2 Increasingly, businesses are starting to recognise the value in workers and leaders who can tell a good story.Īs a teacher, I incorporated storytelling wherever possible. Not surprisingly, the ones mentioned most were creativity, collaboration and communication. In a study done by Forbes magazine, 1500 CEOs were asked to list the top skills required for success in business.
If we’re trying to help our children to be successful in future employment, we must find out which skills businesses look for. These key components underpin every area of the curriculum and set children up for academic success. We need to raise children with the flexibility and creativity to do well in jobs we can’t yet imagine. When children develop the ability to orally share their stories with friends and teachers, they are building skills such as creativity, language development, communication skills, social skills and confidence. To enable this, they must be able to build good relationships, develop healthy self-confidence, and have the perseverance required to take on a difficult task. It makes me sad to think that many children miss out on what was an integral part of my childhood.Ĭhildren deserve the best chance to become happy adults. On long car journeys, instead of keeping me entertained with an iPad (which didn’t exist yet), Mum would weave magical tales of Peter Rabbit – very different from the original – involving fairies and motorbikes.ĭon’t get me wrong – I am a huge advocate of sharing story books, but there’s something magical about going with the flow and creating mysterious worlds of your own, where you and the child are the creators and the most unlikely can happen. There was a giant hole where sand fairies lived, a boat that would take us to magical places, and a sand castle with a sleeping dragon on guard. We lived near the beach and Mum would make all sorts of fantastic sand creations which she’d use as props for her story. Some of my first memories are of my Mum making up stories with me. In fact, children’s imaginations are limited only by the quality of opportunities we offer, so it’s really important for us as educators to try to remove any obstacles we might have put in front of children, such as not providing enough time, space and support for their imagination to really take flight.” 1 Or they might use fantasy worlds to escape from what’s around them because it doesn’t yet make sense, which is just as valid. This is their way of trying to make sense of situations and relationships in the world around them. Ruth Churchill Dower, founder of Early Arts says: “When children create their own stories, they often use characters and situations that reflect real life. You can share the children’s sense of humour and laugh together, building strong bonds and showing that their suggestions (however off the wall) are valued. Such opportunities aren’t to be underestimated. Storytelling also give you a chance to create silly stories about nonsense, giants, and superheroes, in which anything can happen. These allow them to make sense of the things they see in everyday life and provide a safe space for children to explore serious issues such as violence and death without being judged. I’m talking about developing your children’s creativity and giving them the skills to confidently share made-up stories based on their interests and the things that are familiar to them.
So what do I mean by storytelling? This isn’t about reading books, retelling traditional tales or even adapting a well-known story. They are born to be storytellers – you only have to look at their role play. They pick up story telling naturally over time and begin to make sense of their own experiences through story. Our children learn life lessons through the tales of others. We tell stories about our own family history. But sharing stories has been happening across generations since the start of time – from the first cave drawings and tales told around the fire, to the more familiar traditional fables. Just 150 years ago, this privilege was available only to the rich. Reading and writing, by contrast, are skills that must be taught. But there’s another side to stories that we don’t discuss as much: the amazing benefits of helping your children to become creative storytellers.Ĭhildren are hardwired to make sense of the world through stories, just as a baby learns to communicate without formal lessons. Teachers can easily identify the children in their class who have books at home and read regularly with their families. If you’re a teacher, you’ll know the joy of sharing stories with your children for no other reasons than pleasure and the love of books. Compelling research links the number of stories read to a child with their future success.
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