Children's books
feed the minds for the future
Every generation has its questions about where they come from and where they are going and throughout our lives self-confidence, creativity, problem solving, dealing with change, and using our imagination are the crucial skills that we begin to develop from the books and stories that are read to us as children. It is from here that children, sometimes unknowingly, learn new skills that begin to shape their lives. Our parents form the building blocks of these skills and help lay the foundations on which we grow and build a stable identity and personality.
The future of children being born today is far less fixed and perhaps answering “who am I?” will be a more complicated question than before. The future could be one of more disruption of the norm, it will certainly be a future of fast-moving change as technology and science evolve. It is even more important that children are brought up to be adaptable, creative, adventurous and to question what they see as the norm around them.
In the years before school the teaching of life’s skills falls upon parents. Interaction with any child during their formative years via games, children books, songs, plays and any other fun activities will pay immense dividends in the future for both the parents’ relationship with their child as well as for the future success of the child.
As a father of four children I now realise how my influence has had such an enormous effect on how my children are as adults. I taught them to be inquisitive and to ask questions, even those that I sometimes found difficult to answer or explain. I taught them how humour can be both a fun thing and how it is used by some as self-defence. If humour is used wrongly it can harm those around them, it can drive others to despair and so humour must be taught to be used wisely.
So how do parents enhance the life building skills that will help their children to have a happy fulfilling life?
Skills like mental flexibility and emotional balance are far more difficult to develop in a book or in a class but they start from the first day that you start reading books to your child and telling them about the world. The goal is to nurture and grow an individual who knows themself and what they want from life and who can ultimately find meaning in their work.
As well as being fun animal books the Crush series was designed to help parents grow the many skills that lie dormant in their child. These children’s stories take the child from their bedroom to a world where animals from all over the world live and they explore different characters. From the jungles of Africa to the jungles of India, from the desserts of Australia to the South Pole, each book has a different set of characters that will open the wider world up to a child. By reading to a child every day it will expose them to a whole new world.
In the years before school the teaching of life’s skills falls upon parents. Interaction with any child during their formative years via games, children books, songs, plays and any other fun activities will pay immense dividends in the future for both the parents’ relationship with their child as well as for the future success of the child.
As a father of four children I now realise how my influence has had such an enormous effect on how my children are as adults. I taught them to be inquisitive and to ask questions, even those that I sometimes found difficult to answer or explain. I taught them how humour can be both a fun thing and how it is used by some as self-defence. If humour is used wrongly it can harm those around them, it can drive others to despair and so humour must be taught to be used wisely.
So how do parents enhance the life building skills that will help their children to have a happy fulfilling life?
Skills like mental flexibility and emotional balance are far more difficult to develop in a book or in a class but they start from the first day that you start reading books to your child and telling them about the world. The goal is to nurture and grow an individual who knows themself and what they want from life and who can ultimately find meaning in their work.
As well as being fun animal books the Crush series was designed to help parents grow the many skills that lie dormant in their child. These children’s stories take the child from their bedroom to a world where animals from all over the world live and they explore different characters. From the jungles of Africa to the jungles of India, from the desserts of Australia to the South Pole, each book has a different set of characters that will open the wider world up to a child. By reading to a child every day it will expose them to a whole new world.
For millions of years the reality of life is that animals need to eat to survive. In the Disney epic, The Lion King, everything is connected, and everyone depends on someone else and every action has its own consequences. This reality is sensitively handled in the stories where no animal is ever hurt. The rights and wrongs of hunting are raised allowing parents to explain why some forms of hunting may be wrong but that sometimes hunting is necessary to stay alive and to survive.
The Crush books also reveal the diversity of life, which is important in a world where children should feel relaxed about different races and the variety of cultural traditions and family structures that exist in the countries where the books are based. Exposing children to diversity will prepare them for life in a truly diverse world. We do not just pass on our genes to our children we have a responsibility to teach them to become a more balanced human being ready to do good and to treat others with respect.
Parents who are prepared to roll around on the floor imitating the animals in the books will receive the benefits of positive interaction with their children and connect with them in a closer more intimate way. Pulling a fish face, waddling like a big hippo, bouncing like an excited monkey, or slowly hunting your child like a crocodile will make a child laugh. The laughter of a happy child is worth its weight in gold and will stay with them for a lifetime.
In this fast changing world the idea of leaving school going to University and training in one narrow field of work may become a thing of the past. Children will need to be creative and adaptable as work and life change at a pace not seen since the Industrial Revolution.
Feeding the imagination of your children may give them an edge in life. Using children books to feed their creativity may make them more adaptable in this ever-changing world. Children will need to be able to cope in a world where humans will compete with artificial intelligence and algorithms, fast learning developments that are getting to know humans better than we know ourselves.
Can a little book from The Crush Series really make a difference? We like to think that in a fast changing world, where small differences could mean the difference between adapting confidently to the future or getting stuck in the now, that we can help to give children a spark that ignites the firework which is their individual imagination and that from this their future development will be positive and happier.
The characters in the books will soon come to life as children’s toys and children will be able to hold their favourite characters and imitate them. As their parents read to them genuine parent and child bonding and play will happen and they can develop something more tangible.