Story Time is Bonding Time

It’s never too late to learn to be a Storyteller

One of the fondest memories I have of my mother is the countless afternoons snuggling up to her in the sofa while she read all kinds of stories and fables to me.  Through these stories I learned so much about life-skills and different cultures, lessons that I keep on benefiting from even now.  When I became a mother, I was so determined to give just as wonderful an experience to my daughters so they will not be deprived of this privilege and the tradition will live on.  But reality soon hit, and I have a confession to make:  I HATE STORYTIME when I need to be the one to tell the stories!  After a full day of multi-tasking and reaching the last leg of the day’s marathon, not much energy is left in me for bedtime stories.  The stress starts to kick in when I saw my baby all nicely tucked in her bouncer, with teddy in hand and staring at me with those adorable expecting eyes! Not all of us are natural-born storytellers like my mom!  For the brave parents who are determined to master the art of storytelling, there are apps you can download that can teach you how to become a better storyteller!  *sigh* I wish I knew about this when my kids were small.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help

It is OK to introduce a bit of variety and let our voice and face take a much needed break every now and then.  Maybe we can consider alternating between “traditional” story sessions and other similarly interesting options.  One obvious choice is to let someone else do the job and go for the storytelling websites such as this one that has a large library of children stories suitable for all ages and read by different people (celebrities in this case, which probably means more to you than to your kids) with different reading styles.  For toddlers who might need less visuals to enjoy and understand the content, podcasts for children could be a good option.  Of course, it is important to choose suitable podcasts according to your child’s age, interest, and personal development.

The evolution of bonding

No matter which method you choose, the main goal is to spend quality time with your baby and create loving memories together.  Using technologies such as storytelling websites or podcasts does not mean you are offloading the task to others.  This is because the interaction between baby and you through questions and discussions about the stories are actually the most important quality time you share.  Now that my kids are older, our story time evolved into a book club of sorts when we would discuss the latest adventure books we have recently read, or they would introduce me to other interesting titles they got to know from school!  Our bonding time continues and soon they will be the ones telling ME stories instead!

Happy Reading and Stay Sparky!

How to get your child to try different food?

Introducing solid food… let the struggle begin!

To kick off this blog, I thought we should start with something we can all relate to: FOOD!!  As a family, we LOVE food and enjoy trying new cuisines and tastes wherever we go, so I took it for granted that our baby will be the same from the get-go!  Besides, I believe getting kids to have an open-mind to food is a good start to teach them to have an open-mind towards other things later in life.

I still remember when our first daughter was about to turn 6 months, how excited I was to introduce the wonderful world of solid food to her!  I did all the research I could think of: where is the best place to feed her for the first time: the baby bouncer so she feels more relaxed, or the baby booster where she can sit up properly?  Which is the best feeding spoon on the market, with silicon or not? I read up on all the baby puree recipes and got all kitchen utensils ready for the big day.  The menu was vegetable broth made with love and rice cereal!  Finally, we were ready for her adventure to begin!!  Imagine my disappointment when I saw the expression on her face change from a smile to a frown and then a cry after spitting out her first bite of the yucky stuff I made!  NO luck to convince her to take a second bite, no matter how much I tried.  After half an hour of futile attempts, I literally had tears in my eyes and being the perceptive little girl that she has always been, she got upset and cried too!  So, there we were, mother and daughter crying together in front of a bowl of uneaten rice cereal in broth!

 

One small step for a baby, a big step for a food enthusiastic adult!

Fast forward to 14 years and 2 daughters later, we now enjoy trying new foods as a family wherever we go and our kids grew up to be super open-minded when it comes to food.  Of course they still have their preferences, but they are willing to try it all first before they make up their minds whether they like it or not.  They have always been super easy to travel with and we never had to worry if the restaurants would have plain pasta and tomato sauce or not.  They eat what adults eat and that’s the end of it (of course an occasional bribery of dessert always worked)!

But how exactly did we succeed in raising adventurous eaters?  I used a lot of similar tactics that Celia Barbour described in her blog post (read till the end because I find her last sibling tactic most effective!) If you need more structured game plan, I think Katie Morford, MS, RD also summed it up really nicely in this article on how she did it.  Trust me, this effort you are making now can benefit your kids and the family in the long run!

Stay Sparky!