joyfilled productions

Children LOVE hearing stories, particularly children under 9 (but even those over 9 tend to still like stories).  So whatever it is that you want to enroll your child to do, all you need to do is create a make believe story modeling what you want.

For example, if you want your child to be polite to guests when they visit your house.  You can tell a simple story about the bear family – mama bear, father bear and their 2 cubs.  Each cub can have an interesting personality to make the story more exciting.  Your story can include one cub being rude to all the guests and some of the natural consequences of that (parents not being very keen to have that cub over for playdates with their cubs perhaps).  Then how the cub learns to be kind and welcoming to guests and some natural consequences of that and how everyone felt when it all worked out.

Whenever I am stuck and trying to figure out how to teach something, I find this method helps my child learn in a way that is fun for them.  From a science perspective, until age 9, a child’s cognitive brain is not well developed yet, so stories is a way they can retain the information more effectively.  Also it creates a lovely connection time between us parents and our child…and forces us to use some creativity in our day….I find I even have fun with it and am sometimes surprised where the stories take us.

Why not try telling a story out and see what happens….it makes car rides much more fun.