Children Need Time to Relax With Books
By Mark W.F. Condon, Unite for Literacy vice president
Every family has daily chores to do, and lucky children are assigned things that they can handle and feel good about, making their very own contributions to a smoothly functioning home. There are other “must-do” things that fall to them alone because they are personal, like handwashing and teeth-brushing. Eventually, as children mature, they learn to adapt and to adopt positive, healthy habits as part of living independent and fully functioning lives.
Daily routines that include duties and must-do’s give structure to children’s lives. However, daily routines also should include specific habits that are personally delightful and fulfilling, providing a sweet flavoring to a life that, if mishandled, might otherwise be robotic or mundane.
An individual child’s bright spots in a normal day are generally expressions of their own personal tastes and preferences, activities and engagements that color and brighten. Finding oneself with free time and space is the icing on the cake of life.
Adults try to be focused and efficient when faced with a “have-to” like vacuuming the floor or taking out the trash. However, when children find themselves with free time, it’s highly unlikely they’ll ask for more chores to do. Rather, kids always know what they want to do and race with enthusiasm to do it as soon as they get the chance. That same excited energy should always accompany their reading of self-selected books at bedtime or any other time of day.
For busy families, children’s bedtime and/or daily book reading may devolve into a mundane routine–like doing dishes after dinner. It’s an important part of life, but too often can become more of a have-to duty than a ripe opportunity for exploring the magic of books.
No hurry. No worry. No time limits. No distractions. Ahhhhh....
Children with whom books are read early and often in a carefree, relaxed manner, develop the anticipation of calm settling-in to join their currently favorite book characters in the book’s latest adventures. Or perhaps they embrace the opportunity to fill in the blanks in their curiosities about information and issues that come up during the day or sharpen the vagueness of their understandings about some constantly compelling aspect of the world and how it works.
As parents and older siblings sit down to read a great book for (or with) an excited young one, the spirit that accompanies this sharing must always feel like generously dishing up a delectable dessert for them to enjoy.
The last things that children must associate with reading delightful books, alone or with others, should be watching the clock, harboring concern about interruptions or intrusions, or having a parent or babysitter pull the plug right in the middle of something wonderful on a page in the middle of a book.
Relaxed daily reading of personally mesmerizing books is what initiates and builds the habit of reading and with that, the promise of self-enriching lifelong learning. Supporting that may very well be the finest contribution that a family can make in paving the way for a child’s continual intellectual, linguistic and academic development.