Have you heard people say, “The kids today have short attention spans. Because of quick-paced television, they’re used to watching three to four-second bites and become restless when the action is diminished.”? HOG WASH! As I sit in an Amtrak station waiting for a train that’s now 38 minutes late, I’ve been watching a grandmother read Curious George to her five-year-old grandson.

From my vantage point, she appeared to be a rather listless reader, void of expression, sound effects and lifted eyebrows accompanying some of Hans and Margaret’s incredible thoughts, yet the child was glued to his grandma’s side listening to the story.

When the book was finished, he pulled another from his backpack and she proceeded to read it. The train turned out to be an hour late and the child remained interested in books the entire time. So much for the short attention span.

So here are what I believe are 6 benefits of reading bedtime stories to your children.

1. Cultivates Imagination

Now that visual stimulation is served up via television, IPads, IPhones, Xbox etc., children rarely get to tap into their imaginations unless we read to them, or until they can read. As a child, I loved radio (it was before we had television) because my imagination provided the visuals. Because we don’t have kid radio, unless we read to our kids, their ability to use their precious imaginations and be able to visualize will weaken.

I remember one Christmas, my daughter Peggy bought a bunch of children’s books at a neighborhood garage sale and recorded reading them on a cassette tape recorder for her non-reading cousins as gifts for Christmas. As adults, those cousins still speak of how they loved her gifts of being read to.

My husband Terry and I recorded books on CDs, the same way Peggy did with a cassette recorder. This way our grandchildren could listen to us read the books we gave
them as gifts.

 2. Creates a Bond

For me, there was nothing cozier than to listen to my mom or dad read to me when I
was a child. As a mom, that same cozy, loving feeling was present when I read to my
children. This photo is of my son Michael, reading to his daughter Brooklyn and his
nephew Maurice.

I also discovered reading to my children was a great way to get them to fall asleep just by lowering my energy level and reading in a monotone when I could see they’re eyelids were beginning to droop.

 3. Encourages Love for Reading

I can still see Michael when he was about three-years-old sitting with a picture book (he loved Winnie the Pooh) pretending to read. Sometimes I swear he sounded just like me reading, emphasizing certain word, laughing at the same places I’d laugh, sighing when a page that required a sigh turned up. (Unfortunately, for me, at that age, he loved to look at books up-side-down and I was so worried he was dyslectic. It turned out he wasn’t afflicted with that condition, but he did end up becoming a lawyer. I’m not saying you should worry about your child if he likes to look at books up-side-down, just stay on top of it.

I started reading to my kids when they were infants and they all could read by the time
they were four, but still wanted to be read to long into their childhoods.

 4. Attention Advantage

Once you’re all snuggled up with your child for bedtime stories, it’s a great time to influence him/her with life lessons by agreeing or disagreeing with events in the book.

“Can you believe Goldilocks would go into a house when no one was home? We would never do that, because that isn’t respecting people’s rights.” (Hey maybe that’s why Michael became a lawyer!)

 5. Establishes a Habit

When you end your children’s day with bedtime stories, that special time will become
a habit and part of life. Reading to your kids, turns them into readers. When you make
reading a pleasure, you’ll never have to encourage your kids to read, they’ll just do it.
 

6. Open the Doorway to Writing

Out of reading comes writing. We can’t write until we can read. What comes first? The
letter read or the letter written? By reading to your children, you may be creating the
next Louisa May Alcott!

Speaking of reading, if you like my writing, I think you’ll love my book, The Joy of Being Disorganized! It’ll help you see yourself with new eyes. You are so precious and your ability to get in a mess is a gift. If you haven’t thought of it this way, reading this book will change your mind and change your life.