In my experience with our five children my wife and I learned that stories for kids with morals were much more effective than stories without morals. The results with our children were much more positive.
In fact it seemed that the most powerful stories for kids with morals were the very short stories, the shorter the better it seemed. They seemed to hold the kids attention much better than the longer stories. This made the whole story-telling experience more fun for the kids but had the added benefit of making it more pleasant for the reader.
There are at least four (4) good reasons we learned, why short stories are more effective in teaching our children while sharing with them something exciting.
1. Television, especially commercials, has taught us all the need to receive our information in bite sizes and not the whole meal at once.
Parents and even grandparents lead very busy lifestyles but we still do not want to neglect our children and grandchildren. We still want them to have the best of everything in life and even better than we ourselves may have had it.
And of course television has taught us that we need to receive our information instantly not in hours or days or even weeks like it used to be in the “good old days”. Or were they really “the good old days”?
2. When our kids come home from daycare or school, have you ever noticed how they don’t want to sit still or can’t sit still for long, so the shorter the stories the better. Also it seems that not only children but we adults learn better when we receive information in small doses.
Remember how long sermons or speeches had their effect on our sitter-downers? Well, can we expect any better results from our kids?
3. Another very important element with moral short stories is lots of beautiful authentic colorful artwork that goes along with the story. This encourages our children to become more involved with the individuals in the stories, which helps them to better relate to the heroes in the story. As the old saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words”.
4. When our children go to bed with good thoughts in their minds, they sleep much better, which makes getting up in the morning much more pleasant. With very little effort you and your children or grandchildren can have a blast while learning through the experiences of others.
Now along with these benefits your children will also learn the most important educational skill, the art and love of reading. Our children can learn so much by mimicking others good behavior while reading about them.
Now we need to explore the question, “Where can we get really good short stories for kids with morals. There are several answers to this question depending on what your budget permits. You can purchase them from retail stores, resale shops, internet stores, garage sales, and yard sales.
Another place to check out is your local library. I also know some families that swap books back and forth with each other. The only problem with this method is that a damaged book or a lost book can damage friendships. A better thing might be to get your friends a copy for a Christmas or birthday gift.
When our first child arrived, we didn’t have a lot of money so we use to get books from the library, yard sales and friends. Through our personal experience we soon learned that when our children were desiring more one on one attention we had to read more than one story. Story-time became a really great way to shut out the world and take time to bond in a special way with our kids.
We found that because the stories were short, the children could remember the stories and the lessons taught much easier. For days they would tell and re-tell the stories over and over again to each other and anybody that would listen to them.
So they were also learning social skills as well as the art of reading and before we knew it they wanted to read themselves. As a result the benefits were many including the following:
* Learning the art of sitting still and quietly.
* Learning the art of being patient.
* Learning how to listen carefully.
* Learning how to pay attention to details.
* Learning the art of reading with emotion and infection.
* Learning to make educational classes easier.
* Learning to be successful in all areas of their lives present and future.
Check out some great stories for kids with morals here:
http://www.abundantlifeandhealth.com/MyBibleFriends.html