Bedtime stories

I saw this article in the Daily Fail, suggesting that bed time stories for children may be a thing of the past due to declining attention spans of children. Horse hockey!  Our children are 7 and 12 and have been read bedtime stories since they were born, even with the internet, TV, video games etc. The only nights missed have been ones where one or all of the parties was tired and just wanted to go to sleep -- which is the exception not the rule.

Granted it has become a bit different as our children have aged, but that is a maturity thing. Our 12 year old, who reads/gets read to, longer novels like Harry Potter or the Chronicles of Narnia and our 7 year old is just as happy reading to us (or me taking a library book and reading in "funny mode" -- editorial comments by me). Still they read, as do many children. And these are children who are actively engaged in screen-based activities such as watching TV, playing computer games and surfing the web for a few hours in the morning and evening after school activities and we are winding down. They get an hour or so, depending on when they wake up, in the morning and an hour or so in the evening for screen time. Less for the 7 year old, more for the 12 year old who "hangs out" with his friends online playing video games on the xBox -- and before you mock me, think about this -- my son hangs out with his buddies and we don't need to drive/pick-up our son or host, clean the house or feed his friends (xBox is in the living room so we can keep an eye/ear on things).

I don't think my parents ever really read books to me, or maybe I was just too young to remember it (there were 4 of us and I was the oldest -- they had their hands filled dealing with my younger siblings), but I do remember reading to them and being really excited at reading to my grandparents. In addition, my parents always had a book in their hands or at their nightstand. Our house was filled with books then as it is now, though we've pretty much switched over to e-books. If you surround kids with books and they see you reading (print or electronic), they'll want to imitate you and start reading too (well at least for our 7 year oldm our Aspbergers 12 year old doesn't read for pleasure for the most part -- just for learning, school assigned or on his own).

To say bedtime stories are going away due to shorter attention spans, especially for younger children is just silly. However, if you want to blame today's parents for short attention spans, then you are being overly simplistic -- parents have always ducked out of bedtime stories if they really wanted to. If attention spans are shrinking it is because parents have become more adept at finding activities or electronic babysitters with which to preoccupy children rather than trying to nurture them with a little time, such as by reading.