Bedtime Stories: How The Stone Soup Can Teach Kids To Share

Getting little children to willingly share their possessions is a universal parental challenge. And the power struggle is entirely to be expected. 

“Sharing can be a very abstract concept for younger children, especially those who are under four years old,” says Hisnah, an EtonHouse Educator and EtonHouse Community Fund Volunteer. But it isn’t an impossible thing to teach—and an easy way to start warming them up to the idea of sharing is with storytelling. 

Together with Kiss92’s Charmaine Yee on the fourth episode of the podcast series Book Monsters – Bedtime Stories, Hisnah broke down the ways we can teach the young ones to accept sharing and turn taking, through the story of The Stone Soup.

Listen to their discussion here:

This European folk tale talks about a traveller who comes through a village, convincing its wary inhabitants to contribute some of their own food towards making a pot of soup. The traveller then cooks and shares the soup with everyone. 

Make it an impactful beginning

From the get go, the audience learns that the traveller was not welcomed by the villagers, creating an air of suspense, curiosity and empathy around the character, says Hisnah. This presents a great opportunity to draw your child in. 

“Why was he not welcome? Why were the people not happy to see him? What did the traveller want? As a story teller, we need to embrace these questions first before telling the story and helping the children understand why it was hard for the villagers to accept his request (for food and lodging),” she adds. 

Spark their imagination

Reel your little one deeper into the story as it progresses, particularly when the traveller removes a cauldron from his cloak. Other than asking the obvious like, “What’s it for?” or “What’s he going to do with it?”, consider adding an unexpected twist by posing questions such as “What else could he have taken from the cloak?”. This adds tension and interest that encourage the audience to further participate in the story.

Let the kids have a say

“Our role as adults in telling these stories unable us to unpack what sharing means and how it looks like for them,” says Hisnah. Using The Stone Soup as a starting point, you can get the children to talk about how sharing makes they feel, what turn-taking is and how to manage things when they’re not ready to do either of these things. 

“Taking time to discuss and listen to the children’s understanding of sharing or turn taking is very important. It helps the adults to further support the little ones in developing positive social skills,” she explains.

Have an anecdote on hand

To make the lesson behind The Stone Soup even more relatable, Hisnah recommends putting out some of your personal experiences of learning how to share and take turns. “They might go, ‘Sometimes I don’t like to share, and now I realise you didn’t like to share too when you were young! So how did you eventually problem-solve that?’ It’s definitely very interesting to hear their questions and unpack their thinking together,” says Hisnah.

You can catch new episodes of the podcast series Book Monsters – Bedtime Stories every Thursday on Google Podcasts, Spotify or Awedio.