A Little Girl, One Light, and Three Books: Creating Safe Reading Spaces for Children

Mike Reynolds discusses the reasons why parents should always make sure that their kids have safe places to read.

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Growing up, five nights out of the seven in any given week, I’d fall asleep while reading a Care Bears book to the light of my Glo Worm. I didn’t think about too much at the time, but that’s really when my love of reading began.

A few years later, I read my first novel, Jurassic Park, and I haven’t stopped reading (or writing) since. I remember those nights because as a shy child, it was when I was reading books that I’d go on my most daring adventures. With Care Bears at my side, I’d run races, I’d run away from home to realize there’s nowhere better, and I’d float on clouds as the bullies at school learned a lesson in caring.

Reading has long been a huge part of my life and is still something I can use to escape problems, if only temporarily, when it’s sorely needed.

Which is why, when my Eldest first asked if she could stay up in bed a little later than normal with one light and three books, I felt as close as I think I can to feeling like a part of me might just live on forever.

It isn’t necessarily that she likes to read that makes me so happy. She’s only four years old after all and even she will admit that, aside from sounding out the three and sometimes four-letter words, she doesn’t read so much as she imagines a story using the pictures. It’s that she is creating a world for herself where she can go and visit anytime she wants. It might be a world where she flies, a world where she has created a cozy little cave for herself, or it might just be a world where her friends pick her first to play soccer.

I can see at her young age that she’s like me. She’s quiet. She’s shy. She turns molehills into mountains. She’s going to take criticism personally and she’s going to wonder why more people don’t like her and why her friends didn’t laugh when she made that joke in the library.

As a parent, I worry all the time about how she’s going to deal with those things. I wonder why, after I talk to her about troubles she’s having, she still seems sad. Parents can’t singularly make their children happy and as much as it hurts us, we can’t always make sure our children aren’t in pain. I can do my best to equip her with tools to lessen the pain though.

One light and three books are the best tools I’ve given her so far.

I don’t need to know where she goes as she turns her page. I just need to know she has a safe space. Maybe your child has one too. Maybe they paint, maybe they sing to themselves at night. Maybe they line up stuffed animals at the end of their bed the same way every night. And maybe, they don’t need any world to escape to at all.

But if they do, make sure you’re supporting them and helping them expand it, if they need support. One light and three books at a time.

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Originally appeared on PuzzlingPosts.com; Credit: Image—Andrew Braithwaite/Flickr