Let’s look at our home and money situation. Do we have a family? And we still want to have some fun-filled entertainment in our lives? We’re tired of watching TV every night, but we’re keeping an eye on the family’s money, and taking the whole gang to the movies is a big change. So let’s go back to a common form of entertainment from the past: reading.
When I was a child, there were no computers at home, but we did watch television. Our way of watching television was not extreme. Saturday morning cartoons as a child are a wonderful memory. But what I vividly remember is my mother reading to me every night. Then I’d read to him when I got a little older and finally, when my reading was proficient enough, I’d curl up in my bed at night, get under the covers and read novel after novel, something I still love to do today. This allowed me to travel to far away places, my imagination being my plane ticket to anywhere I wanted. With other forms of entertainment so readily available today, many people have lost this passion for reading. Perhaps our finances are our main motivation for looking for cheaper forms of entertainment, but there are many more benefits.
- We become proficient in one of the main skills required to function in today’s world.
- Improves vocabulary and conversational skills.
- Entertainment: rarely bored.
- Children and adolescents have a higher IQ when they love to read
- It promotes mental development because it involves concentrating while listening to the radio or watching television requires only limited participation.
- It broadens our perspective. If we read certain kinds of books about different cultures and different countries, we come to understand their histories and thus their lifestyles today. The same can be said of reading our own historical books.
- Books can affect our attitude towards life and thus make our life better if we read the right kind of books.
I tell my kids to read for at least half an hour a day, but that’s good advice for anyone. Everyone has found their own love of reading, but has definitely needed a production here and there. If we have young children, now is the time to start. Read to them when they are babies, as part of the routine, and they will learn to enjoy it. When they start school, reading will have been such a positive experience for them (time with their parents) that it won’t be considered a chore. Rather it will be an imaginative walk or a fun knowledge lesson.
So keep the TV off tonight, go to the library or bookstore or search Amazon if you don’t want to go anywhere, and then find your book, bend over and open up this whole new world.