The Story of Us: Reclaiming Connection Through Reading and Storytelling

Hello friends,

I imagine many of you have heard or seen recent headlines about the drastic decline of adults and children who read for enjoyment. The numbers are disheartening and frightening. As a constant advocate for being present to and enjoying real life amid a bombarding background of screens and media– I’m not surprised. As an avid reader married to another avid reader, a vocal library advocate, and book club participant, however, I was surprised to find myself in such a small minority- 16%!? 

I could certainly wax poetically and truthfully about so very many ways we benefit from reading for pleasure, but what sits at the forefront of my mind right now is the chance to deeply connect with our children when we share stories with them. And not just in reading, but even more so in telling stories- in sharing the stories that we have living within ourselves, whether we author them, or not. To share a story is to share a piece of our living selves, and it is this fact that sits at the heart of so many of the other benefits of storytelling and reading.

In Storytelling from the Heart, author and Waldorf homeschooling mother Cynthia Wand eloquently describes the joy that she finds in telling stories to her children and shares a creative way to develop our own stories. 

“We didn’t start entirely from scratch. Sophie helped us a little with her own creative expression. Each time we asked her to give us three magical objects and slip them into the pockets of our storytelling cloak, where we would then creatively weave them into the story. The more random they were the better…” 

Sharing stories has been one of the most cherished parts of caregiving for me. To this day, with nearly all my sons in their teen years, I’m still excited to read aloud, to connect through searches for “just the right book” and then to talk about the stories within. I don't expect everyone to have the same level of passion, but what I do hope is that anyone and everyone that is seeing these statistics wonders at them and what it means for their family. I hope we take it as motivation to tell a story or read a book with our children. I hope we take time to reconnect with ourselves through a book or writing a story down. When the boys were really young and reading was less accessible, I often had a collection of short stories or novellas on my shelf (here’s a great list of novellas) because they felt both satisfying and accomplishable. I occasionally jotted down anecdotes about the sweet or silly things my sons said and did. Now I have a journal full for each of them, and we occasionally look back to happily revisit these moments. 

And, I hope we ask our children to tell their own stories. Let’s try Cynthia Wand’s idea, except create the story with our children. Or, instead of “How was your day? What did you do at so-and-so’s house, or at school?” maybe we say, “Tell me the story of your day” and see where it goes. Let’s surprise ourselves and reconnect with a life of stories. 

Happy story-sharing everyone!

Acacia