I Put My Children To Bed With A Book, Not With Television
Getting a child to close their eyes and enter the placid world of dreams every day through a book is a gift we give to their mental, physical and emotional well-being. Because there is nothing like encouraging rest through a story and not through television.
We know very well that reading is good. That will make our children more curious, more awake to new knowledge and information. However, despite knowing it, how do we put it into practice? Are you perhaps one of those who thinks that you have to wait for a child to start the reading-writing process to give him a book?
Reading generates powerful changes in the brain of the little ones. Now, long before our children initiate this capacity for themselves, it is we who have to guide them in this awakening. We are their models, their architects and the image in which to reflect to ignite their curiosity.
Because a book is not imposed. Nobody will enjoy reading if they are forced to, if they see it as a duty. You come to a book out of curiosity, for pleasure. And we can achieve something like that from early childhood and just before going to bed.
We explain how.
A good storybook and relaxed reading
We’ll start by giving you some good information: you should read to your baby. Grab a storybook and just sit by his crib and read. Let him look at you, listen to you, fall asleep very little by little.
Now, if you start this good habit when your child is between 7 or 8 months, remember the commitment to fulfill it every night. It doesn’t matter how your day went, if you’re tired or if you haven’t had dinner yet. Read to him for 15 or 20 minutes: it will be your moment of magical complicity.
According to an interesting study carried out at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Ohio, something as simple as reading aloud to children (relaxed reading) stimulates their neural development.
- We will promote your cognitive processes by improving your attention and active listening.
- Relaxed reading is based on making use of a warm and enveloping tone of voice in order to connect much better with our children from a very early age.
- The maternal and paternal voices create an exceptional bond with the child. At the same time, we favor their language, the beginning of their communication without forgetting the awakening of their imagination.
- Also, one of the most important discoveries was that reading aloud stimulates the occipital lobe of children. It is the area related to vision, which attracted a lot of the attention of the experts.
- If this is so, it is because of a very simple reality: the children imagine what they hear in the story. They visualize what they are told and this favors the neural connection of multiple brain areas, especially the visual one.
At night we better turn off the television and read a book
Watching TV is not bad at all. Neither is playing on the computer or using mom’s or dad’s cell phone from time to time. The key is in balance and wisdom. Technologies must be tools of knowledge, communication and distraction. Never a lifestyle.
What role do they play in raising a child then? They are foci to know how to control and manage. Furthermore, we are to be their role model. Because It will be useless to tell a child that mobiles are not “good for them” if they see us all day consulting and paying attention to them.
Let’s see now what guidelines we should follow to promote an early passion for books in the little ones.
Keys to get a better rest thanks to a book
- After dinner and two hours before going to sleep, it is best to close computers and television.
- We must bear in mind that according to the “American Academy of Pediatrics” children between 2 and 6 years old should not be exposed to television or electronic devices for more than one hour a day. On the other hand, from 7 to 12 years old they should not be more than 2.
- Letting a child of this age watch TV until bedtime means taking him to bed “overexcited.” It will cost you much more to fall asleep. Let’s not forget that a child needs to grow, and that growth hormone does not begin to be active until 3 hours after falling into a deep sleep.
The best thing to do would be to take them to bed for half an hour to begin to relax. It is an ideal time to talk with them and read to them or allow them to choose the book that they want to read for themselves.
- Think that a child is guided more by example than by suggestion. If they see us reading, they will see it as something normal, something to prove for themselves.
- Also, if we have read to them since they were just babies, they will see it as a moment of magical complicity with us.
- Something as wonderful as letting a child fall asleep with a book next to him every night, will make him a more imaginative, creative and curious person for everything that surrounds him.
It is worth making that little effort with them every day. With the people we love the most.
