Storytelling

It used to be with my kids that bedtime meant reading them a few stories and then "cuddle" time, which is just another word for fooling around before going to sleep. As I mentioned in my "Bedtime" post the kids now ask for a made up story every night, in addition to the other sleep traditions described earlier. To help anyone trapped in this situation, or if you just want to add another element to your bedtime routine I thought I would share what types of stories the kids seem to like and the ones they don't like.

Magic - Any story with magic seems to be a hit. I've told stories about magic trees, cars, dogs, potato's, beds, pillows, chipmunks and even magic magician's. All the stories are really the same. Two children walking to school, in a forest or playground when they come across the magic object, or in some cases a magician or wizard gives them the magic item. The item can do all kinds of silly magic like turning furniture or toys into play dough or making the family car fly. You can pretty much go anywhere with magic.

Crazy - Anyone or anything that's crazy the kids love. Crazy parents, crazy friends, crazy animals. Whatever, as long as they are crazy. I guess they relate to this pretty well since we as parents are the craziest role models around. If you're really ambitious add magic to crazy and the kids will be bouncing off the walls. Perfect for bedtime as I found out last week....

Prince/Princess - Boring, but always popular.

Animals - Especially if they can talk and do some kind of magic. Though wouldn't you think some kind of magic was already involved if a squirrel could talk.

Food/School/Cleaning up - These are not good stories to tell even if you're trying to get a point across or teach a lesson. You'll waste your time telling it and end up having to tell another story or spend extra time trying to convince them to go to bed.

One other thing that we've recently started to do at bedtime which I think is a pretty good idea is playing a little game with letters. We start with "A" and ask the children to come up with words that start with "A" based on clues. For example: What's red or green, grows in a tree and also is a juice? Apple. I know you don't need the answer, but I felt compelled to answer anyway. We do this for as many "A" words as we and the kids can think of. The next day is "B" and so on. It is a nice way to challenge the children and settle them down before sleep.

Hope these help.