I’m not alone here but I think bedtime stories are one of the most memorable and favoured things a parent can do with their child. Is it partly because it signals the end of the day and finally a bit of peace and quiet? Look, maybe a little bit.
We’ve all got our favourites too. In our house, it’s Winnie the Pooh. And this follows perfectly with the classic Disney movies theme we enjoy throughout the week. Sword in the Stone, 101 Dalmatians, and Lady and the Tramp being absolute favourites. They just don’t make them the way they used to. Probably because there’s no need, those movies were animated using techniques that are almost a hundred years old. But the warm aesthetic of them still does something to me.
Nurturing through books
And fewer books translate as beautifully from the screen as Winnie the Pooh. Stop yelling, I know the books came first but in my house, in my little boy’s world, the cartoons came first. Then when his barely developed mind showed me a slither of interest in something I adored, I latched on and went all in.
You see, my son had a severe speech delay. He technically still has it but as he approaches his seventh birthday you can hardly tell. Before him learning how to read, he just sat and watched, as all kids do. Occasionally pointing at a word or maybe a bear who inexplicably wore a shirt that was too short to cover the parts that shouldn’t be left exposed.
In any case, the cartoons followed by the books in the evening created a bond between the two of us that I’ll cherish forever.
I quickly came to realise that my son wasn’t that bothered about Winnie the Pooh. He liked it enough, but he did it for me. He saw that bedtime stories were far more animated and, more importantly, drawn out because Dad liked reading these books.
Now here’s where I’m probably wrong about a bunch of things but remember, I’m not an expert and I did see this unfold over the course of a few years.
Suddenly, the fire was lit
Like all kids, my son had his favourite books and of course, I read them to him as well. But they were Peppa Pig, the most obnoxious little pig that ever lived, and Bluey who, for as delightfully refreshing as the Heeler family is, give it a rest, would you?
Somewhere between me reading the same story of Pooh trying to find breakfast for Tigger for the one hundredth and maybe on the one hundred and fiftieth time, something remarkable began to happen. No, his speech delay didn’t miraculously disappear so he could tell me to shut up. He began reading the book to me. Holding the book and reading not with me, but to me.
And then he began telling the story without the book. We’d be watching the cartoons, many of which the stories are in the books we read, and he’d tell me what was about to happen. Noting as he went that some things in the book were a little different from the show we were watching.
This ignited a fire. He started reading more and more.
Thank you, Pooh
Something that was mainly associated with bedtime and had become difficult to get him to do during the day, prompting an argument that the sun was still up and bedtime was very far away. But he had new independence. Not only that, he was able to entertain me in a way he’d not been able to in the past.
Now, as he’s gotten older, Pooh Bear is unfortunately a thing of the past and it saddens me a great deal. But I am so grateful to that bear and his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood for holding a place in my heart and my attention for so long that I was able to show the stories to my child with the same enthusiasm I once had for them.
I’m certain that Pooh not only helped my son to read but the connection he made with the cartoons and the books was one I hadn’t seen him make before. And it made me so proud to watch his reading improve so quickly too for there’s always the fear that he may be a little too like his father, a bear of little brain.
