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Home
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How to Deal With Nightowls
by R. Chadshai
I am a mother of five children, the oldest of whom is
seven and a half and the youngest, a year old. The oldest,
and his five-year-old sister, are in the habit of waking up
at night and crawling into my bed. I have tried many
different ways to wean them, through rewards and punishments,
but have only had temporary successes. My son is intelligent
and independent, but of a very sensitive nature and is afraid
of the dark. My daughter is not lacking in self confidence,
but is somewhat spoilt. I don't know what they have to be
afraid of, since all the children sleep together in one room,
close to my bedroom, and I take time out to put them to sleep
every evening. But due to the nighttime visits, I wake up in
the morning exhausted and would like your advice on this
problem.
T., from one of the out-of-town housing projects.
Yours is an all too common problem from which both parents
and children suffer. It is clear that children need help in
overcoming it, the sooner the better. It is also obvious that
it needs a combined, concerted effort on two sides.
So long as you identify and sympathize with their fears, you
will perpetuate this behavior. Manipulation through fears is
one of the classic examples of the means children employ to
get their parents' attention or to get their way. Similar
ones are tears, bedwetting, becoming lax at school, etc. If
parents fall into this trap and capitulate to unjustified
demands, such undesirable behavior will only worsen.
You did not note your husband's position, but we can conclude
that he is not overly affected by it, probably because he
does not take the night-fears seriously. This, too, is
typical: the mother takes them overly to heart and the father
is indifferent and unaffected.
If you sincerely wish to call it quits, you must establish
limits, hard-and-fast rules. Leave out your emotions and
sympathy. You, yourself, admitted that your daughter was
spoilt. If you show that you are unmoved by their fears by
putting your foot down and forbidding them to come to you at
night, you will actually be helping them to help themselves
get rid of this habit.
At bedtime, gently but very firmly, convey a no-nonsense
message, without any hint of anger in your tone, that whoever
comes to you will immediately be taken back to his own bed.
You may even wish to lock your bedroom door to prove how
determined you are.
Good luck and good night.
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