Story Time

Just a note to share the wonder of stories with children. Storytelling by "your mouth" (as I called it when I was little) or reading is just the most magical thing for children and for all ages really. It is magical and transformative and powerful, and you travel the depths of your being when you hear or read a good story. Fairy tales are the start for the Waldorf curriculum, with simple themes for the youngest child, moving to more complexity and richer archetypes. The most important thing to understand when reading fairytales, is that they are ARCHETYPAL, NOT LITERAL. Dragons represent the destructive element for example, and so on. Which, incidentally, is why you should seek the originals, and not the watered down or pc'd versions. What these stories provide is a glimpse into our own inner world without intellectualizing it all and explaining. Also, we are selling a false picture of our own inner world to children if all aspects of all stories are always positive, cheery, fair, etc... A very central teaching of Steiner's is to learn to balance the shadow and the light qualities in oneself. This is a much healthier position than denying, subduing, or cutting off that which is of the shadow side. (More on that another time.)

Explaining and talking at children is too awakening, which brings children into their head prematurely. They need to be in their limbs and active, not still and thinking, that comes later. This is not just an airy, new agey issue, but very much one that relates to our physiology and developing the brain in the healthiest way. (Everything in its right time and right amount). I always encourage you to think of when you were little and someone just talked and talked to you about something. Do you remember how that felt? Think about it now too, when someone just talks to you in a dry, monotonous way...It is rather numbing!

Well, a good story, will be invigorating, inspiring, touching, and more. You know you've touched your child deeply when they work with the story in their play, or drawings, and you should even encourage it. This way, what has touched them, will live in them deeply, and help them grow.

Check out the following link from KYTKA JEZEK'S wonderful website, waldorfhomeschoolers, to read more about Fairy Tales and storytelling:

http://www.waldorfhomeschoolers.com/disneytales.htm