They design a character based on a person they have known, sometimes borrowing personality traits from one person while using another's physical characteristics. The thoughts and feelings of this character, however, may come from the author herself. Settings may be based on places the author has visited and the situations the character faces may be derived from the author's own experience. Instead, we can tell them how adult authors use their experiences in their books. The autobiographies of such children's authors as Bill Peet, Jean Little, and Beverly Cleary show clearly how their work has been influenced by their lives.
Meaning is more important than mechanics.
We need to let children explain their stories before we begin instruction on mechanics. The conventions of grammar, spelling, and format are important skills to acquire. This interrupts the flow of your story and curbs your enthusiasm for telling it. We speak and write to communicate with others. When our audience seems less interested in our thoughts than in the surface details of our presentation, we feel our story is flawed and we feel personally flawed as well.