Exercise Your Imagination
Whilst I am absolutely a lover of books, I also believe that sharing a story with your children, heart to heart, without a book between you, adds a magical dimension to this voyage of discovery.
I would urge you to try this for yourself, maybe at bedtime, snuggle up in their bedroom, put the book down and begin to tell a story, whether it be a favourite story that you remember from your childhood (it doesn’t matter if you don’t remember it perfectly), a story of your childhood (children particularly love these), your child’s favourite story or a spontaneous one (often children join in joyfully with these). Don’t worry about the mistakes, the blunders, the loss of memory….. they add to the experience. Remember Leonard Cohen’s lyrics ‘There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in’. What is most important is your intention and the love captured in that moment between you and your child.
I always think of imagination as a muscle, which needs regular exercise, just as our legs and arms do. So the more you tell stories in this way, the better you will get at it and the more you will be helping strengthen your child’s imagination too. In a world of passive media, stories and storytelling activities play an important role in strengthening this muscle of imagination.
The Institute for the Future (IFTF) and a panel of 20 tech, business and academic experts from around the world estimated recently that 85 per cent of the jobs that will exist in 2030 haven’t even been invented yet. What we know is that the children who have strong, healthy imaginations are likely to navigate this new world most successfully.
Stories feed us on a deep level so that we can meet the world renewed and with new vitality, inspiring us to achieve more than we believed was possible.
I would love to hear your experiences of either sharing oral storytelling with your family, or of times when you enjoyed being told stories as a child. Please pop your tales in the comments below….photos too please!
Next time I will talk more about rhythm and repetition in stories and why these two elements are key in supporting our children as they grow….
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