
So you understand that your child is silently worried or fearful in a given situation, but you’re not sure she knows how to deal with or communicate how they’re feeling.
How do you address that?
Children often remain silent, avoiding eye contact and evading direct questions on how they feel. Other children may “play up” or constantly throw tantrums…
Why?The reason is because the child does not know if it is wrong or right to feel this way, and they are afraid they will be humiliated or disciplined for their feelings.
They also have trouble vocalising the fear itself, as this just provokes their anxious uncomfortable feelings. For younger children, they may not even know what the “feeling” is, just that it’s very strong and they don’t like it.
Stories are a great way to personify their fears and worries as “monsters” that can be overcome and even befriended, so that objects of fear or worry can be diminished with patterns of thought and behaviour trained through a character’s reactions.
As we’ve discovered through this introduction already, our children identify and learn from characters and situations in stories. You can use your story to teach your child what behaviour is acceptable and not acceptable.
It’s bath time.
Your daughter is point blank refusing to get undressed for the bath.
You’re both getting frustrated and you can feel the heat rising in your cheeks as you start to get angry.
“GET IN THE BATH” you bellow at her.
She bursts into tears and runs from the room, buying herself under the duvet on the bed.
You’re cross, she’s upset and she’s STILL not in the bath!
It’s bath time.
Your daughter is point blank refusing to get undressed for the bath.
Taking a calm breath, you start telling her about little Princess Elizabeth who loved to be filthy dirty…
… A couple of minutes and a short, carefully targeted, story later…
“Quack Quack” says your daughter as she has one of the baby ducks rescuing the other from the foam as they all frolic in the bath…
That is a real-life example of one situation where I was able to swallow my natural frustration and impatience and help us both out with a short story (that she actually asked me to repeat).
A well delivered story can create real and profound behaviour changes in children if crafted and delivered in the right way.
Children are sponges for love and affection.
They absorb as much as they can and still come back for more.
Storytelling is more than just a story for a child : It’s a physical closeness with their protector and their source of love, as you sit tight beside them on their bed at bedtime.
It is being given that all important attention.
The child is often indecisive at bedtime about which story they want read to them, and usually you will find they will try to pick the longest story they can find, or else keep requesting another and another.
It’s tempting to think that they’re just trying to delay having to go to bed and to sleep. It’s not!
The story itself is less important than your company! So use this time, whether short or long to bond with your child.
Storytelling opens up an opportunity for you to delight all their senses and imagination and leave them with happy thoughts and a warm fuzzy feeling before they curl up to sleep.
We will explore further how to make the best advantage of all your faculties to appeal to all their senses in the next lessons.
Remember, you do this naturally in conversation with your friends, it’s just as easy, if not easier, to do this with your child.
Can you remember being told a story as a child? Is it something that you look back on with rosy nostalgia like mine from the start of this introduction?
Storytelling is a special type of activity that your child will love, and will become happy memories in your child’s mind that they too will carry forward into their adult life and then on into their children’s (your grandchildren!).
We all want that for our children right??
It is also a great way for you as a parent to enjoy the precious time you have with your child while they are young. Those years seem to fly by and all too soon your child will stop asking for a story, so enjoy the opportunity while you have it.
Enjoy what is to come, put some of the ideas and suggestions from this course into story time with them and I know you’ll all appreciate it.
Children’s stories go way beyond the basics of helping develop language and understanding and sit at the core of the family way of life. They enable our kids to explore ideas and feelings, discover ways of communicating their emotions and bring you closer together both physically and emotionally.
In the last article, we introduced the importance of storytelling and reading books and briefly discussed the importance of the story time environment. In this the second in this series and examines to difficulty facing parents who don’t yet have a story time routine and the problems of simply getting started. We then go on to discuss some options for reading picture books with younger children and how they don’t just have to be for the non-readers in our families. Continue reading Building a story time routine and how to make the most of a picture book at bedtime
Take a moment and try and imagine that now. I bet you can’t.
If you could imagine such a world, it would probably bring to mind a more sterile and rigid society, where the imagination is restrained, leaving a vacuum where dreams and hope should be (I do believe there is a film out there that already explores this).
The truth is that stories are a part of human everyday life because the life of each person is their personal story.
As we learn from the adventures and experiences in our own lives, so too we learn from the stories and tales of the adventures (both real and fictional) of others. It is the compressed and emotional content of these stories that is the most fundamental benefit of storytelling for children. Stories are a fantastical reflection of life, where anything is possible!
Think about this : Could even the gossip we have over a cup of tea or a pint could be classified as a story? Whether true or false, do we not usually embellish it?
Give it added humour?
A tone of suspicion?
A pause of anticipation…
We love to deliver a juicy morsel, and to see the appreciative response, the laugh, the shock.
So, whether you know it or not, you are already a natural storyteller.
Become aware of your own natural ability, hone and finesse this skill and you’ll communicate effectively, successfully and enjoyably with your son or daughter.
Continue and discover why I should tell stories to my child.
“…children no longer grow up within the security of an extended family, or of a well-integrated community. Therefore, even more than at the times fairy tales were invented, it is important to provide the modern child with images of heroes who have to go out into the world by themselves and who, although originally ignorant of the ultimate things, find secure places in the world by following their right way with deep inner confidence.”
Bruno Bettelheim, The Use of Enchantment
In the society we live in, “family” is very often only known to the child as the people under the roof of their home.
It is nowadays a much smaller group of people, from whom they must extract their knowledge of the world, their examples of acceptable behaviour, their moral code and their source of love.
Stories open a world where there are endless examples from which children can learn from and follow.
Stories for children are usually of three types :
All these types of stories serve a purpose, whether they are purely for pleasure, to soothe your child’s fears or to educate them. Think of a story as a vehicle between you and your child.
What you choose to load that vehicle with will impress deeply upon your child’s formative mind, so choose wisely.
This first lesson has some easy homework for you to become a better story teller : simply observe.
Keep an eye on your inbox for the next lesson and in the mean time, why not browse the site a little and see what other storytelling advice and ideas you can find.
Thank you for signing up to receive this free course helping you make story time the best time.
I’d like to take this first piece to talk us through why we’re here and if I may, before we dive into the good stuff of the storytelling techniques and methods, tell you a brief story…
I’m seven.
Gran is here and it’s dark outside on a cold winter afternoon.
The fire will be lit soon and there’s the possibility of roast chestnuts later.
The dogs are curled up on their beds, noses tucked under their tails, and I’m snuggled on the sofa next to my sisters with the blanket from the dressing up box wrapped around us.
It’s story time and my sister’s and I already know the story that Gran is going to read to us. We’re in that magical place of half excitement and anticipation of the adventure to come and yet also sleepy, warm and full of an unusual snugglyness that makes me feel closer to my sisters than at any other time of my childhood.
There’s something about the way Gran reads the stories that makes them somehow more real than the ones they read at school. Somehow more fun that the ones that Dad reads and somehow more vivid and clear than even the ones Mum reads at bed time.
What is it that makes story time with Gran so different from story time with anyone else?
What is it about the way she tells tales of fun and adventure that will make me drop whatever chaos I’ve been engrossed in and come running, ready to be completely quiet and calm and loving?
Now, I have a daughter of my own and I am discovering just how wonderful it is to be telling and creating worlds and fantastical adventures that capture her and whisk her off to the world of imagination.
Can you imagine a world without storytelling? follow the link read the first lesson in this course and find out why stories are so important to us
What is the best way to read with our family at home? How can we instil a love of learning and of books?
What books should we read, and how should we present these to our children?
Many of us would love to help our children to become good readers, to help them to enter the fantastic world of books and literature. We know what it has to offer, and that good literacy, which is the foundation for success at school and in life, starts in the home, at an early age.
This series of articles (of which this is the first) will introduce us to some of the key areas around storytelling and reading books for our children.
This first article introduces us to the idea of setting the right environment for story time and why we should do it at all. Continue reading Bedtime stories and books for children
The ability to tell a great story, one that captivates listeners and keeps them on the edges of their seats, is a great talent.
Memorizing children’s’ stories is much easier than you’re probably thinking.
With this second set of tips and tricks below (checkout the first ones here), you can tell your children a bedtime story…no book included…as early as next week!
In addition to giving you some great memorization tips, we’ll clue you in to some great books filled with stories sure to capture kids’ imaginations.
Continue reading More ways to memorize a story for bedtime storytelling
We’ve all (well at least if you’re a parent I hope you have) read stories to our children before bedtime.
While these quiet moments with our kids are a great way to spend some quiet time together, sometimes the mad dash to find a storybook can take longer than reading the story!
While nothing will replace reading books to children, memorizing stories is a great way to put some spontaneous fun into their bedtime routine.
In addition, having a cache of stories in your memory is a great way to pass the time during long car trips, while stuck in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, or any other place or situation which can be boring for young children.
Here, we’ll give you some tips and tricks to memorize stories and be able to recall them at a moment’s notice.
In addition, we’ll give you some ideas for books full of short and easy-to-remember tales that will delight children of all ages.
Continue reading How to Memorize Children’s Stories for bedtime storytelling
With almost 20,000 new children’s books published in the UK every year, it’s no wonder that choosing the right book can be a difficult or overwhelming task.
Faced with shelf upon shelf of bright, shiny titles in the bookshop or library, where do you start?
Perhaps your confidence has been dashed because you bought a book and found that your child just wasn’t interested in it.
Perhaps your child won’t sit still for five minutes to read with you.
Or perhaps you just think that your child doesn’t like reading?
But remember that finding the right book to share will reinforce your child’s love of reading and will also help strengthen the relationship between the two of you, so it’s worth taking the time to get it right.
Continue reading Choosing bedtime stories to read with your kids
It’s so obvious, but so often forgotten.
Remember to adjust your vocabulary to your child’s level of understanding.
Kids will mostly allow you a certain amount of leeway as words fly over their heads’, but if they can discern an entire word they don’t understand, they are more than likely going to bring you up on it.