By Puja Gupta

New Delhi, Jan 19 (IANSlife): Bedtime stories for toddlers are no less of a golden opportunity to build and nurture your relationship with your child. This becomes further crucial for working parents who do not get the entire day to spend with their kids.

According to psychologists, while bedtime stories help forming a very good bond between kids and their parents, it also benefits the child in numerous ways like enhanced imagination and creative thinking, wider scope of knowledge, fun learning, better communication and problem-solving skills.

However, many parents, especially the new ones, struggle to understand as to how to fabricate bedtime stories more engaging, fruitful and magical for their young ones. Author Apurva Bhuta suggests five ways you can use to reap better results:

Interact with your kids: When you are away from your kid the entire day, the first thing you should do during their bedtime is interact with him/her. As a parent, you should make it a habit to discuss with them about how their school and overall day was, what new things they learned today etc. Basically, build a process where they are heard. This will help you understand your child better. It also will assist them to open up to you. Ask them what kind of stories they would want to hear and then narrate the ones they like..

Get into the characters: If you really want your child to enjoy bedtime stories, you must get into the characters of the story. Merely reading makes the activity of storytelling monotonous and boring. If you take the efforts of getting into the characters, your child will take more interest in listening and paying attention, as a result they will start to enjoy your narrations, enabling them to have a vivid imagination.

Become their friend: If you want to build a healthy relationship with your kid, it is important to gel with them. Transform yourself and become a kid like them. Act like a friend they could relate with so that they can actually enjoy the story before falling asleep.

Talk post narration: Your bedtime story should not end as the story ends in the story book. The real benefit of bed stories could be reaped only if you hold a discussion with them about the story. Talk to them about the story, what they learnt out of it. The purpose of the bedtime story is to inculcate good values in your kids such as honestly, humbleness, kindness. The best way to do so is to teach them the difference between right and wrong in a story format.

Put emphasis on education: Lastly, teach them the importance of education. Through the examples in the stories, show them how important it is to acquire knowledge and to educate oneself through the habit of reading. You must highlight the traits of an intellectual who is wise enough to face any situation which life has to throw forth.