This series chronicles my Interactive Storytelling bedtime stories with my kids. Today is a chronicle of the short session I had with Rory, my 5 year old daughter.
Chatty: So sweetie, do you want to try making a story like I do with Nico?
Rory: Yes Daddy! I’m going to be Cartain the Warrior Princess that can summons many many many faerie friends! They are all like me!
Okay, so how do we start this?
Well, I’m wearing a beautiful blue blouse… except its a bit dirty.
Because you like to fight so much?
Yeah, Cartain is not always a nice girl.
Okay, what else?
I have a glowing tiara and also a nice skirt… but its also dirty. Start the story daddy.
All right, so you are eating your dinner in the castle when someone knocks at the door.
I call all my faerie friends and we draw our swords!
(Rory does NOT share Nico’s gameplay it seems.)
Chatty: Why do you do that?
Rory: Because its a Dinosaur!
Okay, so the door slams open and a big dinosaur roars!
We kill it with our swords!
Okay, you and all your friends surround the dinosaur and kill it dead. A message falls off, its from the evil gnome wizard Ratintin.
Yeah, he makes dinosaur capsules that he hides and they become Dinosaurs after 1 full day!
That’s quite an ingenious plan… The message tells you that he hid some capsules in the city and that you need to find them before they grow. Are you ready to go and help the city?
Daddy… your story scares me.
(Duh? She creates the dinosaur, kills it, then invents where they come from and now she’s scared of the story… Woah… I was a bit lost. Maybe she was scared I’d start describing what would happen if she failed to arrive in time.)
Chatty: Okay, lets forget about the Dinosaur pills. Lets say that some dogs found them and ate them.
Yeah! When you eat them, the pills don’t work and no dinosaur come out.
Perfect! Are you still scared?
No daddy, I’m good now, can I go to sleep?
Sure you can… I’ll stay with you a few more minutes. Good night sweety.
Good night Daddy.
Rory has a very fertile and unbridled imagination. She loves to create and prefers the actual setting up of a story than playing it out. She’s also brasher than her brother and prone to resolve conflicts by fighting in such stories. I’m sure that when she does play D&D, she’ll be playing Elven Warrior maidens and Barbarian Queens.
I’m not sure I’ll try another story with her soon. I may let her grow up a bit more or maybe go for more classic Disney-type interactive stories (although she’ll probably add Carnivororus Robots and laser axes to even the most mundane story I go for).
Have a great week, I’ll be spending a few evenings
Since she likes setting up, and Nico likes playing, maybe you can train her to play story GM for Nico!
Either way, I wish my dad did this for me when *I* was a kid. And if I ever father children of my own, I can only hope they have as much imagination and enthusiasm as your own. That’s all kinds of awesome in a cauldron.
Haha, very cool!
See, I’m still a bit too young for children, but this is the exact kind of thing I know I’ll be doing as a father.
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@Michael: Thanks for the kudos. That’s a great idea! Although I’ll likely will have to wait a few years since were I to give Rory the job, she’d make stories about princesses and faeries that would likely drive Nico up the wall. 🙂
@Jack: Its totally worth it I can tell you that.
What a lovely post. It’s given me the inspiration to finally put down the well-worn copy of the Billy Goats Gruff – I could repeat it verbatim, I’m sure.
Only one question though, after that kind of ‘exciting’ episode, will they go to sleep?
Cheers.
@Patch: Surprisingly, my kids come down from that ‘high’ pretty fast and settle for sleep within minutes. However I must say that they aren’t the overly excited types either.
Had I ADHD afflicted kids, I’d do the storytelling game during the day, possibly as part of attention focusing exercises.
Awesome! I do the same thing with my 4 little ones (my oldest boy games with me now and he’s not so much into bedtime stories) – but the little ones love it! We once had an ongoing serial story that we all participated in – the tale grew more and more each night and NONE OF US really knew where it was headed! Everyone was so excited for bedtime! 😀
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These things are the definition of Quality Family time. I promised myself that I would see my children grow slowly and never say “where has time gone?”
I love doing this. It takes effort to come up with a story and not stifle your children’s ideas with adult notions of propriety and verisimilitude, but the payoff is so worth it!
Cool! I love how her story scared her 🙂 If you ever investigate further, I’m sure we’re all curious to know if it was your tiny contribution that made the story “too scary” 🙂
Can’t wait to do this with my kids 😛
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“Daddy… your story scares me.”
I actually laughed out loud at this.
Thank you for sharing. It’s so cool that you do this for your kids.
“Lets say that some dogs found them and ate them”
I don’t know why, but I can envision this easily, and I find it hilarious.
Good job by the way, man, I know I always loved participating in stories when I was a kid. As a matter of fact, I still do. Like most people here, I guess.
Don’t worry about the scare; kids – I’d even say people in general – sometimes mix up the story with reality during their immersion and get a bit spooked. It becomes part of the fun, eventually.
It’s not like my nippers are overly active or have ADHD, I was just wondering about how the excitement of the stories might keep them awake. After reading your reply and actually trying the ‘interactive’ approach I can say that they settle down pretty quickly.
Thanks for replying and giving me lots of ideas!
Thanks for the great feedback!
I’m happy that this brought chuckles and ideas to many.
I’m working on the next post!