I’m a soon to be dad and many of my peers fathers tell me about how they didn’t read to their children because they just would make up stories every night.
How?! I couldn’t put together a short story if I had a gun to my head.
My father just told me the tale of the lord of the string. It started with a short man man named Bill Bo who had a magic string that would turn him invisible if he wrapped it around his finger.
Imagine my surprise when I learned that Tolkien stole my dad’s story and made it about Bilbo and his magic ring.
You just make up stories about the challenges and happy times that your children have. You make up names and fake scenarios that appreciate kindness and explain how challenges make people better.
My suggestion, makes them up silently in your head when you're going to sleep. Practice it in your thoughts for a while. It'll help you sleep and make you a better story teller.
Also, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
My dad would always make up stories or tell us stories that are somewhat based on reality (like how he met my mom). He’d also add in his own stuff to our bedtime storybooks. For example, there was an old Christmas book about a Christmas tree that grew so large they had to cut holes through the apartment floors. My dads version was that they all peed on it and that’s why it grew so tall lol
If i only had memories of my kids when they were little, they are only 13 now but i was so much in survival mode i hardly have memory of what should have been some of the best years of my life
Dang I used to do that with video games. Like imagine I'm a historian recoutning events in the game, even trying to do it as a secondary source (as in if we interviewed the main protag), or if I was like a drill sergeant explaining sci fi weapons or tech to recruits.
Need to start doing that again. Got really good sleep doing that in bed haha
I just saved your comment haha. I try to do this in general, but seeing words to the method and reminders of the good characteristics is really worth remembering. Thanks!
Hahaha my son has never credited me like that but he does often has this confused look on his face when a song comes on in the car or wherever, and it’s the proper version of one of the dozens of rock/grunge songs I ‘lullabied’ to him sleep to.
‘Hey I know this song, wait no I don’t, wait I think I do, but it’s DIFFERENT. Dad, DO I KNOW THIS SONG?!’
I tell my kids stories from all their favorite Disney princess movies with different character names. Been doing it for over a year and they've yet to catch on. 4 and 6 now.
My dad told me a story about the Japanese-American Yaki family. Mr. Yaki’s daughter Teri did not like the taste of soy sauce, so Mr. Yaki set out to invent a new sauce, which he named after his beloved daughter. And that’s how we got teriyaki sauce. 🤣🤣
My aunt did that! She is an avid Stephen King fan but changed the stories to have happy endings. IMAGINE MY SURPRISE when Cujo was actually not great, or that the mist didn’t suddenly go away.
When I was in elementary school, we had to write a story in an exam. I've written on it for the whole lesson and got extra time throughout the break. Thought myself a genius for what I wrote.
Turns out, I just copied LoTR (specifically the segment of gollum leading frodo and Sam through the mountains of mordor). And I had no idea that I did so! Probably I was half asleep when my parents watched the movie on TV, maybe just joined for half an hour before bed time.
Just start with something you half remember having read or seen, and change it how you would've liked it to go.
There was this little caterpillar, and he was so hungry! He live on this rose bush and loved eating the leaves. But one day he ate all the leaves, and the roses too! But he was still hungry so he ate the stems, and then the branches! And yet he was still hungry! So when he got to the soil, he decided he was gooing to keep eating. And so he ate a hole going down and down and down. When he got to stone he thought there was no way he could ate stone! But he tasted it and he loved it! So he kept eating down into his tunnel. When he got to lava he thought, surely that's too hot! But he tasted it too and would you believe it? He he found it hot and delicious! So he drank all the lava! The caterpillar kept going and eating, until he was eating his tunnel upwards! He had gone so deep down, he was now deep up! Can you imagine? But he had gotten so strong from all he had eaten, he kept going up, because besides being hungry he was now having so much fun! The caterpillar ate and ate his way up until he found the roots of a cherry blossom tree, and he ate that too. And he finally emerged on the other side of the world, and to his surprise he could fly! So he flew up into the sky and, believe it or not, he had become a Chinese dragon! That caterpillar was the first of the dragons who flew the skies of the world many years ago.
I would create a whole evenings adventure straight off the cuff when I was in my teens. It didn't occur to me that I was story telling until college at 30. Been published twice for fiction since.
I genuinely love this for you. Whenever I see a stand up comedian or go to an open mic night, my rule is that I’ll always applaud the performer even if I didn’t think it was a good set. Even if it wasn’t my kind of humor, I respect anyone who puts themselves out there and I applaud their courage.
Sometimes I feel like I have the kernel of an idea for a short story or an interesting character but I don’t know how to get started writing about them. Other than just sitting down and putting pen to paper, I guess. The hardest part.
As a Dad that used to read and make up stories for my son, I have to say that my lad being a D&D DM for several online international clubs and ran his School D&D group makes me proud.
My friend started DMing DnD for a group of us and I am constantly in awe of her ability to come up with things on the spot. We tend to be absolute chaos demons and she often says after the session she didn't expect us to do a certain thing, but I never would have suspected that based on how well she deals with it.
My players be like: “it’s so cool that you had that whole encounter with the wizard and the troll planned out, how could you even have known we would press that button”
And I’m sitting there having improved the whole session like: “yeah, you know sometimes a DM just gets lucky”
I'm terrible at improving so I find it super impressive. She has occasionally cut the session short because we went so far off the rails she has to prepare more though lol.
He has now had to deal not only with time travel (on the one hand, yes, I triggered that trap. On the other hand, another party member at another time put a trail leading into it. On the gripping hand, why did the DM make it do that in the first place‽), but time travel stranding us in an alternate timeline when we finally got back to our "proper time".
I started DMing at 16, nowadays sometimes me and my gf are bored and I simply go "ok, you're a witch, it's the 1800s, what are you wearing?" and we just roleplay for 2 hours.
Everyone I know who don't play ttrpg think it's crazy how I can create a character with three random words, or just make up a story if they give me a topic, or no topic at all.
I started playing "the game of the dungeon" with my son when he was about 4 where he was Harry Potter having to navigate a maze to retrieve Dumbledore's glasses. He's 6 now and has been hooked ever since and we do one about every week based on the theme of whatever he's interested in at the time, for example he's Hiccup trying to find Toothless or Mario going through the sewers.
If you don’t want to read from a book, memorize the bones of a story. I took a storytelling class in elementary school and they taught us to learn the bones because you can fill everything else in.
You tell the story of their own day with embellishments.
"There was a little boy who had brown hair and liked to wear dinosaur shirts, his name was (make up a name that rhymes with their name. i.e. if your kid's name is Steven, you say the character's name is Deeven). Jeevan had a room with toys like (name a few of their toys). He went to the store with his mom and day that day and.... and so on and so on and do a review of the day.
Kids LOVE this. Also fun to if you pick certain points and ask them what they think happened next.
I’m a soon to be dad and many of my peers fathers tell me about how they didn’t read to their children because they just would make up stories every night.
How?! I couldn’t put together a short story if I had a gun to my head.
I took it for granted that everyone could make up a bedtime story off the cuff, but apparently it's not universal. I made stories up for my little siblings when I was six or seven, and then did the same for my own kids, much to my wife's amazement.
My suspicion is that there's some amount of natural talent that's required to do it without having to practice. For example, I could say "Give me three random objects" and then tell a kid's fairy tale style story involving those three objects and come up with fifteen minutes of content on the spot.
It's definitely a skill I think almost everyone could do with practice though.
There's some basic elements:
Know your audience and what they find funny.
For example, kids love things involving farting, especially if you make funny fart sounds.
Kids are highly amused when serious people / authority figures experience a loss of dignity through farting.
Understand story progression - "The knight couldn't do X, then the knight did Y, and at the end, the knight was able to do X and all was well, the end."
Have a sympathetic main character that encounters a problem, and then undergoes difficulties in the quest to solve it.
Be ok with plot holes and inconsistencies for kid's bedtime stories. You don't have to be Agatha Christie and have an air-tight plot. If your kids call you on it, come up with something that solves it in an amusing fashion. As long as it's entertaining, they're unlikely to protest.
Weave in things that are at the top of your audience's minds.
Kids had a stressful day about X? Tell a story where X is fixed, yada yada.
My favorite to tell children is to start a story about that child (or their family member) in which they suddenly shrank in size, and how they have to navigate the kitchen counter/bathroom/living room and avoid pets/vaccuums/garbage disposals
I accidentally invented a character one night who my kids became obsessed with and then I had to keep making up stories. I just turned what we did every day into adventures through the eyes of a tiny dragon who did not understand what any human things were. And the kids were thrilled recognizing themselves in the story.
Just start talking, and when you draw a blank, ask your kid something: a detail, what happens next, who was there, etc.
Or "how do you think [the character] felt?"
When you run out of steam, just basically ask someone a question, and then you'll be able to bounce off of whatever they give you. The trick is pretending you have everything under control.
Edit: Actually scratch that, you don't have to pretend to have everything under control, your kid will like being in on the game of coming up with a story.
I teach storytelling skills for interviews (Samsung, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Meta) and for language acquisition.
The basic structure is "TCE." Give a time, some context, and then the event. "About six years ago (time), while I was working at Meta (context), a colleague and I had a conflict concerning blablabla (event).
Rinse and repeat with each new "scene" of the story.
I drill this with clients by using GPT-generated scenes of Aesop's fables, mythology, and their own narratives.
You have the basic outline above if that's something you'd like to work on solo. If it's something you'd like me to guide you through, get in touch.
I used to do this with my daughters. I made them give me 3 things and I would incorporate them in stories. Then I read that Stephen King did something similar and made his kids do it back at night, so I started that. Still waiting for my teens to become famous authors though.
I'm a little rusty, but to get back in practice I told a story to a group of dogs today using dog buzzwords(Bingo and Fluffy went for a WALK OUTSIDE etc).
"And then the prince and princesses realized that the best thing to do for the kingdom was to go straight to sleep when the king or queen told them to. The end."
I read every night to my kids but they ADORED it when I made up a story. It's for kids, it doesn't need to make sense. The one story I told was a young prince called Prince Gargleblood and his pet donkey Steven. Basically told a story that was, in all reality, a mash up of every kids movie or show about a neglected young kid. He got into all kinds of adventures with Steven the Donkey. I thought about writing a book but that's way harder than riffing with your kids in a darkened, cosy room.
With my oldest I would read to him endlessly and as he got older he wanted to learn D&D so I learned with him.
Fast forward some years and my youngest is a toddler who loves to read some books but then be told a made up story. It’s all just some basic improv where I’ll ask some prompt style questions before I start “who do you want in the story? Who do you want to be the bad guy?” and then just start telling a goofy kids story. You don’t need to make a masterpiece, the level of story telling that kids love is very basic.
yknow as someone who grew up thinking they were pretty shy and didn’t do much, but i did a surprising amount of silly stupid things, and some cool things that i had to do some searching for.
I’ve been a bartender for over a year and even what you think is random and no one wants to hear it… it still might be interesting just not to you.
one of my stories has a bit of context to set up. so my middle name is Digweed and if there are any old electronic heads in here you know the DJ.
John Digweed was my dads favourite, so much so that my dad should refrain from naming anyone in the future haha (i tell that one as a joke, i think it’s pretty cool but my mom didn’t let me know because she thought i’d be bullied).
anyways, my mom and dad both go to his set one night, and they bug the security until John sees them and invites them back.
Mind you they “didn’t have anything” to get a signature from him.. except one piece of paper. my birth certificate was on them for some reason. so they handed it to him. lo and behold… he signed it. now i have an edited piece of government documents with a cool story attached to it :)
oh and like 15 years later he remembered my mom and i inviting us for free VIP tickets where we can go back stage and chat with him (not apart of the tickets just his own inv)
(With a gun pointed straight at his head from the shadowy figure behind the closet doors, he read to his unsuspecting son in a trembling voice, wondering if the boy could tell something was wrong).....
That’s my favorite, my kids and I make up stories together and the character names are always their names backwards. My daughter finds it hilarious, my son not so much
It helps to start the story with the same structure every time. It effectively allows you to start up the engine without putting the car into gear. And the younger the kids are the less you have to tell to amaze them so start young and you'll grow into it.
I tell my kids stories about queequeg and cherry. They live on an island in a treehouse with a slide.
Every story starts in the same way. Q&c wake up in the morning and make breakfast of (insert delicious breakfast here) and while they are eating breakfast there's a knock on the door (actually knock on whatever is around you). For very little kids all you'll need to do is get to this point and it's already a great story. If a character shows up then all the better. As the kids get older you can create some regular characters and take them on adventures around the island.
Good luck. It's not as hard as you might think if you have a system.
I used to make up stories for the kids I babysat. At first I was just repeating stories my mom told me when I was little, but then I ran out of ones I had memorized, so I had to start making up bits to fill out what I had forgotten, and then I just started making them up from scratch.
Basically you just need to pick a thing kids find interesting, or funny. The beginning of the story is how your characters start on the path to that thing. The middle is that thing happening, the climax is what happens as a result of the thing happening, and the ending is the consequences.
You can literally scan the room to figure out what the thing is. Like the first thing I just saw when I looked up from my phone was a laundry basket. So the thing is sliding down the stairs in a laundry basket.
Someone is doing laundry, someone else decides to play in the laundry basket, this results in attempting to slide down the stairs. It goes on from there.
kids don't know about the hero's journey, 3 act structure, themes, tropes or anything that makes a story good and feel fresh, everything is new to them, just start saying stuff and read their face.
My kid usually throws a bunch of elements at me and tells me to make it into a story. I try to make it as good as I can, but he just giggles whenever I mention something he asked me to.
Part of the secret is that when you start doing it, you don't need to be good at it to have the desired effect on the kid.
A kid was walking down the street and a big scary monster jumped out at him but the kid tickled the monster until he was laughing so hard he couldn't fight. Pad that out with as many pointless details as you need to make it the desired length. Throw in as many fart jokes as you can or whatever makes your kid laugh.
Once upon a time everything was ok, then one day something happened and there was a problem, they tried to fix it but it didn’t help, they tried a different way but it didn’t help, then they tried the right way. Finally everything was okay again.
Ordinary -> incident -> escalation -> resolution -> new ordinary.
There are a few forms like this one that can easily be transposed into just about any flavor of story you’d like to tell.
Its definitely a learned skill. My daughter wants a daddy story every night after we read books, and I was terrible at first. Im getting a lot better now. I usually just pick a thing that happened in my life and make up the details for a 4 year olds imagination to make it fun
a gun to the head and don't see there's a story behind why? Casino debt gone wrong. Make it kid friendly. Winnie the pooh ran up a massive debt with his dealer. I dunno.
Lie to them, and go big. Go to the zoo and they love that Red Panda? Well, it happens to know you, because you saved its family from poachers and you helped relocate them to this exact zoo. You take your kids to the zoo to entertain them, but also because you have an agreement to keep watch over the panda family. Them being panda royalty and all. The kids will ask questions, and then you just fill in blanks, or maybe they fill in the blanks.
Man I miss when mine where that age. They thought the sun rose and set with me, probably because I told them I was responsible for that too.
But honestly, reading to them is just as good. Read frequently, do the voices, read the same story night after night if they wish it. It helps their little minds grow and that time is the best time in the world.
They don't have to be good really. For creativity you need to narrow things down. I asked my kids three questions. Like name a color, a type of animal and a number. I might end up telling a story about 152 monkeys that are painting their house blue. The kids will help flesh out the details. Change the questions or answers and you get the start of a new fun story.
I did this for my three boys. The Wonder Brothers(TM) franchise went on for YEARS. The Wonder Brothers were always foiling the evil plans of Dr Pepper and Mr Pibb, and their evil henchmen Mellow Yellow and Bluey Blue.
Later my kids found out that they were just sodas. I wonder if that’s why none of them drink the stuff….
My dad wold tell us "piggy stories". Me and my two brothers were the three little pigs and we would go on adventures. We would decide what we did and he would tell the story around that off the cuff. We would have unique power systems and he would draw out maps and everything.
Later in life I realised he was just DMing for his kids haha. I eventually found the binders and binders of material he had created for his DND campaigns he did for his roomates in university.
I’m a soon to be dad and many of my peers fathers tell me about how they didn’t read to their children because they just would make up stories every night.
How?!
Children are pretty dumb... you just rattle off anything and they will be enthralled. Especially if you customize it a bit. "The blue dog named clifford"
"OMG WE HAVE A DOG NAMED CLIFFORD"
"went to the grocery store and bought milk"
"OMG THAT IS AMAZING THEN WHAT HAPPENED"
"And then, the kid clifford belonged to, could eat his cereal, now that he had milk, and could go to school with a full belly!"
"BEST STORY EVER DAD, NIGHT"
Plus, its an amazing time they get to spend with you, listening to you talk, interacting 1 on 1. Especially young kids depend on interaction with their parents to learn about the world, how to talk, etc.
Especially if you tailor it for them with little details you know they enjoy, it will be 10x better then the best selling childrens books in their memories. (though sometimes they will get fixated on a particular story and want you to re-tell it over and over exactly the same way)
That said, I recommend reading with them as well, to read the words out for them and let them try and recognize the words in text, the letters, etc. Follow the words with your finger while you both read. When hes old enough see if he knows some of the words and can fill in for you.
When they’re young do a choose your own adventure style. Always make the main character a lot like them but slightly older and just ahead of whatever stage they are at. For a four year old before starting school: once upon a time [name that rhymes with child’s] was going on an adventure with his pre-k class. What is the adventure do you think? Are they going to the zoo or the museum? The museum great. On the morning of the adventure they had to wait around a bit. (Character) knew how to entertain themselves quietly by - how do you think they might entertain themselves quietly? To get to the museum they had to ride the bus into the city…. Etc etc. Endless questions: what do you think the bus would be like? What would they see at the museum? What would they have for lunch? What if… any number of things happened?
I don’t remember how it started, but I’ve been telling my (now 6-year old) daughter stories about mermaids fighting… sea vampires? For several years now? We’ve gone through just about every ocean creature/ phenomenon/ and material possible, somehow. I don’t know how it’s lasted this long.
And yes, we’ve don’t vampire plankton, sand, and currents in case you were hoping to interject a new subject.
Haha. Bro. As a dad that does this. You can too. They don’t need to be elaborate. We have a few different story characters so the kid picks the people in the story. Then they relive something from the day. Spend the day surfing? At bedtime the dog learns to surf. Etc.
You can work on it. Character, make them interesting, give them a problem, the story is solving the problem.
Like there's a prince. Ok- what makes him interesting? He lives in the middle of the ocean. What problem does he have? He can't find a princess to marry because he's so far away from them. Now you tell how he solves the problem and has to build his own airplane so he can fly around the world to find his princess and why each one doesn't work out. Maybe you want to subvert the usual ending of him finding a princess and going back to the island. Maybe he finds a great princess so he moves the islands so it's not in the middle of the ocean. Maybe he is ok with being alone. Maybe he decides that the island isn't really his home and he falls in love with her kingdom.
Honestly for younger kids you could have the ending make no sense. The power rangers show up and have to take the prince to Mars to fight dinosaurs. The end.
You just... Start to do it. Reading books, watching movies, world building for homebrew DnD all help. It felt wooden at first but now I've done it so much it's pretty easy.
We read books and then I do story time when they're in bed :)
The bar is pretty low, it'll come to you once you get going... My daughter will say "monkey fell in water and bonked her head and crocodile bit her!" and then I just ramble on embellishing her prompt for a while until I can think of happy ending or moral to end with. She LOVES it every time.
My friend and I when we met in Jr High would write stories during the boring parts of class where we would write 3-4 lines each then hand it over to the other to continue. I think that awoke in me a love of storytelling cause the fun of just making up whatever just to laugh at it was awesome. Anyway, that's how Chuck Norris and Santa tried to kill each other then teamed up to save the world.
Not a parent but I am a children’s librarian. Not adept at coming up with stories but can read the shit out of a book. What I’ve seen most in public and school libraries is that kids value that close personal time with a trusted adult. If your story sucks, they’ll tell you and that’s a great opportunity for them to add in their own story or yall can do a story snake of sorts when they’re old enough. Or, just go to your library and check out anything they show interest in.
Also, sitting with a book and encouraging them to tell you the story they’re seeing is so valuable. If you’re not familiar, check out dialogic reading - it’s magic.
My dad didn't read to us, he just told us the stories he remembered well. Jack & The Beanstalk, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, stuff like that. All stories that are told a slightly different way in every book, so all you need is to remember the basics and find a fun way to tell it. But reading to your kid is just as special, so go for it.
I do that every night with my son. We have some base characters like Fireman Frog, Cookieman and Fart Parrot then mix it in with things he experienced during the week. At 2-6 years old the storie doesnt need to be that complex and you just steal from old childrens stories.
My brother loved knights, so all my dad's stories for him were about these different colour-coded knights going to battle (red knights, blue knights, gold knights, etc) and he'd ask my brother to guess (ie pick) what side the new group of knights would be on in the siege and who would won the battle. Massive hit.
My favourite genre of stories was "tell me a story about when you were my age" so as long as he had some childhood memories he was golden.
My three year old like various fictional characters, light sabers and birthdays. So I made up a story about Lightning McQueen, Paw Patrol and a bunch of other characters throwing a birthday party for Darth Vader where he gets a new light saber. They ofc have to buy the light saber in a shop far away so McQueen has to drive there etc.
But predominantly we read. Actually reading physical books I believe is better for their development than telling them stories.
My grandma would have us each choose an animal then create a whole storyline based on these creatures. Half the time she would fall asleep in the middle and had to wake her up to continue, which she did without missing anything. I miss her
It's easier than you think, first off young kids will just love whatever story you tell them, so don't stress too much about the quality of your content, they just love the time spent with you.
My personal recipe is this: just think about one thing you want to teach them or say to them. Could be a life lesson like "lying is bad" or a statement like "I love you". (just be careful with the lessons, turn them in a positive way, like "not lying is good"), that's your ending. Then try thinking of a situation that's remote from that goal and sets place in a universe they like with some relatable details (like IDK, "there was a time in the land of poneys and dragons, a young foal named [name of a person or character they like]"), then just invent a dilemma and work your way up from there to the goal you set previously, if you ever get stumped, just ask your kid "and what do you think they did?", they will either give you something that helps, and you can just say "exactly" and follow up, or they say something that doesn't go the right direction then explain why it's a bad idea in that situation adding characters, backstories, and world rules. This is the big secret, involving them is fun for them because they feel like the story is both interactive and more real, fun for you because you get to know how your kid thinks in weird situations, and they're basically writing half the story for you, use it as much as you can.
It doesn't have to work perfectly on the first try, just tell them the story might suck because you don't remember it well or downright tell them you're gonna make it up, chances are they will still enjoy the moment and the more you do it the easier it gets. Mix it up with "real" stories you read them every other night, but keep the interactive part where you ask them what they think the hero will do before reading the part, it will give you ideas for your next ones.
For kids, it doesn't even really have to have a plot. Just some characters with names, princesses or raccoons whatever. Then they do a thing. They do another thing, maybe something you did that day. Then just say "the end."
Or recount your day but with fun things. Omar the raccoon came to the forest meeting late. He made so much noise that all the animals looked at him and had to wait until he got settled. The forest meeting was about future plans for the forest. Everyone got a job. Then everyone went and did the work for the forest. Fabi the deer went to the oasis for a drink and overheard Sam the chipmunk and Gary the squirrel saying unkind things about Dave the beaver.
Whatever. Just make people animals and places forest or under the sea. Boom.
It can be a double edged sword. My dad improvised songs based on pictures in a "100 planes" book when I was four. I had a very good memory. I was slightly upset for years when he couldn't reproduce a specific banger a couple of nights later (and on many further occasions when I asked for it).
My dad always did this! His stories were great. My sister was quite gullible and fully believed that her glasses were going to get snatched by a ‘Wandola’ (a creature who survives off of little kids’ glasses) until she was about twelve.
I sadly haven’t inherited his storytelling skills :(
Just in case you want to give it a try, it's not as hard as it sounds. The main challenge is to STOP FUCKING THINKING SO MUCH.
Your kids won't care about detailed consistency, or the narrative arch. They want to hear your voice and something to get lost in.
To start I need three things:
A protagonist. "A child" or "<name>" is the go-to. I'll keep them a bit older than my kid if I want him to follow their lead or, because he often wants hospital stories, a bit younger and "less careful" (I wish ...).
An outcome It's way easier to tell a story if you know how you'll end. This doesn't need to be the literal end but just the thing you want to work towards.
An interest What do I want to talk about or what do I think my kid will enjoy?
Example:
Kathrin, broken leg, firefighter childrens event (those are coming up a couple of times a year here, low hanging fruit).
Then it's just talking about how Kathrin got excited for the event, what it is, what she'll be looking forward to, how she can't eat/sleep/talk because of that, etc. I'm going either for what interests me myself and how I'd react or what I know is a pattern my kid recognizes.
From there we're traveling to the event, see stuff, eat a sausage, play a game, etc. etc. - stuff you will know from stuff you'll do with your kid or see other parents do.
Then a couple of things happen, adults disappear from the story and Kathrin does something stupid. Yesterday she tried to jump from a stage onto a trampoline for example. Because I always wanted to do that. Like I would, she missed.
Lots of excitement, firefighters came running, first aid, her father comforts her, a nice boy came and gave her his favorite cuddletoy - stuff that I know would happen, I would like to happen or I would want my kid to do.
Then it's hospital time, X-Ray, a nice doctor, etc. Same pattern.
The good thing is that this approach is fractal: You can choose as many smaller outcomes as you want ("leaving for an event", "making breakfast", etc).
The only thing that holds you back, my friend - without knowing you - is that you overthink: Just talk! Talk about the bread that Kathrin has for breakfast and what she thinks about it. Talk about how she fought with her big brother over the last orange juice. Talk about how she feels. Doesn't matter: Just start talking and whenever your brain intervenes tell it: "Thank you, but you're not needed at the Moment - this is only between my subconcience, my mouth and my audience - I have no idea where this'll go either.".
You got this! And the very good news: Take the first two years to train - enjoy yourself, even as a baby your kid will love hearing you talk :-)
(edits: Giving up on formatting on reddit, hope it's understandable enough)
I call BS on this and I do make up stories for my kid many a night. But a kid interested in reading wants you to tell them stories all the time. And they like specific characters often too. I can make up two to three stories a day, but the 10+ my kiddo wants? Nope, not without rehashing
Eh, the kids help you with the story. I'm an uncle, but I have adhd and am never adequately prepared for their bed time, so instead I just make up a story.
And to be fair, have you seen the stories that they are normally read. Complete snooze fest. My stories are way better. The fact that they have 0 plot, leave so many subplots untied, introduce characters and world features that are then abandoned.
Honestly my storytelling is poor. Kids don't really care
Just a story involving them. They are exploring the jungle and see a dinosaur and get scared! Then they see that it's sad and it just wants friends to play with. And then they played with <insert fav toy> and were best friends forever.
Just a simple premise like that, just flesh it out as you tell it etc.
My dad is a silly guy and he would just ramble and commit to whatever popped into his head. He spent years telling us increasingly absurd stories about his self insert character (named "Brett Favre, but no, not that Brett Favre, that's just a coincidence") and his dog best friend Spunky, who were always taking wrong turns on road trips and ending up in some Douglas Adams-y style adventure. The most memorable one was when they had to save a land shark with elephant legs who was dressed as an Elvis impersonator ("Elfish"). 😂
~25 or so years later, the thing I remember most was how much he entertained himself while trying to entertain us. He worked a serious job with a long commute, so he wasn't around as much as any of us would have liked. I think being whimsical with us was just as good an outlet for him as it was for us. Giggling with Dad about the other Brett Favre and Spunky's escapades is one of mine and my siblings' fondest childhood memories.
I am a Dad to a 2 and 5 year old. My 5 year old has relatively recently been asking for stories from me as he falls asleep. I SUUUCK at it. His Mum is way better. My best mate gave me some solid advice. Just use movies and books you have read and mix up the characters and plot a bit. Has been invaluable. My son loves scary stories. Most recent effort was to basically recreate the plot of Signs. Easy. Now he is obsessed with crop circles. Best mate spent an evening or so telling his daughters the story of the hobbit as they were so enthralled. Started at dinner at a pizza place, lasted all the way through the drive home, bath and bed time. He swapped their names for main characters. Then showed them the film a few weeks later. They were beside themselves with excitement comparing their characters in the story their dad told them to the movie. Issue is when you are knackered and your brain doesn't move so fast.
You get the hang of a decent story pretty quickly. A character and a goal to accomplish, and then an obstacle or two in their way and how they overcome them.
The real trouble is remembering how the story went when they ask for it again.
Reading to your kids while they look at the words helps them with word acquisition and reading skills. Good on your friends for engaging with their kids, but the purpose of the activity is more than just engaging the child before bed.
Use AI, seriously one of the few things Id actually recommend it for is making shit up. Give it a prompt like “write a bedtime story about a princess named Tessa, give it a good moral in the end and make it 10 minutes long.”
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u/Moby_Dick_Energy 1d ago
I’m a soon to be dad and many of my peers fathers tell me about how they didn’t read to their children because they just would make up stories every night.
How?! I couldn’t put together a short story if I had a gun to my head.