Welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. This week I wanted to talk about stories and the role of spoken story, in-person story and storytelling with the recorded story, the recorded voice. Many of us who are seeking to simplify our kids lives are very, very wary of screens and rightly so.
The toxicity of screens and the impairment to our children's neural development, their brain development, it's just so, so clear that we've got to keep our kids as much as possible away from screens and curate screens carefully. But here's the thing, a lot of parents are opting to replace screens with audio books and stories from online sources. Some of them are just beautiful, some of them less beautiful, but some are just gorgeous.
They're good stories, they're well told, they're not goofy, they're not sensational, they're just quietly put, spoken, well done stories. Not all like that, but there are some apps that do that beautifully. And many parents are using that as a way to keep children entertained on long trips, at home when they want to get something done, when a parent wants to do something, they'll put on a story and have the children listen to it.
And while I get that, and while I can see the advantage of that, I want to caution over using this. A story, whether it's app-based and electronic voice or even personally told, we've got to be careful to keep stories as special, because they are, they're super special. And some kids who are listening to, particularly to online stories, app- based stories from those companies, want more and more.
They want one and then another one and then another one. And they are getting a release of dopamine. Now dopamine is not a bad thing, but when you can't stop, when a child can't have one story from an app and then be comfortable with stopping, you kind of know that this is not good.
And I would put that as a measurement, as a yardstick, to really exercising caution that if your child can't just turn off after that one story and accept it, then there's probably, they've become accustomed to too much. They've listened to two, three, four stories and every time they get in the car they want a story. Every time they're sitting at home and they're bored, they want a story.
And you'll know that that's starting to tweak that dopamine, that addictive hormone of pleasure and reward, pleasure and reward, in very small cycles. Nothing wrong again with dopamine, but that should be a big wheel turning, not little ones. The big wheel turning of dopamine is a craft project or something that a child is doing that takes days and sometimes even weeks to pull together.
They're making things with shoeboxes or their older ones are out on their BMX in the yard and they're making a jump. If you're lucky enough to have a BMX and a yard, then that's what they're doing. And it takes a whole bunch of process in order to get that, I feel good about this and they say, you know, mum come and look at this and they'll show you what they've done outside with that fort building or with those jumps they've made for their bike or whatever it is.
But it's taken time. Now that's dopamine, but it's appropriate. What stories can do is provide too much of a good thing.
And I would suggest we keep those online stories as special and there may be certain circumstances you use them like long trips where there's just one and choose the one carefully that you want. The thing I would also caution against is using a story like plugging the kids into a story when they're bored. Some of you'll know this from my book, Simplicity Parenting, where I talk about the gift of boredom because boredom is the precursor to creativity.
So if my children ever came to me saying, daddy we're bored, there's nothing to do, you know, I would, they know this response and they're older now and they've joked about it, but I would say to them, oh something to do is just around the corner. You'll find it. You'll need to go looking.
And so off they would go and kicking about and then eventually they'd find something to do which would then occupy them for hours and days and sometimes weeks as opposed to putting on the story which would occupy them for that 20 minutes and then they'd need another one and another one. We often think that plugging our kids into screens either auditorially or visually will buy us the time to get stuff done, but countless numbers of parents have said to either myself or our coaches and group leaders, because we've had coaches and we've trained I think it's over 1,200 coaches and group leaders in the Simplicity Parenting Approach, the constant feedback we get is how much we've bought into this when our kids are bored, plug them in. And how when you let them be bored, yep, for 20 minutes they're complaining and whining, but then you get hours to do what you want to do as opposed to that quick 20 minutes, half an hour, and then they're complaining again so you plug them in even more and again because you're not finished your email.
The feedback which is conclusive, I mean it's just countless thousands of parents, have been utterly surprised when they don't do that how much time they actually get them as parents to do what they wanted to do. In other words, it's a longer-term benefit for a short-term pain of them, of children complaining and complaining and complaining. We all know this, many of us were given the gift of boredom when we were young and yet it's the screen, whether it's listening or watching, that is starting to, well definitely starting to interfere with a child's precursor to their deep creative play.
Now one last thing is that deep creative play and projects for older kids, whatever it is they're doing, are becoming more and more needed in contemporary times because this is more and more coming at kids and they're expected to do more and faster and quicker and so on. Very few of us had to grow up with this amount of speed and pressure that kids today are having to deal with but the way they make sense of it is through deep creative play and projects. The way in which they can digest and self-soothe and be ready for the next day or ready for dinner or ready for bedtime is through deep creative play.
Now if we're plugging them into a story too many or if we're plugging them into the visual screen too much then they're not processing. In fact they're doing the opposite, they're taking in. Now I get it that stories are way less stimulating than the visual screen and particularly with gaming.
I do get that. So it is a good alternative, I agree, it really is. But it still can be too much of a good thing that number one, prevent it from being special and number two, it prevents kids from being bored and then creative.
So how does this stack up against the spoken story, against a story that a child comes and leans against you, you put your arm around their shoulder and you read a book or you tell them a story from when they were a baby or in your own biography. Those stories of course transcend all. Any of the wonderful, the more ethical storytellers who go into the online storytelling and I know several of them, none of them would disagree with that statement that there is nothing like the human voice, the head against the chest or heart, arm around a shoulder and being able to viscerally hear your voice and be connected with you.
So those stories are the premium ones. But as we end now, I want to dial this back and kind of point out the middle ground. Some parents have said to me when we listen to a story online, we listen to it together.
So I put my arm around my child's shoulder still, the head is still on my heart, we are still laughing at the funny bits together and they hear the resonance of my laughter, I feel the resonance of theirs and we enjoy it together. And then after that one story, one, we turn it off and then we come sit at the counter while I get on with making supper or whatever and we talk about the story and the funny things that happen and the sad things that happen. And for me that is a level above just plugging a kid into a story and walking away.
So we've layered down through this story and some of you might have a different perspective than this, of course, but I just wanted to give my perspective because there's an increasing number of children who are listening to stories online and I want them to be special. Okay, I sure hope that's helpful. Bye-bye for now.
