When children have enjoyable experiences in family history at an early age, they are more likely to continue involvement in family history as they grow older and reap innumerable benefits along the way. The Children’s Activities Page in The Family History Guide lists games and activities that can work miracles in getting children interested in family history, and make it a snap to create relevant, captivating, fun family history moments for family time, playtime, mealtime, bedtime, or anytime! Along with helping children learn and love family history through games and activities, encouraging a love of books and stories in early childhood will hopefully (and most likely) lead to a love of “storytelling”–especially of family stories. Kate Shelley explains this process in The Power of Story-telling:

Stories are a powerful learning tool. Compelling research links the number of stories read to a child with their future success. 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. Teachers can easily identify the children in their class who have books at home and read regularly with their families. 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.

Children are hardwired to make sense of the world through stories, just as a baby learns to communicate without formal lessons. Reading and writing, by contrast, are skills that must be taught. Just 150 years ago, this privilege was available only to the rich. 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.

We tell stories about our own family history. Our children learn life lessons through the tales of others. They pick up storytelling naturally over time and begin to make sense of their own experiences through story. They are born to be storytellers – you only have to look at their role play.

So what do I mean by storytelling? This isn’t about reading books, retelling traditional tales or even adapting a well-known story. 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. 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.

Storytelling also give you a chance to create silly stories about nonsense, giants, and superheroes, in which anything can happen. Such opportunities aren’t to be underestimated. You can share the children’s sense of humor and laugh together, building strong bonds and showing that their suggestions (however off the wall) are valued.

In a blog post entitled What Kids Learn From Hearing Family Stories, Elaine Reese writes that “books contain narratives, but only family stories contain your family’s personal narratives.” She states that fortunate children get both of these: “They hear and read stories from books to become part of other people’s worlds, and they hear and tell stories of their family to understand who they are and from whence they came.” Christine Bryant, in a blog post written for SheKnows, offers 7 Ways To Teach Your Kids Storytelling–definitely worth reviewing. Enjoy Hallie Grace sharing a story in this video (used with permission).