Raising a creative and empathetic child: The science behind storytelling
Storytelling isn’t just entertainment; it engages different parts of the brain
Every night, Dubai-based Ketaki Khare, a homemaker, watches her husband reading different fairytales to their five-year-old twins, just before they sleep. Their personal favourite is, Goldilocks and The Three Bears, partly because they pretend to be scared and shriek when their father does the impersonation of a growling bear.
They relish his vivid narrations of the ‘hot porridge’ that the bears cook, the trials of Goldilocks as she attempts to sit on chairs and beds that don’t belong to her, and the final confrontation. “They always ask such fun questions about the fairytales. The other day, they asked whether Goldilocks was ever arrested for breaking into the bear’s house,” explains Khare.
Sometimes, the children want to retell the fairytale too, but with a ‘twist’. What if the evil queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves had accidentally eaten the poisoned apple instead of Snow White? Or how about this: What if Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty all met at the same ball and decided to learn magic from their respective fairy godmothers?
Storytelling contributes to enhancing language development, and teaches them empathy. Through stories, children develop a better understanding of complex emotions and human behaviour, which aids in their emotional and cognitive growth...
These little bedtime rituals and games have ripple effects: They’ve won story writing competitions in school. As Dubai-based child psychologist Victoria Lauren, explains, “Storytelling holds the key to a vivid, flourishing imagination. When children listen to stories, they’re already on an adventure that is far from the confines of reality. They start visualising characters, exercising their imaginative muscles, which allows them explore endless possibilities,” she says. It builds problem-solving skills and the ability to think more creatively.
It also contributes to enhancing language development, and teaches children empathy, adds Zeba Khan, a Dubai-based Mental Health Counselor at Amal Health. It exposes children to diverse perspectives and emotions, helping them develop a deeper understanding of the world. "Through stories, children develop a better understanding of complex emotions and human behavior, which aids in their emotional and cognitive growth," she says.
The power of vocabulary and language
Dubai-based Marissa Frost’s six-year-old daughter Ilsa has a fascination with the word ‘marvelous’, followed by the word ‘splendid’.
As Frost explains, “My husband reads to her every night: It’s a full performance. So he always emphasises these superlative adjectives with an accent, which makes her very happy. Now she uses those words whenever she can. Whenever we ask if she liked her lunch, she answers, ‘It was absolutely splendid’.”
When children listen to stories, they start adding the different words and phrases to their vocabulary, explains Lauren. They start to understand their meaning and learn how to use them in context, she says. “As their knowledge of different kinds of stories increases, their vocabulary becomes richer, and they can express themselves better with clarity and confidence,” she says. They start asking questions about unfamiliar words, which leads to further exploration and vocabulary growth, she adds.
Interactive and elaborate storytelling
Research backs this up too: A US-based 2018 study titled The Influence of Storytelling Method on Children Language Development, published in the National Institute Of Health, investigated how different storytelling techniques can impact children's language acquisition. The study discovered that when children were exposed to ‘elaborate’ storytelling, where the storyteller adds details, explanations, and descriptive language to embellish the story, they showed significant improvement in their vocabulary. It allowed the children to try and at least comprehend the nuances of the story. There was enhanced engagement, as the children were captivated and showed more potential to absorb the language quickly.
In ‘interactive’ storytelling, where the storyteller engages the children by asking questions, the children would answer, in turn, practise speaking more. The research also emphasised that responding to children's questions and rephrasing concepts can help solidify their understanding of the language.
A 2019 US-based study titled Young children spontaneously recreate core properties of language in a new modality explored the connection between storytelling and language development. The study that focused on children creating gestures to communicate with each other, found that children, as young as four years old can invent novel ways to communicate.
This also suggests that over time, these gestures become less reliant on physical representation and more arbitrary. Soon, the gestures grow less tied to their original meaning and take on a more symbolic meaning. In conclusion, children are looking for a more effective way to communicate.
This connects to storytelling, as narrating a story requires creating a narrative structure, using language to communicate ideas, and keeping the listener engaged. In a way, children start inventing a new communication system when they tell a story. It also helps refine their language skills, adds Lauren. “The process of creating and telling stories allows children to practise using language in a meaningful way. They experiment with different words and sentence structures, and are corrected if they use it wrongly,” she adds.
‘So what did Cinderella do next?’ Strengthening cognitive abilities in children
Some parents pause their storytelling to ask their children, “So what did [the main character] do next?” Case in point: Aliah Khan, an Abu Dhabi-based entrepreneur. “Whenever we reach a cliffhanger in a story, I ask them what they think happens next. It becomes a game, and they let their imagination run wild,” she says.
As Saher Khan, a Dubai-based child psychologist explains, “Following a storyline, remembering details, making predictions, and questioning the narrative - all exercise a child's cognitive skills. These mental workouts help solidify memory, critical thinking, and problem-solving abilities.”
Elaborating further, she says that when a child is focused on following a storyline, they retain information in their working memory, and make connections between different plot elements. They start keeping track of all the characters, events, and cause-and-effect relationships in a story. “There are so many characters and places in stories. Children need to remember these details to comprehend the overall plot. This strengthens their memory function, particularly episodic memory, which is responsible for remembering specific events,” adds Khan.
The child imagines about what could happen next. “As a result, they utilise their previous knowledge, try analysing the situation and making logical predictions. It's a form of critical thinking that can help them anticipate future events and solve problems in different scenarios,” she adds. This also fuels the curiosity in a child: They ask more questions about the story and start questioning the character’s motivations or the reason for certain events or even the logic behind fantastical elements.
Storytelling isn’t just entertainment; it engages different parts of the brain. According to the 2018 US-based study, the Neuroscience of Storytelling, brain scans show that listening to stories activates various parts associated with different cognitive skills. As we process the words and sentence structures, the language centre areas are stimulated, aiding in language comprehension. “Following the plot, remembering details, and making connections activate memory pathways in the brain,” adds Khan.
Developing empathy
Dubai-based Sharika Menon’s daughter always tells her mother to skip a tragedy in a certain story, where the character dies. “She cries every time,” recalls Menon.
That’s also the power of storytelling: It encourages the development of empathy, and an understanding of complex emotions such as love, loss and grief. The child takes a walk in the character’s shoes.
As Khan summarises, storytelling, exposes children to diverse perspectives and emotions, helping them develop a deeper understanding of the world. “Stories show characters dealing with difficult emotions like loss, grief, or jealousy. This allows children to explore these complex emotions in a safe and controlled environment, fostering their emotional intelligence,” she says. As they get more enthralled by the narrative, they slowly start viewing the tale from the characters’ eyes. “They start understanding different perspectives. Moreover, they begin analysing motivations. Why did one character behave like this? They begin to understand that people have different experiences and perspectives that influence their behaviour.”