Do you make up stories for your kids?

[icepole]

My son seems to prefer them over books although we do both.

Do you make up stories for your kids? If not would you like to and what is getting in the way of you doing it? If you do it a lot do you have any tips? I am getting better at it but still get stuck!

yes every night before bed. Usually include something we did during the day. And also includes dragons, fairies, superheros, tv characters, best friends, animals, rescue operations, and mysteries (a la scooby doo). You do get better at it with practice. We've been doing this since both DSs were little and they love it.

Sounds lovely! I bet they love it

Yes. I find it good to just have basic elements (he's 3) so:

A character such as a dragon/dinosaur/pirate

Activity: riding a bike / going on a train/ searching for treasure

Involve food: ice cream / peanut butter sandwiches / blueberries

Person they know: themselves/ grannie / George from nursery etc

Just put all constituent parts together& away you go.

Yes my 4 yo DS and I make up stories about a family of gingerbread people who live in a gingerbread house.
It's amazing how much like our family they are. They've just moved like we have
It started off last Christmas when we made gingerbread men and we I made a gingerbread house too for New Years Eve (I was v poorly before Xmas and couldn't make it until then) Making a gingerbread house might become our New Years Eve tradition too.

My son likes me to read his books using his or other people's name in place of the protagonist. I think he would like me to make up stories but I get stuck with fictional tales. I do tell him factual stories about his family and every evening at bedtime we recap what we did from start to finish.

We are enjoying the books of John Goodall. They are ingenious little picture stories without words so the story can be simple if elaborate. Each page has a half page to turn wich reveals the next part of the story. We read it differently every time but keep some common elements. I have four of his books including this one

Yes, almost every night. Characters are human-like animals who go to nursery, have same names as some of us, live near family members etc. DS loves them.

yes I made up stories for my dc, and my parents made up stories for me. And for a short while I was telling stories round the bbq fire with three generations, me gps and dcs took turns to tell stories, was magical.

It helps to have a repertoire of characters who have adventures inspired by the days events

Not at bedtime, but we make them up together when we're out walking. DD is 3.5 and I involve her as much as possible, choosing the names of characters, types of scary animal, modes of transport etc. Then she always has a go at making up her own which is basically an abridged version of the one we've just done

DS likes "stories" that are basically a recap of the day. He reminds me if I miss bits of the day out. Like we went to the toilet in the shopping centre but didn't use the hand dryer. It really highlights which bits that were important to him.

I used to make up more stories, but ds1 also loves his books and likes us to read together now. He was big into Fireman Sam so I would usually make up a story based on Sam and wherever we'd been that day. Ds1's favourite made-up stories were all very similar and involved a fire / ds1 getting everyone to safety and calling Fireman Sam / FS turning up in Jupiter (requisite "NEE-NAW" noises) / putting the fire out / commending ds1 on keeping everyone safe. Not very imaginative but it was what ds1 requested every single night and was delighted by!

I LOVE making up stories for our DCs and now granddaughter. I find if there' s something worrying them it's great because you can take the 'sting' out of the problem by talking about another little girl or boy or fairy\elf etc. and applying the worrying situation indirectly within the story it helps a lot.

E.G. I know that our GD wants siblings so i always talk about a little girl who has adventures on her own and how she copes on her own .It's lovely because I can see her responding in a good way to them!

I wrote DS1 some stories to read and bound them into little books. He still reads them sometimes even though they're really easy for him now. And I left room for him to illustrate them, as he loves drawing.

Great ideas thanks! That book must be really special!

Yes, we usually have a magical family that surprise surprise, mirrors our own.

We also make our own books (bit tiresome for mum, but as long as they are happy!). By books I mean a4 pages with drawings and one line each that forms a (randomish) story. All stuck together with masking tape. As you can imagine they are works of art.

Another idea which works well is to remember, if you can, (I find the more I think about them the more come back to me) the interesting things you and your family did or your DCs did and tell the story to the DCs or grand dcs. Our granddaughter now asks for stories about her daddy and aunties when they were young which always go down very well!

I like the idea of book making too!

Yes, as of right now the market doesn't cater to DC who want dragon-princess-fairtale-ninja-batman-and-missdolly-all-living-in-a-treehouse-which-has-a-lava-spewing-volcano-in-the-garden type stories.

It would seem that it's currently a niche market.

I quite enjoy it. I do try to slip in a little something for HRH Queen Surviving, a graceful, wonderful woman, who's children always get ready quickly for school.