The Most Effective Teaching Stories Don’t Have Morals

Source: http://www.best-childrens-books.com/stories-with-lessons.html

Stories with Lessons:
Learn What the Character Learns

Stories with Lessons – What You As a Parent Should Know

Parents, I’m going to share with you a secret we writers usually keep to ourselves. It’s one of the first things we learn from our fiction teachers and mentors. Are you ready?

Stories that convey a lesson are most effective when they don’t tell the reader what the lesson is.

It’s true! We even have a fancy word for stories with lessons that try too hard to convey their message. The word is “didactic.” It means, “preachy.” (In a bad way.)

What does this mean to you, the parent? Well, the first thing is that fables with morals usually are not the best way to convey a story with a lesson to your child.

The power of fiction

Aesop had a real genius for boiling a message down to a simple paragraph, and his better fables are still good for that. But has a child ever been moved by one of Aesop’s fables? Has a child ever asked to hear one of Aesop’s fables (and learn it) again and again? Probably not.

The power of fiction lies in its ability to get the reader to identify with the hero.

We cheer for the hero. And the lessons he (or she) learns are lessons that we learn. But here’s the thing…

The hero needs to learn from experience. If someone simply tells him the lesson he’s supposed to take from his adventure…

It feels like he didn’t learn it. It feels like he had to be told it. Imagine how much inspiration your child would take from a story that ended like this:

“And so Billy did exactly what his parents told him to do, even though he didn’t want to and he thought they were wrong. The End.”

We fiction writers have a phrase we all throw around just to remind us to write stories that demonstrate our message instead of just stating it outright. We say, “Show, don’t tell.”

It makes sense if you think about it. If a hero does what he’s told to do, instead of choosing to do the right thing for himself, it’s not much of a lesson. We don’t know if he learned it, or if he’s just following orders!

Your children take a lot of orders

It’s a natural function of not being old enough to take care of yourself. But that doesn’t mean they like it! And they certainly like learning for themselves more than doing what they’re told to do. When children make good choices on their own, they feel good about themselves.

When their choices are forced upon them, they’re naturally resentful.

Good fiction features heroes making good choices because they want to. And those are the characters your child is most likely to learn from and want to follow in the footsteps of.

If, as a parent, you’re looking for stories that teach a lesson, here’s what you should be looking for:

1. A hero your child can identify with
2. The hero is facing problems that seem familiar to your child
3. In the end, the hero makes a choice you would want your child to make!

If your child is struggling with any of the issues listed, you can rest assured that my stories with lessons are written to provide your child a message that will hit home without you needing to say what the lesson is.

Your child probably already knows how you want him or her to behave! The power of fiction lies in providing an inspirational character who makes your child want to behave that way.

Now you know!