The Importance of Story Time
We recently launched a new Instagram Live event that we plan to hold semi-regularly - Story Time! We plan to host books of all types, from guest favorites, to books our guests have written themselves!
As you may already know, storytelling is incredibly important to us. It’s one of the main reasons we started the podcast, in fact! We wanted to share personal stories from regular people, as well as experts, regarding their journeys through different health-related topics. We’ve even been fortunate enough to have many guests on our podcast who are avid storytellers themselves, such as Michael Tyler and his wonderful book, “The Skin You Live In.”
Story time is a tradition that’s as old as human culture. Before humans wrote their stories down, they practiced the art of storytelling in order to pass on lessons, knowledge, advice, history, and so much more. While the way we’ve told stories has evolved over the years, this original purpose still remains. Even if many stories are primarily used to entertain us, there are still lessons to be learned from each!
Anyone remember Aesop’s Fables? The original Grimms’ Fairy Tales? Well, contemporary retellings of these stories are certainly a bit gentler than their original versions - hello, Disney! - but many of the original lessons remain. For example, perhaps you can take away something like, “a lack of focus on the job can have serious consequences” - Little Red Riding Hood. Maybe it’s something a bit simpler, like “Never give up!” from The Tortoise and the Hare. There are so many important lessons we can learn from watching, listening to, or reading these stories.
As we’ve learned from so many of our guests, children are like sponges - they pick up on these stories and take in all these lessons. As Michael Tyler helped us understand in his episode, even at a very young age, children are able to understand a lot more than we realize.
Even at the age of 4, they are ready for many tough conversations, but having those conversations is a difficult enough task for an adult. His solution? Write a children’s book to help foster such a conversation! Well, many of us aren’t that motivated, so the next best thing is to read one of these lovely books that someone else has carefully created for us and our children, right?
We have also learned from guests like Tammi Kirkness, author of “The Panic Button Book: Relieve Stress and Anxiety Whenever They Strike,” that parenting or caregiving can lead to a lot of stress and anxiety. However, she reminds us that we don’t have to be experts. We just have to be willing to have these conversations and to be there to support our loved ones.
She also reminds us that, as a parent or caregiver, you are not the sole influence in your child’s life. If you don’t feel qualified to teach your child about a certain topic, there are others out there who can help. It’s not all on your shoulders! As we’ve learned, reading a good book to or with our kids can be the perfect solution when it comes to many of these topics, and it can foster so many great conversations as well.
These are ideas that are echoed by Brené Brown as well. Brené’s Parenting Manifesto is particularly moving, and hearing her read it to us certainly moves us to tears every time.
Dr. Becky shares similar concepts with us in her episode, by explaining that we need to do our best to listen to our children and express those phrases of affirmation to them: “I’m so glad you’re talking to me about this,” “you really know you feel that way,” and “tell me more.” Even if we don’t have the right words to share with them in that moment, we can still use these approaches to confirm that what they’re thinking and going through is okay. They are safe with us. Then, we might need to regroup ourselves for a bit - perhaps taking Michael Tyler’s approach and finding a new resource to help us have this conversation.
It is our sincerest hope that the books we choose for these Story Time events will be a great resource for you and your kids. We will do our best to choose books we feel are incredibly helpful at explaining topics and concepts that can be otherwise challenging to discuss with others. We’ve also found that some of these books help us more fully understand these concepts, so that is a wonderful bonus impact!
Don’t get caught up in the child-like nature of story time either - these storytelling moments are great for adults too. Many of us adults have realized over the years that we long for those nostalgic moments from our childhood. Days spent at the arcade, fun moments playing with friends at the playground, just digging around in the dirt for hours on end… these are all times that we sometimes wish we could go back to even today. Times when things were a bit simpler, when the world seemed less intense for us all. After all, when do we really become adults?
In this spirit, we hope these Story Time moments will resonate with you as well, even if you are not sharing this with a child in your life. It’s okay to have these moments for yourself as well, or even better if you share them equally with others. As we’ve learned, sometimes story time can be just as much for us as it can be for the kids.
This is why we plan to bring books of all shapes and sizes your way - and for the longer books, we will be sharing short passages or meaningful moments from them. Don’t worry - if it’s a novel, we’ll do our very best to avoid spoilers and only bring you moments that may inspire you to read the rest of the book for yourself! We hope to cover books of all levels that are meaningful to us or to guests on our show. We’ll also likely be asking our Patreon supporters for suggestions in the future.
Please keep an eye out on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter for more updates about these Live events, or check out the playbacks/recordings of Story Time on our IGTV channel if you are unable to join us live. We hope these short moments are a wonderful way to end your weekend and prepare to begin a new week, and we hope the books we will be sharing are as enlightening for you as they are for us.
Of course, we are ALWAYS open for you to share your own book ideas with us too! Have you read or heard of books that have been helpful for you or others? Send them our way! We’re always looking for new resources, and we’d love to share them with other listeners too. That’s the best part of being a member of the HIP family, right? And even if you don’t have any book recommendations for us, you can always share any tough topics you’ve come across in your life. Let us know, and we will do our best to find some great resources and books for you!