Latest / Your Daily Dose / FABULOUS STUDY ON FAIRY TALES TO OUR KIDS

Transcript

FABULOUS STUDY ON FAIRY TALES TO OUR KIDS · Your Daily Dose

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Well, when I was growing up, I vaguely remember my
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: parents actually reading fairy tales to me early on. You know,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: age one, two, three, and four. Aesop's fables. There was
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: even cartoons on TV about those. Now a new study
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: comes out and says these kind of stories teach memorable
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: lessons about real life to our kids. This is not
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: talking about a supplement today. talking about our children and
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: their minds moving ahead. Stay tuned for this info. Hi,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: and welcome to Health Talk with Dr. Len, your daily dose.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: The information you hear on this show is informational. It's
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: not meant to diagnose or treat any disease. Any kind
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: of complete health conditions must be checked out and discussed
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: with your primary care physician. Get ready for the good
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: news of the day. God bless you folks. And here
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: is Dr. Lent. Daily devotional today comes from the book
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: of Matthew chapter 6. I'm perpetually with you, taking care
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: of you. That is my most important fact of your existence.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: I'm not limited by time or space. My presence with
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: you is a forever promise. You need not fear the
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: future from already there. When you make that quantum leap
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: into eternity, you'll find me awaiting for you in heaven.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Your future is in my hands. I release it to
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: you every day, day by day, moment by moment. Therefore,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: do not worry about tomorrow. I want you to live
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: this day abundantly, seeing all there is to see, doing
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: all there is to do. Don't be distracted by future concerns.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Leave them to me. Each day of life is a
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: glorious gift, but so few people know how to live
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: within the confines of today. Much of their energy for
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: abundant living spills over time-lined into tomorrow's worries. or past regrets.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Their remaining energy is sufficient only for limping through the day,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: not for living to the full. I'm training you to
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: keep your focus on my presence in the present. This
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: is how to receive abundant life, which flows freely from
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: my throne of grace. Stay tuned. Thank you. 727-916-4215 Give
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: me a child until he's seven years old, runs the adage,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: and I will show you the man. Give me a
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: child until he's seven years old, and I will show
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: you the man. Often misattributed to Aristotle, or to the
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius of Loyola. This proposition has
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: wisdom that's both timeless and obvious. Nearly 3,000 years ago,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: for instance, the Old Testament book of Proverbs advised, Train
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: up a child in the way he should go, and
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: when he is old, he will not depart from it.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Humans have long recognized the connection between early childhood and
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: moral instruction. 21st century psychologists agreed with ancient philosophers that
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the code of ethics given to a child becomes the
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: foundational stone for adulthood. Ultimately, the chief teachers of this
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: virtue are parents, grandparents, older siblings, and other mentors. From them,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: girls and boys at a tender age absorb and process
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: life lessons, honesty, generosity, respect for others, responsibility, and other
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: positive traits. Numerous online articles that repeatedly stress the key
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: role that influencers play offer advice and activities intended to
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: make this teaching easier and more effective. Missing from many
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: of these lists, however, is any mention of the fairy
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: tales and classic stories that can reinforce these lessons. Read
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Aesop's Fables to Children, and we find an ant schooling
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: a grasshopper on responsibility, a tortoise teaching a hare that
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: slow and steady wins the race, and a boy who
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: cries wolf too many times, learning that no one believes
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: habitual liars, even when they're telling the truth. Share the
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: and others, and the children's witness heroic virtues in action,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: as in the courage and grit of Hansel and Gretel
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: as they defeat a witch. Read aloud Beauty and the Beast,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: and they learn that real beauty is found in the
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: soul rather than in a mirror. The fables, with their
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: clear-cut moral lessons, recognizable characters, and brevity, are vitamins in print,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: boosting good character, The fairy tales, although more complex in
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: plot and character, deliver a central message of hope, that
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: good will triumph over evil in the end. To put
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: it another way, for children seven and under, fables with
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: their warnings and no-nonsense markers of morality constitute a rough
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: map for the journey of life. Some modern commentators have
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: disparaged fairy tales as unfashionable or too frightening for kids. Democrats.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: In this collection of essays, Tremendous Trifles, G.K. Chesterton answered
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: those critics when he writes, fairy tales then are not
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: responsible for producing in children's fear or any shapes of fear.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Fairy tales do not give the child the idea of
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: evil or ugly. That is in the child already because
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: it's in the world already. The baby has known the
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What a
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: fairy tale provides for him is St. George to kill
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: the dragon. What's more, fairy tales teach the children male
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: or female to become St. George instead of the dragon.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: The four-year-old boy waving a stick as a sword and
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: battling wickedness is putting on a suit of armor in adulthood.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: The five-year-old who dresses like the princess after hearing the
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: rags-to-riches story of Cinderella has acquired a tool for overcoming
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: hardship and keeping their gender right. More sophisticated stories for
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: kids add more bricks to this foundation of moral maturity.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: The introduction to Magic in the Air, one of the
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: volumes of the old Collier's junior classics, aimed at kindergarten crew,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: offers this template for character building. What do we mean
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: by best in a book for children? Best books reflect
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: universal truths with clarity and artistry. Such books reveal that
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: man is essentially good and that life is infinitely worth living.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: They do not deny the existence of evil, but rather
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: emphasize man's thrilling struggle against evil through faith, courage, and perseverance.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: They awaken the young reader's imagination, call forth his laughter
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: as well as his tears, and help him understand and
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: love his fellow man. The reading of such books constitutes
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: a rich heritage of experience, which is in every child's birthright.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: It's a sad truism that our culture today, its literature,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: its music, its entertainment, rarely tells the young that life
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: is infinitely worth living. Yet it's a lesson we can
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: instill in our children by example and by the stories
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: we share with them, including magic in the air. For instance,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: excerpts from The Adventures of Pinocchio, Winnie the Pooh, and
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: The Borrowers, and these childhood classics, and so many more,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: virtue arrives cloaked as entertainment. Here is with fables and
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: fairy tales the young learn virtues, not with lectures, but
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: by osmosis. These read-aloud sessions on the living room sofa
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: allow children to absorb lessons in character while giving harried
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: parents a break from their demanding schedules. One often neglected virtue, however,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: may require special attention and parental effort outside the covers
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: of a book. Gratitude may seem like an ingratious add-on
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: to Little Red Riding Hood, but it's in the formula
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: of life infinitely worth living. And like fairy tales and stories,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: gratitude sometimes fails to make the online list of character building.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: In his essay, Why Gratitude is Good, Robert Emmons, a
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: professor of psychology and And the world's leading gratitude expert
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: points out that gratitude brings a buffet of physical, psychological,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: and social benefits, including the recognition of goodness in our lives.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Little wonder that when the Roman philosopher and politician Cicero
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: considered gratitude, quote, the mother of all virtues, end quote.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: The gratitude praised by these two men not only references
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: our temporary pleasure and delight in some moment or gift,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: but also an appreciation for existence itself. For being alive
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: and human and in the world, unfortunately, despite the many
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: luxuries and conveniences we enjoy today, grievance and grumbling more
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: aptly describe today's culture than gratitude, which is precisely why
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: we must aim to instill the virtue of gratitude in
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: our children from an early age. One simple way to
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: build this habit of thanksgiving in a child three years
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: or older is to ask the daily question, what were
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: you most grateful for today? I've heard parents posing this
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: question while tucking their children into bed. Two couples I
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: know well routinely ask their kids the question at the
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: supper table. The answers are usually ordinary. They're thankful for
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: a friend who came to play or that mom doled
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: out a mid-afternoon treat of ice cream. But these small
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: appreciations will accumulate over time, and gratitude will become a habit.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: As many educators know, when teaching others, we teach ourselves.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: The stories and fairy tales we read to our children
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: touch us as well as them, although in different ways
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: and in different levels. C.S. Lewis understood adults' need for
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: fairy tales and stories of innocence. In his book, Surprised
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: by Joy, he credited George MacDonald's fantasies of fairy romance
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: of men and women for first baptizing his imagination. Later,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: he famously dedicated the book The Lion, the Witch, and
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: the Wardrobe to his goddaughter, Lucy Barfield. Here's the beginning
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: of that dedication. My dear Lucy, I wrote this story
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: for you, but when I began it, I had not
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: realized that girls go quicker than books. As a result,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: you're already too old for fairy tales, and by the
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: time it's printed and bound, you'll be older still. But
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: someday you'll be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Fairy tales, good stories, and gratitude, intentionally observed and practiced,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: are good for all of us. Let's make sure our
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: children receive these tools, which are essential to building virtue
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: and character. Gosh, that was good. Share that with a
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: new parent, would you? I think it's a lost art.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: You want to keep your kids healthy? You want to
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: keep your kids vibrant and strong? You want to keep
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: them focused on their Maker? and get them to know
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Jesus in their lives. That's what it's all about. That's
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: what we've got for you today, folks. Great information. Have
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: a great day.