Story telling is a perfect time to talk because, well, it truly is talking!
Telling your children a story that is made up (or retelling a classic tale) is fun, and kids love it.
Telling your children a story about you, your life, your parents’ life, etc., is even better!
Story telling is truly teaching!
In one of our workshops, we talk about teaching like Jesus taught. Truly, story telling was one of his master teaching techniques—and it can be one of ours too!
All of our grown kids listening to Grandma tell stories of her early years.
Just like story time/reading stories, story telling builds those relationships, allows for lots of discussion, and gives us commonalities to build our relationships around.
Our kids love to hear the stories of how my husband and I met; their births; our salvation stories; and more. They love to reminisce via stories about our vacations and the births of the “little boys.”
We have told them stories for years and years—and now they look forward to getting home from work or calling from college or meeting us for lunch to tell us stories about their job, their school, their lives.
And it comes full circle–as our kids love to tell stories now too! Here our twenty-one year old nurse son tells stories about his experiences as a pediatric nurse to his nurse grandma!
We recently celebrated my husband’s mom’s eightieth birthday with all of our kids there (and our four kids-in-law). Before the day, Ray told his mom that he was going to have her tell the kids stories about her life. He asked her some questions to get her thinking—and then during the party, she told her stories with Ray prompting her for more information.
My husband prompting his mom as she tells stories to the kids about her early years.
Afterward, Ray’s brother asked Ray how he got so much information out of their mom for that day. The secret, of course, was the prompting, something that we have done extensively when talking to our kids.
Prompting when they are telling about their day or their event lets them know we are listening. It helps them remember details. It makes them feel that we really do want to know their story.
So tell stories to your kids when they are young—and they will tell you stories when they are teens and adults! 🙂
