A Reading Mama
Do you read to your kids?
It’s okay if you aren’t a reading mama. I’ve had phases where I don’t really want to read to my kids. At all.
It’s okay if you aren’t a reading mama. I’ve had phases where I don’t really want to read to my kids. At all.
Its time consuming. My hubby works ten hour shifts, so we get
very little time together in the evenings most nights of the week. I seem to
think that if we just skip evening readings with the kids and throw them to
bed, we will get a little more time together. Selfish, I know. I’m just
honestly telling you how I feel.
Another roadblock is
that my husband doesn’t like to read. He is dyslexic, so it’s a lot more work
for his brain. So it almost always falls on me to read to our littles.
Sometimes the older kids will read to the younger ones, though that always
makes me feel guilty because that means the older kids got the experience of
their mama reading to them a lot more than the younger ones will.
Its monotonous. I don’t like checking out books from the
library because I am terrible at getting them back in time, and, even though we
have a large variety of books, my kids (especially the younger ones) always
want to hear the same books over and over again.
Do you know that there
are benefits to and reasons why your child wants to hear the same story over
and over again? You can read up on this at this link:
There are so many
benefits to reading aloud to your child.
It helps you and your
child bond.
It helps to increase
your child’s vocabulary.
It helps to grow your
child’s imagination.
It helps develop a
love for reading.
It helps in academic
growth.
These are just five
reasons, and they totally trump my excuses above. No shame on you (or myself)
for not wanting to do it, but I want to encourage you to do it anyway. They
aren’t going to be little forever. We only have this window of influence over
them for such a short time, but it is the most important window of time in
their lives. It sets them up for who they are going to be the rest of their
life.
So, if reading is good
for them, let’s read to them! Even if we are literally falling asleep as we do
it. Even if we could recite the entire book without cracking the cover (there
are a few that I can actually do that). Heck, studies show that reading to them
is beneficial even if they are running around the room and not looking at the
book, so read YOUR book or magazine to them. The time and energy invested into
them is so worth it. And you will find that it leaves precious memories in your
heart, and you will miss it when they are grown.
I encourage you to
read to your babies, dear mamas! Even if they aren’t into it. Even if you aren’t into it. It’s worth it!
Blessings and love,
Lee
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