The Importance of Reading Children's Stories Before Bedtime

Nowadays, storytelling before bed has become a rare practice. As parents' busyness increases, they become easily tired and do not have enough time for their children. In fact, reading children's stories before bed has long been recommended by several experts.

Storytelling is actually one of the inherited traditions that is well-known in various countries, especially in Asian countries that have many legends, myths, or superstitions. These folk tales are often wrapped in local cultural values, so you can also learn about the customs of the community where you were raised. Although it may feel tiring, based on some information, storytelling has significant benefits for children's brain development. Some of these benefits are as follows.

1. Enhancing linguistic skills

It cannot be denied that children love to imitate others, especially adults. A child's ability to remember things can be very strong. This seems to also apply to the way you speak. Children who listen to stories tend to receive stimuli and examples of new vocabulary, which they often imitate. Over time, children will become more fluent in speaking because they become familiar with and understand new words that come from adults' speech or stories.

2. Improving communication skills with others

As children learn more new vocabulary, they will become more fluent in speaking, making it easier for them to communicate with others. With their increasing speaking ability, children will become more confident in continuing to communicate with others, even with older people.

However, you need to pay attention to the stories you provide to children. Make sure these stories are appropriate for the child's age and contain applicable moral values so that children better understand what is permissible or not permissible to do.

3. Increasing reading interest

Indonesia is one of the countries with the largest social media users in the world. Unfortunately, this is not accompanied by the reading interest of its population. According to research conducted by UNESCO a few years ago, based on reading interest, Indonesia ranks 60th out of 61 surveyed countries.

Even though it is not evenly distributed, many libraries have been provided, especially in schools and local governments, as well as relatively fast internet access to access various information.

This is truly unfortunate because with low reading interest, the Indonesian people are easily affected by false information (hoaxes) that are often circulated on the internet. This will certainly greatly affect the quality of Indonesian human resources in the future if the population continues to be easily affected by hoaxes.

4. Boosting self-confidence

As mentioned earlier, as children's speaking abilities increase, they will become bolder and more confident in speaking, which will enhance their speaking skills. This will be even better if supported by the child's memory, which develops through the many stories you read to them.

However, you need to be careful when reading stories to children. Avoid using words that are difficult for children to understand and ensure that the stories you tell are appropriate for the child's age so that they can easily follow the storyline.

5. Enhancing children's creativity

Reading stories is the same as telling a tale to others. You need a plot, characters, background, and good speaking skills for children to easily understand. Indirectly, you stimulate the child's brain to visualize the conditions or situations that occur in your story. This will encourage children to think creatively, especially if you read children's stories before bed along with pictures to help them imagine the overall content of the story.

In addition to pictures, you can also use other tools to enhance children's imagination. Puppets and facial expressions intentionally created to depict the emotions felt by the characters can be alternative methods worth trying. Besides being inexpensive, both are also easy to do, so you do not need special training.

6. Strengthening the parent-child relationship

It cannot be denied that the more you interact with your child, the stronger your relationship will be. Children will get used to spending time with their parents, creating a sense of security and comfort in being close to their parents. By telling stories before bed, children will feel the attention and love from their parents, which they may rarely receive due to each other's busyness.

7. A means of introducing culture

Fairy tales can arise from the culture and customs of a society in various countries. Fortunately, with the advancement of technology, you can access new fairy tales from different countries to tell your little one. By telling these stories, it is hoped that children will become more aware of the existence of other communities living on different parts of the earth. This can spark the child's curiosity about the conditions of the society in the country of origin of the fairy tale.

In fact, any story can be used as a bedtime story for children as long as the stories have educational value that is beneficial for the child's development. Indonesian folk tales, which are closely tied to the culture and customs of the Indonesian nation, can be a suitable alternative. Besides embedding social, moral, and cultural values, this also helps preserve folk tales that are now rarely heard.

Tips Sahabat