Parenting is exciting, but never easy! Ensuring that your kid gets the best academic learning and personal grooming is challenging. Parents need to narrow down on a set of activities that will help their kids to enhance their cognizance and creativity. Today, most kids are aware of the technology available in terms of Smartphones and tablet devices. While it is a delight to see your kid maneuver an electronic device with ease, it also imposes specific limitations.
Most kids today go to sleep watching a video online on popular video streaming channels. They miss out on the joy of listening to stories that their parents experienced in their childhood. Watching animated movies and other kid’s programs on television and online streaming channels provide entertainment and also stir their imagination. But it can’t replicate the power and benefits of storytelling.
It’s true that despite the latest technologies, storytelling still plays a crucial role in a kid’s brain development. You can tell stories to your kids or encouraging them to narrate their day’s account or their thoughts – storytelling can take multiple manifestations. And that’s not all. Jonah Engler, a storytelling enthusiast, believes that this art form has several benefits for everyone, especially kids. Hence, if you are reconsidering your parenting and your kid’s grooming goals, you need to say yes to storytelling sessions.
The benefits of storytelling according to Jonah Engler
Are you in two minds about storytelling sessions for your kids? If yes, then you should check out the advantages discussed below to make an informed decision. The storytelling practice:
- Helps your kid to grow up with the required values and virtues
Kids love to listen to stories. And when you allow them to experience more of this, you can instill the necessary values through these stories. It will help them in their growing years. You can fix a time during the night to tell them stories, introducing characters whose virtues and values they can take on. Also, share stories that have a meaningful message and moral. It will help to build their overall personality and help them be more honest, kind, compassionate, wise, and caring.
- Enhances listening skills
Listening is a crucial activity. Imbibing this habit during childhood helps an individual to grow up becoming more patient and resolved in nature. Even though kids love to listen to stories, they are restless by nature. There are moments when they exhibit tantrums and act impatiently. Storytelling can help the situation. When you devote time to this art form daily, you will find your child becoming more grounded and developing a keen listening habit. They will become attentive in class, home, and everywhere. It will help them to become more aware of the world they reside in.
- Helps to foster imagination
We all have heard about the ancient storytelling practices from our grandparents. There have been several aboriginal tribes, who used to gather by the fireside for storytelling sessions. Here each member could weave a story with a phrase, continuing from what the other person said. You can follow the same practice with your kids.
Take some time out weekly and gather in the drawing-room. Get your kid’s favorite hot chocolate, snacks and start weaving stories. The first few rounds might be far from being perfect and seamless. But with practice, you and your kid will become perfect, and it might just be your favorite activity of the week.
This practice helps your child to hone up their imagination and creative skills. It helps them think out of the box and create beautiful snippets that bring joy, delight, and also depict a slice of life. Growing up, they will be more open to new ideas than getting inhibited about it.
- Fine-tunes communication skills
Communication experts say that when a person thinks clearly, they can write and speak better. Storytelling helps a kid become more articulate than others. They usually grow up as people who speak and write more coherently and lucidly than others. And it helps them in school and also when they work as professionals. From elucidating a creative concept at the boardroom to drafting a document, storytelling sessions in childhood, helps a person weave their thoughts correctly and creatively.
- Helps kids to know their culture and tradition better
Every culture and tradition have its gems for its people! And when we are aware of it right from our childhood, it helps us to find our standing within our culture. Fables and fairy tales depict several aspects of traditions, customs, and values that are essential for kids to know, to understand their background and times. It helps to shape their moral character and make them more sound about their culture and history.
- Increases memory power
The practice of storytelling can enhance a kid’s memory. When they listen to a story, they are paying attention to specific incidents and details. And without keeping these details in mind, they won’t be able to connect the later parts of the story. You can ask them questions as you proceed with the story, and that will help them to enhance their memory power. Children who practice storytelling has a better memory than others who aren’t into this practice.
- It streamlines the learning process and enhances social skills
You can educate your kids about various academic subjects through storytelling. It’s an excellent way to give essential lessons for school and make life easy. Children pay attention to the person who narrates the story and asks questions in turns. Also, while narrating a story, kid’s hone up their public speaking, leadership and articulation skills. All of which helps them to enhance their social skills. Later, when they grow up, they know how to conduct themselves in public amicably.
These are some of the advantages of storytelling for kids. Different kids can derive their unique benefits from this practice as well. To ensure that your kids derive maximum benefit, introduce them to storytelling today.