Dani Garavelli: Parenting by the book

Published on Saturday 28 February 2009 18:47

AS ANYONE who has glanced at this column more than once will know, I can be a bit haphazard when it comes to parenting.

I'm not very good at remembering to pack my children's gym kits; the clipping of toe-nails is so far down my list of priorities, they can have grown all the way down to the floor and be etching lines in the linoleum before I even notice; and I don't think I have ever responded to a bump on the head by running across a room with a pack of frozen peas or a tub of arnica in the solicitous way more adequate mothers do.

But one thing my husband and I have always done is read to our children. Even when we both worked long hours and even when we were so tired our eyelids drooped and our words became slurred, we made time for a bedtime story, not because – like teeth-brushing – it was something we knew to be beneficial, or because we wanted to breed a litter of prodigies, but for the sheer, self-indulgent joy of it.

What could be more rewarding after a stressful day than snuggling up with your babies and retreating to an imaginary world?

This is why last week's Scottish Book Trust survey left me baffled. Commissioned to promote the new children's TV show Bookaboo, the study claimed most fathers are "too busy" to read to their children.

And it was just one of a succession of reports alleging parents today are so harassed, they can't find a 15-minute window in their lives to pick up a book. As if reading to their children was another chore to be fitted in along with putting the bins out. And as if they don't find those 15 minutes to pursue other leisure activities, such as cracking open a beer, nattering on the phone or watching a reality TV show.

It's not as if reading to your children requires a great deal of you: it's not physically taxing like taking them swimming or to the park; it's not noisy like cops and robbers; or potentially tantrum-inducing, like a game of Monopoly. And, unlike baking or colouring in, there's no tidying up afterwards. In fact, since all it involves is sitting on your bahookey and talking, telling your children a bedtime story is probably the least labour intensive way to bond with them.

The educational benefits of reading to children are self-evident: it wakens their interest in literature, improves their vocabulary, and provides a starting point for conversations about the world around them. But it has more practical applications too: a good book can be used to subdue young revellers high on E-numbers, or to divert their attention from quarrels over such life-or-death matters as who left the lid off the green felt pen.

Reading a story out loud is the most effective way for anyone with toddlers to breast-feed a new baby, and it's one of the few things capable of luring techno-kids away from their consoles. Most compellingly, as children grow older, and their days fill up with homework, clubs and sleep-overs – it creates space for you to spend time together – and a common point of reference in your increasingly separate lives.

If reading is a good way for mothers to bond with their children, then surely it is equally important for dads, who – in the early days at least – have fewer opportunities for intimacy. Indeed, the less time fathers have at home, the more important it becomes, because then it's not just a fun way to while away time, but their only means of forming an independent relationship.

My husband and I started reading to our oldest son when he was just a few weeks old – and are still reading to him now he's 11. We have seen him – and then his brothers – progress from Horrid Henry through Michael Morpurgo to quasi-adult tomes such as The Book Thief. Being read to helped spark the eldest's interest in the Second World War and his sense of social justice.

There have been downsides, of course. There were the 65 days in a row, football-crazy son number two wanted Michael Foreman's The Wonder Goal. It's a lovely book, but believe me, by the time you're in your sixth week of watching the hero score his wonder goal in the World Cup final, you can't help wishing he'd suffer an injury that would end his career. The same son's penchant for the scatological – best illustrated by his love of Captain Underpants And The Attack Of The Talking Toilets – could also be a bit trying. But there have been many highlights, chief among them the weeks spent devouring the Harry Potter books and then re-enacting scenes involving Dobby the house elf with the aid of an old tea towel.

Over the years, I have tried to introduce my children to books I loved when they were read to me (often against their will. What boy his right mind wants to listen to Anne Of Green Gables?).

But once in a while they have embraced them with as much enthusiasm as me and then it's like bequeathing a precious family heirloom that must be nurtured and passed on to their own children when the time comes.

Having their dad on board caters for another side of their personalities: the side that loves swashbuckling and derring do and has the added advantage that I don't have to pretend I am interested in such piffle.

Since the time I waded through Charles Higson's SilverFin we have had operated an informal system: I am responsible for Narnia, Harry Potter, Michael Morpurgo and anything to do with war children being evacuated to crumbling stately homes; he deals with fast cars, football and the – to me – incomprehensible Alex Rider series.

For my husband and I reading aloud is as much an excuse to relive our childhood in the company of our sons as it is a means of enriching their lives, but they've never asked us to stop, so I guess they enjoy it as much as we do. Now, where did I put those blasted nail-clippers?