*Listening to bedtime stories with your kids creates a deeper bond while promoting psychological wellbeing*
Imagine this — you’re a child again, eagerly slipping into your pajamas and brushing your teeth, knowing there’s a bedtime story waiting for you. The TV is turned off. The board games have been put away on the shelf. It’s only you, your parents and your imagination.
Now you’re a parent. The days are shorter and your work schedule is busy. Your kids have the same eagerness and imagination, but it’s tough to find the time and energy for bedtime stories.
We’ve talked to countless parents – in fact, many of us are parents ourselves – and we know how tough it can be to put daily distractions behind us and find time to just listen.
That’s why we strive to make the shared experience of listening easy. We believe listening brings us closer together. It’s a powerful tool for creating emotional bonds and sparking imaginations, both young and old.
Parents, grandparents, teachers and developmental psychologists all understand the importance of bedtime stories for kids. The bedtime story ritual strengthens and encourages your child’s relationship with literature and language all through childhood and prepares them for deeper adult stories. Here’s why audiobooks make the perfect bedtime stories to share with your children.
Listening to Stories Together Creates a Strong Bond
Between your work, their school, your errands and their extracurricular activities, it’s difficult to find time for togetherness during the day. That’s why when the covers come up, it’s a perfect time to slow down, put the day behind you and share a children’s story with your loved ones.
When you listen together, magic happens. You laugh at the same silly moments, like when the narrator puts on a funny voice. You both drop your jaw in awe at the twists and bite your nails nervously when the main character is in peril. You look at each other and share the same sense of joy and amazement. Through a shared listening experience, you strengthen your bond even more than before.
Some of the best children’s stories are all about this bond, like the one Charlie Bucket shares with Grandpa Joe in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. By sharing in a whimsical, emotional experience together at Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, these two grow closer than ever.
Stories Help with Language Development
Children who listen to stories are more likely to develop a love of literature when they’re older. There’s also a proven correlation between hearing words and eventually learning their meaning. And finally, as many studies have shown, listening to stories helps kids enrich their vocabulary. Masters of the form like A.A. Milne, E.B. White and Beatrix Potter all use a wide vocabulary, but the words are situated in easy-to-follow stories. And with you listening by your child’s side, you’re able to share meaning as you listen.
Listening to Kids’ Stories Aids in Emotional Development
As you likely remember from your own childhood, stories help children learn important emotional concepts such as patience and empathy. The story of The Tortoise and the Hare shows the value of taking your time, while the tale of The Ugly Duckling teaches children that it’s OK to be different. The duckling was beautiful because he wasn’t like everyone else — he was a swan, after all.
Together, with a bedtime story, you and your child can tackle big emotional questions in a safe, fun environment.
They Encourage a Robust Imagination
Have you ever caught your child playing with something as mundane as a throw pillow? Only it isn’t mundane to them. It’s not even a throw pillow! It’s a spaceship’s dashboard, with buttons that can launch them into hyper-speed.
This sense of imagination is so important to a child’s creativity and intelligence, and children’s audiobooks lift that imagination to new heights. Listening to audiobooks before bed can transport you and your child to new, fantastical lands, like the one Dorothy discovers in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Kids’ stories test the limits of reality, and teach children to think outside the box.
Bedtime Stories Help Them (Finally) Get to Sleep
“Alright, I’ll go to bed, but can we listen to a story?” You’ve heard this one many times before, and every parent knows how great the promise of story time can be for getting kids to bed.
It’s the perfect end-of-day bargain, a special occasion that contributes to your sleep routine and creates powerful emotional experiences. Listening to audiobooks as part of the bedtime routine can make it an experience both adults and children look forward to.
After a busy day, it’s important to set aside time to listen together, and we make it easy to explore a wide range of children’s audiobooks and share in the benefits of bedtime stories. Lift their imaginations to new heights with children’s stories from Audible that bring their favourite titles to life.
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