I remember when I was at a very young age, and there were no televisions in the house, the only media we had in our home were Chinese Newspapers that my parents subscribed to. My brother and I would often pull a page from the newspapers which had stories with pictures and words, but yet we were not able to understand, and asked either my mom or dad to tell the stories to us. These were serial stories that would continue the following day of the daily newspapers. We would often anticipate the delivery of the newspapers and storytelling time.

I grew up with much storytelling from my parents. As we grew older, the storytelling became more about personal and family stories. Even now, whenever I travel to visit my mom once a year, she would often reminisce some stories of my childhood or our early family life. Stories have given me very strong connections with my family and fond memories of the past.

As I did some research on the benefits of storytelling, I came to realize the powerful influence and benefits of storytelling. It seems to be lost in this day and age of digital images on smart screens and televisions, and the proliferation of information. It will be useful to rediscover storytelling. Parents will become better connected with children through story telling. Stories go straight to the heart (Philosopher James Stevens wrote, “The head does not hear anything until the heart has listened. The heart knows today what the head will understand tomorrow.”). When listening with the heart, children will develop empathy, compassion and character. The power of storytelling is even well recognized by teachers and motivational speakers who teach or speak to adult audiences. Students are able to relate more to the lesson or message being conveyed.

Check the Storytelling articles on our Parenting and More... page