You know what I’ve noticed? When a child is upset, the first thing most of us do is hand them a screen. Not because we think it helps — because we’re tired. And it’s right there. And it works for ten minutes.

But it doesn’t teach them anything. It just presses pause on whatever they were feeling. And the feeling? It’s still sitting right there when the screen goes off.

Stories are different. When a child hears a story — a real one, told by a real person who pauses and asks “what would YOU do?” — something shifts. They start connecting. Oh, that character felt angry too. Oh, she didn’t hit back, she said something instead. Oh, that’s a thing I could do.

That’s not me making it up. That’s how children’s brains actually work. They learn patterns through stories. They figure out emotions through characters. They find words for feelings they didn’t know had names.

So we started Story Time.