A New Year's Resolution: Read to your Child Everyday

My New Year’s Resolution

Once again December has ended and it’s a new year. Each year I feel like it moves faster and faster. I feel like this whole decade flew by. Before we know it it’ll be 2030!

This time of year means it’s resolution time! When I was younger, my resolutions were always physical: losing weight, exercising more, taking better care of my skin, etc. But as I get older, I tend to focus more on ways to improve myself mentally and spiritually, and less about the physical improvements.

I want to share my personal 2020 New Year’s resolution, and talk about why it might be a good resolution for you and your family as well.

My New Year’s resolution is to read to my daughter every day. Doesn’t have to be a lot, but I will make it a priority to carve out a time to spend with her. She’s two now and we’ve gotten out of the habit of a bedtime story. When she was a tiny baby I was great about reading to her every night. It’s easy to have grand aspirations when your baby is so fresh and you are too and you want to be the perfect parent. But parenting is hard and we stopped reading every night and lost that habit. I want to instill a love of reading in her.

Reading to young children is so important and I’m excited to start this journey with my daughter and be able to help her expand her knowledge and grow as a person through reading.

In this article we’ll go over why reading is so important to children, how to start reading to your child, and probably most important, how to stick with your resolution all year long. I’ve also included several book recommendations to get your resolution started!

Why is reading to young children so important?

Develops learning skills

We all know that reading to your child is important, but why exactly?

Reading helps your young child learn and grow. Reading stimulates the child’s imagination and expands their understanding of the world. Reading helps explain their world to them, and shows them new worlds to explore. (Typing that just gave me a flashback to Reading Rainbow!)

Reading helps develop your child’s language and communication skills. Even after your baby can read on their own, reading aloud can help expand their vocabulary, and expose them to beautiful stories that are beyond their reading level.

Promotes quality one-on-one time with your child

It’s important to make reading a priority because it promotes quality one-on-one time with just you and your baby. It’s a moment with mommy or daddy all to themselves, when you can focus on them instead of being pulled five different directions with your phone and work and laundry and just everything. When you read to your child they are getting your full attention. Life can get so busy. Take a moment and put your phone down and just be with your child for ten minutes. Those ten minutes together reading a book will show them that they are an important part of your life, and that they are a priority.

And of course, it’s a great opportunity for snuggles! The older my baby gets, the less she wants to snuggle so I grab those precious moments while I can!

The Importance of Routine

Children love routine. (I love routine! It makes life easier. Have you ever taken the Myer’s Briggs personality test? There’s a certain personality type that loves routines. I never remember which one I am, but I remember that I’m an introvert and I love routines! INFJ perhaps?)

A routine makes me feel like I’m in control of my life and that I know what I’m doing. No matter what other crazy stuff is happening, if I know that grocery shopping is Sunday morning than all is well.

Not all adults prefer a routine, but whatever your personality type, as a child, you loved routine. Children thrive with a routine. Their world is so big and new, routine shows them stability. A routine brings consistency and comfort, and a sense of security. No matter what else might be happening in their lives, it is comforting to know that at the end of the day they will get some time to spend time with their parent.

Better Sleep

And a bonus – Studies show that a bedtime routine can help your child sleep better. What more is there to say?!

HOw To Start REading to Your Child

When Should I start reading to my baby?

When is the best age to start reading to your child? At just a few months old, your child can listen to your voice, look at pictures, and point at things in the book. Reading to infants is a great way to expose them to the rhythm and sounds of speech, which is essential for language development. Babies recognize their parent’s voices very early in life. Reading is a great way to create a bond between you and your baby.

But even earlier than that, some studies suggest that reading or talking to your child while still in the womb is beneficial to the child’s language abilities. A study by B.S. Kisilevsky about reading to fetuses before birth states that:

“These findings provide evidence of fetal attention, memory, and learning of voices and language, indicating that newborn speech/language abilities have their origins before birth. They suggest that neural networks sensitive to properties of the mother’s voice and native-language speech are being formed.”

This shows that it’s never too early to start reading to your baby!

create a habit

A study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology found that it takes more than two months (66 days to be exact) before a new behavior becomes automatic. This means that you need to repeat this new behavior for approximately two months before it becomes a habit. Once that habit forms, it becomes part of your life and makes it much easier to stick with a resolution.

Everyone knows it’s easy to follow your resolution in January and possibly a little into February. If you go to a gym you know the gym is packed those first couple weeks of the year! Come March and the gym is deserted. If those gym members could just stick it out through March, they’d have a much better chance achieving their resolution the rest of the year.

Stick with your daily reading for at least two months. If you can make it that far, odds are you will create a habit and it will become easier for you to stick with it the whole year.

how to stick with your new year’s resolution

Here are some tips to stick with your resolution all year long.

go to the library

Take a trip to the library and stock up on books for the week. Choose new and different books to avoid boredom and find new interests for your child.

let your child chose the book

Gives them a sense of empowerment and choice in a world where they don’t yet have a lot of choice.

integrate reading into other activities

If you have an event coming up, like a trip to the zoo, grab a book about zoo animals like Goodnight Gorilla, or Curious George at the Zoo. This will increase their excitement about the trip. Even if they are still a baby, they can looks at pictures of animals and recognize them later!

read yourself!

Show children that reading is a lifelong passion. Maybe start a New Year’s resolution for yourself to start reading.

some great books to get started

Here are some great books that I’m using to get started on my New Year’s journey:

Thanks for reading! I wish you all a happy new year, and best of luck with whatever resolutions you may have.

Come back every Monday and Friday for new posts about book reviews, recommendations, and more. Also check out my first post, Essential Books for Your Newborn’s Library, for a list of books that should be in every child’s first little library! Thanks for stopping by!

A New Year’s Resolution: Read to your Child Everyday