The Cultural Salon organized, in cooperation with Qatar Charity Association, within the activities of Doha International Book Fair in its thirty-second session, a symposium entitled “Choosing the appropriate story for the child”. The dialogue was moderated by Fatima Al-Maadeed, and it hosted the writer Dr. Jabr Al-Nuaimi and the writer Jamila Sultan.
The symposium dealt with children’s stories and the necessity of transmitting values, and containing meaningful, valuable material that attracts the child. The two speakers called for adopting the storytelling method as one of the methods used in inculcating social values, and adopting it as a supportive mechanism in the process of building values in childhood, taking into account five basic criteria, which are: The need for parents to choose a story based on the age of the child, taking into account the diversity of topics, their divisions, and appropriate criteria when choosing, and to be careful to choose a story that the child can understand its content and communicate the required idea.
They stressed on the need for the story to be commensurate with the culture of our society and with the customs and traditions, and not to contradict the system of values, and to choose the story that urges the child to positive behavior and development, with the need to simulate the stories of the real reality in which they live.
Dagbar Al-Nuaimi said that there is no objection to translating foreign stories, but there must be caveats when translating, considering the story as a tool for education and foundation. It must also be taken into account that the story carries content and is not devoid of goals, in addition to the need to interact with the stories so that the educator can convey the value through the story
Jamila Sultan considered that we live in an era of openness and chaos, and we must focus on religious identity, mentioning that we are living in a war to create a distorted and distorted generation, far from its values, morals, and principles of society, but at the same time she warned against isolation, pointing out that through stories the child acquires social values, where his knowledge and attitudes are formed. Thus, this is reflected in his behavior and his dealings with the environment around him, in general, especially since stories of all kinds carry within them certain values that are instilled in children through their perception of the course of events, facts and characters in them.
Sultan advised the educator not to allow the child to acquire books that do not fit our principles, and in the event that this is not possible, care must be taken to read the story in the presence of the educator in order to compare between right and wrong and what should be and what should not be, so that the child develops the ability to criticize and compare.