Physical exercise is important for keeping kids healthy and happy. But how can we improve their mental fitness? Can mental exercise help? People have begun to realize the importance of maintaining mental health and resilience for young minds. Is there an exercise routine that can benefit the growing brains?
Reading stories is one of them. Parents can sit down with their kids and read a tale from a book or magazine, which can be one of the exercises. It might be like a healthy run-around in the fresh air. This blog will highlight some reasons why reading should be incorporated into children’s schedules. So, let’s begin.
Exercise your mind with stories
Reading makes the mind flexible
With sketching you can keep your body limber. In the same way, reading can provide the same benefit for the mind. Sitting down with your kid and enjoying the reading time helps your kid to analyze, visualize, and use their imagination. They learn to explore new possibilities, empathize with others, and view things from different perspectives. Make use of books and magazines designed by services like children illustration in UK or Cardiff. Take some time from your busy schedule and enjoy reading them.
Mental stamina is developed
A long walk, completing certain steps daily, or a brisk walk for 45 minutes helps in building our stamina. Information collected from a variety of digital sources states that sitting down with a book and reading from start to end helps kids build mental stamina. They learn to focus on one thing and see it throughout the reading process. Attention spans increase, and kids can absorb and process information easily. This is an essential skill in the modern data-rich world.
Keep repeating and it becomes easy
While exercising, your trainer sets a certain set of raps for an exercise. When you begin with the first set, you face difficulty. However, as you keep on working out, you feel at ease. Apply the same strategy while you are reading. Children can begin with reading short stories with more images and less text. Later, they can move on to increase the quantity of the content. The day will not be far when they will read through the chapters on their own.
Improves the listening skills
For example, during exercise, you develop your listening skills while responding to the commands of your instructor. Similarly, good listening skills are the cornerstone of a child’s language, social, and overall development. Grabbing kids’ attention for a long time is a challenging task. Either they immediately continue their conversation or begin to live in their imaginations. Storytelling helps in improving the listening skills. They learn to stay more focused and sharpen their skill to be attentive during a topic.
Increase their knowledge
Have you ever visited a gym, or have you ever seen someone doing weight training? Those who lift weights build up their muscles. In this situation, books are the dumbbells of the gym. They read through them and gain knowledge. Their word bank increases, and new vocabulary is added to their knowledge. The new words, new ideas, and new facts can be useful for them as they grow. They can use them at schools and in their everyday lives. Think of a situation when you take your kid to a festival. Their new knowledge will impress others and people cannot restrict themselves from appreciating them and your brought-up. So invest in books designed by services like childrens picture book illustration in London or Manchester. Their good picture quality will help children memorize the situations in which words were used
Developing social and emotional skills
Gym teaches us to be patient and care for others. In the same, teaching social and emotional skills is as important as teaching academics and discipline. Such children behave well in classroom settings and care for their peers. Storytelling can help in teaching these skills. It becomes easier for the parents to explain to their kids the importance of feelings and emotions through the characters of the story. Children learn to manage all sorts of emotions whether sad, jealous, or any feeling they carry for the character. Weaving such emotions into a story is the best way to make children understand their feelings and the ways to control them.
Warm-down is essential after exercise
Before you begin physical exercise, warm-up is important to activate your muscles. In the same way, after you have completed an intensive workout, a warm-down is even more important. It helps you to relax. Reading a book to children has the same effect. They help in relaxing children’s brains.
When we read any story, getting engaged in the narration in a way that we don’t know about things going around us. This is a mental therapy. It helps in reducing stress. Data collected from recent studies show that reading text on hard copies for a short time will relax muscles and slow down the heart rate. A great activity to chill out before going to bed. It is a much better idea to read a chapter or short text instead of scrolling the screens.
FAQs
How can children develop their skills through stories?
Reading stories can help children develop their creative, critical thinking, and other skills. They become better at listening skills, and judging people, and their imagination for viewing the surroundings changes.
What are other ways to improve a child’s brain?
Apart from making them read, parents can add activities like puzzles, word games, cards, and other games to boost their thinking process.
How are stories good for brains?
Humans learn to control their emotions after they develop the habit of reading. This helps by stimulating the neurological centers of the brain. This brain section helps them develop a caring and concerning personality for others.
Can reading act as a warm-down activity?
Like after an intensive workout, your body needs some relaxation to relax your muscles. In the same way, after an intensive day, reading before bedtime helps in relaxing the brain. People have reported a reduction in stress levels as they read.
The bottom line!
Stories play a vital role in shaping the personality of the children. It teaches them many things that can benefit them in real life.
It is important that they should be given an environment in which they can grow. Making reading part of their daily activity, like exercise, is becoming part of our lives. Motivate them, and they will enjoy the reading journey. After some time, we start enjoying our transformation after workouts.