Proverb themed Bed time stories

One of the nicest routines that’s stuck recently between me and my daughter is about narrating a bed time story. I don’t need to explain how a bed time story telling to young kids influences their imagination & perspectives, but until recently I wasn’t doing this on a regular basis. After giving the routine some space to nurture, I now found couple of distinct benefits of this routine, which probably lasts only 5-10 mins; First, this serves as a great motivating factor for my daughter to get into the bed, a daunting task otherwise. Second, I get this unique chance to improve my story telling to a curious & attentive audience.

I started off with some random cooked up stories, somehow finally arriving at some moral; Be happy with what you have, Don’t be greedy, Be nice to others, etc. It went on well for few sessions, until one day she complained “Papa, why should all stories have a moral?”. She was also right, why should all bed time stories have a moral? It was clear that I had to repackage my story telling to this demanding audience. Although I tried to cook up some stories without moral, it wasn’t going anywhere. And then I switched to proverbs.

What is a proverb? I found this nice definition from the firstcry.com website: “Proverbs, or gems of wisdom, enable people to connect using the wisdom of the past. Proverbs are also used to compel a person to think deeply about the actions. They are extensively used because of their universality where everyone can relate to it very well.”. How is a proverb different from a moral ? Well, I found this on Wiki Diff: “As nouns the difference between proverb and moral is that proverb is a phrase expressing a basic truth which may be applied to common situations while moral is (of a narrative) the ethical significance or practical lesson.” So, moral focusses on the ethics, whereas the proverb is more inclined towards a basic truth. Probably this makes proverb themed stories more simple & appealing.

Since a kid, I have always been fascinated by proverbs. Cute little statements that gives lot of food for thought. All of us have grown up with these gems of wisdom, mostly from our elders. Maybe the language to convey the wisdom differs, but the meaning is applicable to all of humankind. The first proverb I built a story around to my daughter was “A stitch in time saves nine”, story revolving around a little boy who got a small tear in his uniform around the armpit area when he was shooting for those juicy mangoes while walking back home from school. He didn’t inform his mother about the small tear, and everyday it got bigger and bigger until one day it tore wide open while doing some physical exercise at school. A stitch on the first day could have saved him all the embarrassment & inconvenience. Luckily, the point was driven home and my daughter enjoyed the story and the reasoning that went with the proverb; this was a good start.

I moved on to other proverbs like “Little drops of water make the mighty ocean”, “A bird in hand is better than two in the bush”, “All’s well that ends well”, “All that glitters is not gold”, “As you sow so shall you reap”, etc. Most of it was easy to explain, and although sometimes she doesn’t get the practical application in other contexts, she continues to enjoy these proverb themed stories nonetheless. I am not sure how long this curiosity will last. Until then, well, I need to keep finding a new appropriate proverb every night and weave a story around it. Do let me know (in comments section) any proverbs that you might have appreciated growing up or any favorite proverbs that could be interestingly packaged to young ones.