In this post we'll try to explore what makes a bedtime story great, and how to tell one.
We hope you'll find this post interesting whether you plan to read a bedtime story from a book, re-tell a story you heard, or tell your own story. If you end up deciding to write your own bed time story, you might also find our post on how to write a short story interesting and useful.
Before we dive into how to tell a story, we thought of talking a bit about why bedtime stories are important in the first place. After a long day, when it's time to go to bed and relax before falling asleep, you finally have an opportunity to talk calmly with the kids. When it's working well, they are cuddled and cute and it's a magical parent-child bonding time. There are many ways to use this time. You can talk about the things you did together today, or maybe discuss what's on the children's mind, such as things they've done in school or with friends.
Bedtime stories enable you to spend some quality time together, every day. Except for the joy of reading, it's also an opportunity to teach them positive values and improve their comprehension and language skills. If you take the extra step of telling stories you invented or maybe even invent stories with the kids, the experience becomes more special and even magical.
You know your kids better than anyone else. The story you tell should fit the child's age, interests, and attention span.
Choose the story like you choose a theme park ride. Smaller kids need gentler experience! For little kids the conflict in the story should be obvious but not intimidating. Bigger kids can handle more intense or even scary conflicts. As kids grow, they get better in constructing a mental model of what's going on and understand better the separate interests and thoughts of each character. This will enable them to sense and enjoy more subtle tensions and conflicts.
Think how your kids would react to the emotions arising from the story. Smaller kids might experience emotions very strongly, so try to choose stories with less pathos and fewer crises. Put less emphasis on points where the story might trigger a strong emotion, especially negative ones like sadness or fear.
When reading a story aloud, allow yourself to improvise. There can be many reasons why you wouldn't want to completely adhere to the text. Maybe you want to adapt the whole story or maybe you just have a different interpretation to the moral. Sometimes you want to paraphrase or completely skip parts that are not suitable for your kid's age.
If you're inventing your own story, consider adding familiar characters or settings to make the story more relatable. Use characters from movies or other stories your kids already love! More on that below.
When reading or telling a bedtime story use a calming voice and a gentle pace. The goal is to relax and get the kids into a sleepy mood, not excite! Especially with smaller kids try to avoid confusions with a clear and easy-to-follow plot. End on a positive or reassuring note. Hopefully this will help the kids to drift into peaceful dreams.
Children love stories with a touch of wonder, and morals at the end. Many stories will include some, so it's just a matter of picking the right one for you and your kids.
If you're telling a story of your own, don't limit yourself to realistic scenarios. Set your imagination free! You can challenge our world's physical limitations for example. Everything is possible within a story. Just remember to keep the plot consistent, don't contradict yourself, and avoid plot holes.
When you're telling a bedtime story it's one of these rare occasions where the kids are finally listening with full attention. Sounds like a perfect time to include a takeaway message you think they need to hear! Kindness, honesty, perseverance, responsibility or friendship... the list goes on and on. Again, you know your kids the best, so you know what will suit them best and what they need to hear.
Many kids are fans of characters they know from movies, tv series or stories. There are tons of "spinoffs" for known stories. Sometimes it's the work of the original creators, and sometimes it's a derivative work by someone else.
You can also make one of your own when you want to tell your kids a story. Throughout the plot try answering questions like "How would that known character behave in this new situation?", "How can this character develop and change?" etc. Use the strong foundation laid out by the original creator and add your own take.
So far we focused on the content, but what about the part where you actually tell the story?
When reading stories, add light prompts like “What do you think happened next?”. This will keep the kids engaged, but remember not to let it become too lively, it is bedtime after all. Note you don't have to keep this as a guessing game. Instead, let the kids choose what happens next, and allow them to add their own ideas or characters.
When you're telling the story make eye contact and use gestures to animate the story. Use different voices for different characters (it can sometimes be challenging to keep track of which voice belongs to which character!). For younger kids use softer, gentler voice.
Assuming you want to tell your own stories, what is best? Reciting what you already written, or inventing the story on the fly? It mainly depends on what you feel comfortable with, but here are some things to think about.
Writing the story down in advance ensures the story you tell will be a polished one, and it will have a coherent flow. If you intend to base your story on a tale you know well, you don't necessarily have to write things down. You can start by going through the story and tweak it just slightly here and there. Hopefully you'll gain confidence pretty quickly so you can make more significant changes, maybe after a few stories you tell.
Inventing stories allow you to be more flexible and navigate the story according to cues or even requests from your listeners, so your kids get to enjoy stories which are truly unique and special.
The Bot and I app is designed to help you write your own stories. You can write a story in advance and then read it or recite it in front of the kids. Practice storytelling using the app so as time goes by, and with the feedback you receive, you learn how to better handle the process of writing or inventing a story. We believe that practicing in advance will help you getting better results while you improvise in front of the kids.
Visit the main page of Bot And I and ask to join our waitlist. We can't wait to see you unleash your storytelling potential!