Here is why you should read your child a story book.

You shift between those jobs a day just to fend for your family. It is your greatest obsession lately.  In fact, it has been your preoccupation ever since that cute kid came along. You strive so hard to provide her with what you could only see in your dreams. You try hard to eliminate that vicious cycle from her life. You don’t wish for her to catch that bad disease. Indeed, you recently bought her that hundred-dollar bed and bedding, which cuddles her every time she hops onto it for the night.

You are also well aware that every family has a ritual that it performs every now and then. Whether it is praying together every evening before bed or every morning before going to work; eating together whenever you have time off of your busy schedule or playing together with your loved one(s) in the backyard every weekend, these activities play an important role in bonding the family together.

Yet, despite all your efforts and knowledge, you fail in one area. It is completely shut away from your mind, perhaps because you never had it done to you. And that is sparing some time to turn a leaf or two of the bedtime story-book for your child.

 Every parent worth the claim must read at least one story for his or her child, especially in this time and age when information is the buzzword. Even back in the olden days, when literacy was still an unknown civilization here on the continent, bed time tales were told. They were delivered orally, mostly by the old folks to their kids or grandkids. So, with the current digitalization of virtually everything, you as a parent, have no excuse abdicating such an important duty.

For one, scientific studies reveal that reading to your child expands his or her mind. But isn’t this an obvious fact? You must have noticed this yourself that, immediately you are through reading a novel, or any piece of writing, your worldview is totally different. It changes drastically, radically even. You tend to become a bit more open-minded. You feel like you know better than you did before interacting with the piece. (I hope it does immediately you put this down.)

Of course, the feeling is not only limited to you. It works the same magic in the child as well. The characters, the scenes, the symbols, the language, etc, used in the story create a world that the child is not so used to seeing on a daily basis. This, overtime, turns them into a logical thinker.

Why the heck would you not want to read for your kid? Are you too lazy or too busy fort that? Do you even read for your own escape? How can you afford not to read a story or two each day? Don’t you ever feel an iota of guilt when all you do is simply go to work (or class), eat, watch TV, drink, smoke, and make some more babies, without bothering to even find out what a chapter in a book says? Do you realize just how much you miss out on, seeing as books are a whole universe in their own right? How do you live without turning a page of a book? Is this the culture you intend to inculcate in your kid?

She deserves to inherit a healthy habit, and that is reading. You don’t want to have kid who reasons like a zombie on a cartoon channel or in video games. And this further underscores the need for you to read for her to improve her logical skills.

The essence of the rituals mentioned up there is to bring the family members closer. They reduce gaps and seal cracks that could possibly exist. The time spent doing these activities makes bonds grow stronger. Reading, as a ritual, to your kid, every now and then, will bind you together. In fact, a family that reads together bonds together. There is no other way about.

Of course the world knows that you have a nagging she-devil for a wife or an annoying son-of-a-gun for a husband.  It is also aware that you are the CEO of a blue-chip company and barely find time for your family. After a long day at work, you just want to go home with three things in mind, namely hitting the shower, munching away at that hurriedly cooked food and then hitting the sack. But keep that beast of sleep on a leash. Pass by the bookstore and pick that latest copy. What else do you think the author survives on if not proceeds from the sale of that copy? Take your exhausted posterior home and read it to her! Let her love it. Of course she will love it. Let her fall asleep to it as well as to the sound of your voice crooning in the distance. Make it a habit and you will be missed in ways so grand if you ever travel away from home. You know why? Because of the resulting great bond!

Now, it is insincere to preach about heaven when you have never been there. It is purely insane. You must experience it before you can praise it or bash it. The same applies to any piece of art. Before reading the story to your kid, you have to do so for and by yourself. Treat yourself to the priceless joy that hides within the book cover. And don’t do it because this writer told you so, but because it thrills you to read and give a bit of the taste to your child.  It’ll give you an insight of what to emphasize and what to de-emphasize, depending on what values you want your kid to grow up upholding.

Get into the habit of reading bedtime stories with and for your child, keep it up, and when you see it working, come back and say thank you.