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There are 168 hours in a week. On average this is how our children spend these hours:
6.5 hr school x 5 days = 32.5 hours
4-9 hr media consumption x 7 days = 45.5 hours (avg)
2-3 hours extracurricular fun x 7 days = 20 hours
8-10 hours sleep x 7 nights = 63 hoursTotal: 161 hours
In total, a child is occupied for 161 hours a week.
This leaves you 7 hours of unoccupied, intentional parenting spread over 7 days. Not including homework…..
By the time you’ve even thought of how to spend time with your kids the clock has run out. We are left minimal time for quality family interactions. When do you fit in bonding, teaching and modeling?
While decreasing media consumption is a fantastic option to allow more time, there is a supplementary solution. One which you can start right now, regardless how your daily schedule looks: read-aloud to your children.
Parents stop reading stories to their children around 4th grade and immediately children’s desire to read themselves plummets. In Kindergarten their interest in reading outside of school is 100% but by 4th grade this drops to 54%
Brave Parenting looks different. Prioritizing a read-aloud story for children of all ages, yes even high schoolers, looks different. The benefits for continued reading are huge: higher grades and test scores, better attention and focus, and higher character.
Characters from books help teach valuable characteristics you desire to impress upon your children but can’t always find the time or mental space for. They will take readers/listeners to those exact situations. Rich discussions await as you learn together.
The quiet space where you read with your child you will achieve 3 parent/child relationship needs:
- You spend quality time with your child
- Your interactions are purposeful and memorable
- You’re teaching valuable person-defining characteristics that could change their life.
Read to them. Spend time with them. Teach them. Build their character, activate their minds, and bond with them.
Brave Parenting has created a CHARACTER DRIVEN READ-ALOUD book list.
If you desire to build these character traits in your child, this is where you can begin!
You can Download the PDF or we’ve given you links straight to Amazon here:
Elementary
Waiting is Not Easy! by Mo Willems
Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Krause
Middle
The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Greek Myths: A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys by Nathaniel Hawthorne *The Chimaera story
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIHM by Robert C. O’Brien
High School
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Elementary
Miss Nelson is Missing! By Harold Allard
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
Middle
The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall
High School
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Elementary
A Sick Day for Amos Mcgee by Phillip C. Stead
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
Middle
The Courage of Sarah Noble by Alice Dalgliesh
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
High School
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Elementary
he Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Anderson
Aesop’s Fables: The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Middle
Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White
High School
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Adventures of Huck Finn by Mark Twain
Elementary
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff
The Berenstain Bears get the Gimmes by Stan and Jan Berenstain
Middle
Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary
The Lord of the Rings by J.R. Tolkien
High School
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Elementary
Aesop’s Fables: The Tortoise and the Hare
Aesop’s Fables: The Vain Jackdaw
Middle
Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
The Wind and the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Greek Myths: A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys by Nathaniel Hawthorne * The Golden Touch
High School
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Elementary
The Beautiful Oops by Barney Saltzberg
Middle
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
High School
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
