Storytelling for Kids: A Complete Guide for Parents

If you are interested in telling stories and looking for more information on storytelling for kids, you are in the right place. This post extensively covers the importance of storytelling for your child, what holds us back and how can we improve our storytelling skills so that our young kids are not deprived of the gift of stories. We hope that you will feel more motivated and confident in narrating stories for toddlers and young children.

Why storytelling for kids is important

Storytelling is facing stiff competition from several factors. Digital media and animation have made storytelling available on demand just at a click of a button. But do we realize that it cannot substitute the goodness of storytelling narrated by a person?  As you go through the points below you will realize that digital storytelling doesn’t offer as much room for creativity and is not so interactive; these are the core aspects that lead to the listed benefits of storytelling for kids.

Let’s have a look.

1. Instill Virtue:

Storytelling can be a great way to convey the concept of good & bad, and the complex concepts of morality and ethics to a child. Summarizing the morals of the stories at the end helps them understand better and remember them longer. Over the years, it helps the child imbibe all the virtues you intend to instill via your stories. Of course, for this, you will need to be a role model. Only stories won’t help. However, virtues like, respecting elders, caring about people, being compassionate, sharing things, etc. may be difficult concepts for your child to understand and imbibe only through storytelling.

2. Helps Learn Emotion:

Stories are a rainbow of emotions. You can find happiness, joy, elation, grief, feeling of loss, fear, jealousy, love, hatred and so on in stories. Storytelling for kids is a feast of emotions for them. Therefore, kids who are exposed to a myriad of emotions learn to recognize and understand emotions. This is the first step towards increasing emotional intelligence in children

3. Increases Imagination and Creativity:

Stories are great ways to encourage imagination and increase creativity in kids. As you narrate the story, your child will imagine it. Say you are telling a story about a Lion king in the jungle, he/she will imagine that and may do so in so many different ways. This is where telling a story differs from digital media where the lion and the jungle is shown and the child has no scope to imagine.

4. It’s an all-weather Fun activity:

Storytelling is fun for your child if done properly. Your child will be waiting for ‘storytelling time’ (usually bedtime is a great time!). This can be used as a motivation (read reward) so that your child doesn’t end up doing things that you don’t like.

Apart from the numerous benefits storytelling offers, it is also a recreational activity for your child. And the good thing is that it doesn’t come with a major limitation of time and place. You can tell a story to help counteract boredom in your child across a wide range of settings. For example, you can take the help of a story in any of the following situations:

• If you are outdoor in the park and your child does not want to play
• If there’s bad weather and you are getting bored indoors
• At bedtime
• If you are in an airport waiting for your delayed flight
• During long road trips.

5. Arouse Curiosity and Make Learning fun:

Stories can engage and arouse curiosity. It is also a fun way of learning. Use rich vocabulary and new words. Introducing new words within sentences in the context of the story allows children to understand the meaning and remember it for a long time. You don’t need to constrict yourself to stories that you have read or heard elsewhere. Get creative and make learning much more fun via storytelling. You can build stories around your child’s favorite characters or around stuff that you want them to learn. Do not worry about the plot so much.

7. Helps Create awareness for one’s culture and roots:

Teaching about our culture and history is usually perceived as tough and boring. Storytelling can be a fun way to do that. You can tell stories about your childhood and various festivals etc. Mythological stories are also great ways to teach about culture. As these are not in the ‘curriculum’, without such stories children will grow up disconnected from their roots.

8. Improve Listening Skills:

Active listening is a vital skill for children to develop. In early childhood, up to 80% of the learning is verbal learning.  Therefore children with better listening skills will have an edge over others. Telling stories is a great listening activity that can increase patience and improves active listening skills in children. These are going to be among the greatest virtues you could have instilled.

9. Communication Skills and Expression:

Children listening to stories also participate in the process and discussion revolving around the stories. This helps them to frame questions to clear their doubts, put forward their views, and participate in the discussion. Therefore it encourages them to interact and helps improve their communication skills over time.  This also gives them an opportunity to express their thoughts and feelings.

10. Decreases screen time:

Storytelling for kids, apart from all other benefits, also has the advantage of decreasing screen time in children. It is not uncommon in children to use a mobile phone at bedtime (which is an absolute no!). Bedtime storytelling gives an interesting alternative to your child to give up the mobile phone before sleep.

Also Read: Childhood & Stories – The Lost Connection

Storytelling benefits for Parents

1. Relieves stress:

As much as it is fun for children, telling a story can be fun for us parents too. This gives you a great time and a stress-relief session after a long day at work.

2. Quality time with your kids:

Time spent telling a story is quality time spent with your kids. It is also a great opportunity for bonding and allows parents and kids to open up to each other.

Also Read: 7 Fun Things to do at Home with Kids to Make Life More Exciting

3. Fulfilling:

Witnessing the child’s excitement and enjoyment as you narrate a story is indeed very fulfilling.

4. The Art of Storytelling: A Useful Skill to Learn

If you are not an expert in storytelling, then you will learn it in the process. Storytelling skills will not be confined to telling stories to your children. You will notice that you will improve the way you describe a situation, explain things or crack a joke – your narration skills would improve. Great storytelling skills make your personality a bit more interesting. People are more eager to listen to you and you can hold their attention better. This has limitless implications in your social and professional life.

Why parents are drifting away from storytelling

However, despite all the advantages listed above, fewer parents indulge in storytelling to their children today.

1. Busy with life:

Nowadays most parents are busy with life and once they reach home, they want to take some rest or watch TV. They fail to match the energy of kids and thus fail to give enough time to children. Therefore storytelling for kids takes a backseat. Over time, this gap increases and puts a dent in the parent-child relationship. Despite your busy schedule, you must take the responsibility to spend quality time with your kids. Bedtime storytelling is one such opportunity.

2. Nuclear family:

Traditionally, grandparents used to play an important part in the kid’s upbringing. Even if the parents are busy with life, grandparents used to be the ultimate storytelling treasure for children. However, with rapidly changing socio-cultural scenarios, most families (especially urban) have become nuclear. So children have lost the opportunity of listening to stories from their grandparents too.

3. Kids are stuck with mobile:

Nowadays kids get addicted to mobile phones very early in life. Coupled with our lack of interest (and storytelling skill) to tell stories to them, they just keep on sinking into the quicksand. In my view, this doesn’t qualify as a factor but is rather a consequence (of course there are other factors) of the dying skill of storytelling in parenting.

4. Do not remember stories:

You can begin with stories that you listened to as a kid or you must have read during childhood.

However, kids need variety and will quickly get bored if you have only a couple of stories to tell. Keeping up with the ‘basket of storytelling ideas’ the demand can be difficult sometimes. To add to the problem, most parents today did not grow up listening to or reading so many stories in their childhood.

Though you can learn new stories from new storybooks or storytelling websites, you may go blank sometimes.

But even when you think you have nothing to tell you actually have lots of storytelling ideas left

• You are creative, build something around your child’s favorite characters or colors, etc. Don’t worry about the Plot. Just concentrate on the narration. Just put the fun stuff. And the good thing is that there are no boundaries…. fishes can fly, horses could go to the sun and so on.

if you cannot come up with a story on the spot, that’s not a problem. You still have a lot to offer.

• Tell something about real-life incidences from your childhood. For example, how you went fishing with your dad, or how you fell down from the mango tree trying to steal mangoes, and how stealing is not a good thing.
• You can also describe your kid’s own experiences back to him. You can tell him about your last zoo trip together and how much he/she enjoyed seeing the giraffe.

5. Lack of storytelling skills:

Many parents might know a lot of stories or may have learned them for their children but they are not confident about their storytelling skills. If you are one of them, then don’t let this fear hold you back. Luckily children are very forgiving and you would do just fine! You can just start narrating stories to your children and you will soon become a Pro too! Given below are some storytelling tips to help you. We have also listed some resources at the end that might be helpful.

5 basic storytelling tips for parents

1. Choose good stories, be creative and be ready to experiment:

Start with stories that you know well. It could be stories you heard or read as a child, folktales, fables, legends, etc. As you grow more confident in narration, you can expand your horizon and start experimenting!

Stories for children need to be interesting but, at the same time, it is preferable to have stories with purpose. A story with morals is a great way to instill virtues in your children.

2. Consider the age of your child and the language of narration:

You should be telling stories to your toddler in a language you and your kid usually converse in. This way both of you are comfortable. Stories for toddlers need to be simple and brief. They may like to listen to your childhood incidences and what silly things you did etc. Preschoolers and toddlers also get interested in stories woven around their favorite characters. They don’t bother too much about the plot.

For older children, you can introduce a second or a third language based on their comfort level and fluency. This will enrich his/her vocabulary. Though the general guiding principles are the same as for toddlers, you may want to narrate stories with a relatively proper plot for them. Also, keep in mind that children in this age group enjoy surprises. So you can take their favorite story and twist it somewhere! Also with older kids, you can take turns narrating stories. This will trigger their creativity and improve their narration skills.

Also Read: Tips To Make Your Child Fall In Love With Books

3. Put emotion into your story:

Choose different stories with a wide range of emotions. However, avoid horror stories or stories with violence. This helps children learn emotions and increases their emotional intelligence. You should narrate stories with complete involvement and express the emotions in the story. A plain, bland narration is not interesting and might bore your kid. Modulate voice and pause: modulate your voice to give the effect and express the emotion, use pauses effectively.

4. Use your body language effectively to go with the story:

You can also use your hands to act things out to make things more efficient. Narrating the story without a book in your hand allows both you and your child to use hands for expression. This way a lot of things can be remembered by muscle memory.

Make your child participate:

Storytelling must always be interactive. Involve your kids to add to the process. Your child will have his/her share of doubts and you sometimes may twist the story to suit their imagination. That’s actually great and you must encourage it. Also, ask an occasional question to keep your kid engaged and encourage creativity and imagination.

Here is an example of a random storytelling idea:

Once upon a time, a small boy was lost in the jungle. He was sitting on a rock, crying. He was praying to God ‘Please take me home, I miss my mommy’. Then suddenly, the king of the jungle, The Lion (modulate your voice) appeared in front of him( your Child may participate by saying ROOAAAR!). The boy got sacred, what is the lion going to do to him?. Then the lion opens his mouth and said…(pause & ask)… do you know what did Lion say? (let your child imagine and participate). Yes! The Lion said (continue with the story)  ‘What is your name, Kid? Don’t be scared. God has sent me to take you home’ ( modulate your voice; speak as if you are a lion).

How to Learn Storytelling Skills

1. Self-Learning: Kids don’t judge and are very forgiving

If you have some stories to share and you have the will to try, that’s all it takes. As you narrate stories evening after evening, you would get better. If you run out of storytelling ideas, buy a kids storybook and learn some. Then practice and narrate them in your own words. If you are out of ideas, you may also go all over and repeat your kid’s favorite stories that you might have narrated many times.

2. Take online courses

There are a lot of online courses available on how to learn storytelling. You have free online courses like this one; on Khan Academy, you can also have both free and paid courses from Udemy. However, most of these are targeted at telling the story to an audience rather than to children. Though the storytelling skills needed for children are different, you can still improvise and adapt.

3. Join workshops in the vicinity

Also, keep your eyes and ears open for any storytelling workshop that is being conducted in your vicinity. These could be a great way to learn the basics from experts and boost your storytelling skills.

We have also listed some resources that you might find helpful. Please let us know how did you find our post. Don’t forget to share it if you liked it. Because sharing is caring!

Resources

Websites:

1. Free audio stories at storynory.com 
2. Tellmeastorymom.com by Sweta Shrivastava.
3. Sara Baldwin’s Blog
4. WHEEL Council’s blog post about Storytellers.

Books:

1.  Storytelling with Children by Nancy Mellor.
2.  Show Me a Story by Emily K. Neuburger.