We already know about the incredible benefits of reading to your child every day. It helps them cultivate a love for reading early on, boosts their vocabulary and knowledge power, drives imagination, and so much more. What you might not know though is that reading certain types of stories adds even more benefits for your child.
Creating a virtuous child
Children aren’t born with virtues intact. It is up to us to teach them the proper ways to behave in the world. Part of that is by setting a good example ourselves. The other part of it involves introducing them to people with these positive qualities. Some of those people could be relatives, family friends, teachers or any other positive role model. Others of those people could be entirely fictitious such as the characters from the stories you read to your child. Stories with meaningful messages help them develop the virtues we want our children to possess. Aside from honesty and wisdom, courage and bravery our wonderful virtues for our children to exude.
Why are courage and bravery so important?
It’s simple. Life isn’t always full of sunshine and rainbows. While most days will be pleasant, there are times when life becomes hard. There are things that are downright scary. Getting your child used to standing up for something wrong or faces their fears will help them to take risks in life and let nothing stop them from achieving their goals. If we encourage our children to look ahead and face life head-on, it will grow them into strong, capable adults.
Conquering obstacles in life
Reading your child stories with brave and courageous characters also prepares them for those difficult situations in life. You don’t need to be Captain Bringdown, but by showing your child that life isn’t always fair or happy, they will be better prepared to handle disappointment and those unavoidable moments when life gets bad.
Courage comes in many forms
Not every story about courage involves a knight in shining armor slaying a fire-breathing dragon though. And while stories with dragons and brave knights are definitely interesting and full of plenty of teachable moments, don’t forget to look for the stories where someone is overcoming adversity. Like a brave girl who does not follow along with her crowd of friends when they do something dangerous, or one that conquers an illness and loses her hair and now must face the ridicule of the ignorant.
You can be brave and scared at once
Don’t forget that as you read these stories of courage and bravery to your child, show them that you can be scared while still being brave. It takes a lot of courage to do the right thing in life, and sometimes it is frightening, but the benefits of taking the risk make it, and life, what is truly worthwhile.
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