Storytime its supposed to be simple and fun; right? My kids love storytime; me? Not so much, until a few months ago.
Let’s be honest, even though storytime is, according to numerous scientific studies, essential to children’s development and an incredible opportunity for connection with your kids, it is not always simple, let alone fun.
Since I started reading to my kids when they were infants, I could always see the challenges and opportunities to make storytime functional and enjoyable for everyone involved.
Picture this:
Kids are finally ready for bed, fed, bathed, teeth brushed, cozy and calm. But, it is time to read, so we turn the bedroom lights on, which is not the ideal setting for relaxation.
Then, it is time to choose a story, so both my kids start suggesting stories or bringing the books they like, there is running around the hallway, and other lights are turned on.
When we finally settle on a book they both like, they are all excited and winded up; we struggle to cuddle up and start reading.
However, they are restless, trying to look at the pictures and asking questions about every little detail of the image. “Mommy, mommy, could you please go back to the picture with the little kitten” “Mommy, mommy, can I see the funny hat again.” “And again,” “And again.”
Then, they start pulling the book because they “can’t see.”
You see the picture.
Every time that happened, I used to think how great it could be to have the stories on my phone so that I didn’t have to turn on the lights. So I started looking for stories on the internet, trying to find educational stories to help us teach the kids valuable lessons related to the issues or situations we were experiencing at the time. It was so hard to find and select a story that would actually work; we scoured the internet, and most times, I couldn’t find the right one, not even a good one.
Sometimes I would buy expensive children’s books containing only one story and only read them once or twice, which was frankly annoying.
I thought it would be great to have an app on my phone that I could take out at any time, without even having to turn on the lights to read at night, containing plenty of stories categorized by “lesson,” “emotion,” or the most common issues parents experience with their children, such as honesty, effort, sharing, etc.
I started compiling stories with a moral lesson or a clear topic on my phone and categorized them so I could have them ready for when the opportunity presented itself.
From the day I started reading the stories to my kids from my phone, there was no hassle; I held the phone and showed them only one picture to illustrate the story and give them a mental image of the story. There were no distractions, and they stayed put during the stories. It was actually easy and fun!
I thought it could be great to share this transformation with other parents; that is how NiteNite was born. NiteNite is an app for parents with 100+ bedtime stories with a clear moral lesson or learning on how to deal with emotions. Parents open the app, choose a topic and connect with their children while reading a story; kids don’t even realize you are teaching them a lesson.
The app is now live and free to download; it has a free version with a few stories to try and a premium version with all the stories. You can find it in the AppStore for iOS.