A wise man called Albert Einstein once said: “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”
And, he couldn’t have been righter.
Who you are today, what you believe in, what value system you choose to cultivate and how you perform as you approach your adult years is a direct result of how you were raised, and what you were taught from the very first moment you arrived in this world.
If your brain is actively stimulated and entertained as a baby or a child, you are likely to develop into an intelligent and brilliant adult.
Reading fairytales to your children is an essential activity. When you incorporate books as a part of their lives, you are stimulating their brains. You introduce them with the unknown, you open the doors to the limitless world of imagination, making them think rationally, in colours they never knew existed.
The more you read to them, the harder their brain works. But, the harder their brains work, the more it absorbs and eventually develops.
But, there’s something incredibly special about reading your children fairytales.
First things first, fairytales help the development of various academic skills.
As a listener, your child will observe your movements, your storytelling skills, and learn to imitate your abilities as their reading ability develops. The older they grow, they’ll start learning the importance of the tone, accents, dramatic pauses, the meaning of chronology and attention to details.
Reading will also stimulate your child to learn how to read and as a result develop strong memory skills.
The magical, fairytale plots will help the child develop their critical thinking skills as they memorize the characters and understand the consequences of the character’s actions.
Fictional reading has the power to awake your child’s creativity. But, the mystical lands, the fantasy worlds, and the magical creatures of our favourite fairytales will make their imagination run wild. It will inspire the child to get out of the imaginary box and think bigger.
But, besides igniting imagination, fairy tales can also teach our children the most essential life lessons.
According to The Telegraph, Goddard Blythe, director of the Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology in Chester, said: “Fairy tales help to teach children an understanding of right and wrong, not through direct teaching, but through implication.”
I believe we all remember how noble and courageous the huntsman from Snow White was, or how respected and kind Belle from Beauty and the Beast was. No one will ever forget the moment when Mufasa killed Simba, because that is the kind of a scene that has the power to help children differentiate from right and wrong.
As a result, fairytales encourage our children’s emotional development.
The whole experience of reading fairy tales to your child is magical as it is. You tuck your child in bed, turn on nice, relaxing sounds, and you start reading. This experience is essential to the child’s emotional and mental growth because it creates intimacy, a bonding moment between you and your baby.
Professor Yvonne Kelly of UCL said: “Children who listen to stories show better results in measures such as literacy tests and SATs – but also in terms of social and emotional development”
All in all, despite what the research and the studies show, bringing a little bit magic by introducing your child to fairytales is an amazing way to brighten their childhood and inspire them to never stop dreaming.
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