Our children resist efforts to put them to bed, from birth.
Most parents give in to this resistance sooner or later. By
the time a child is fourteen or even before that, the battle
is usually lost. Teenagers defy the laws of nature by
drinking caffeine or inhaling nicotine throughout their
Yeshiva and Seminary years.
How do we meet the challenge of the pre-teen years until we
capitulate entirely? It is not true to say that there is a
conflict in all homes. In some houses, the children know
their bedtime, and they actually go. What did their parents
do to achieve this bliss? Are their children all born
naturally good? All of them wholly obedient?
Newborn children do not have a set bedtime; toddlers think
that they do not have one either. Some parents who feel they
cannot fight their toddlers, set a bedtime which is so late,
that the child almost, or actually, falls asleep on the
floor. He is far too tired to offer any resistance when
finally taken to bed. This has the disadvantage that the
child is so overtired, that he is bad-tempered and cranky at
a time when he should be in his bed asleep.
Bedtime should not be regarded as an unreasonable rule, which
asks to be broken. It is like bath time and meal times.
Children must learn that they cannot function without enough
sleep. Parents should discuss the subject, just as they
discuss the advantages of `real' food over `junk' food. It is
wise to keep to a regular routine bedtime structure from the
time a child is a toddler. A bottle of milk, or a cup of milk
or water, cleaning teeth, Shema then bed. Pre-school
children as well as older ones, enjoy reading or listening to
a tape in bed. If Mother has time to sit with them and tell
them a story, many enjoy that more than reading to
themselves. Don't forget to warn them that time is up in
five minutes, and that you will then switch off the
light.
Some children, especially toddlers (as mentioned) protest on
principle. If you harden your heart for a short while, this
period will pass. It is fatal to take him out of bed again.
Of course, if the child is sick, you will have to take him
out of bed. But then he will voice his objections to bed
after he has recovered, with renewed vigor.
When children go to bed at the same time each night, their
bodies learn to slow down around that time. Under 12's should
just be informed of their bedtime. Older children can help
calculate their own bedtime, taking into consideration the
time they have to be up, and how much sleep they need.
Once we fix the appropriate bedtime, it is important that
we stick to it. As a child becomes tired, his body must
decide whether it should fight to stay awake, or if it may
relax and fall asleep. If the child begins his bedtime
routine at the right time, his body will allow itself to
unwind and edge towards sleep. However, if the body senses
that sleep is not imminent, it releases stimulants that
combat sleepiness. As these stimulants are released, the
child becomes more and more wound up, bedtime becomes
impossible and we are in for a battle. If we follow the well-
established routine, bedtime should be harmonious.
Some children are afraid of the dark, so it is a good idea to
leave a light from an adjacent hallway. Some children use
delaying tactics regularly. Another visit to the bathroom, a
drink of water, I forgot...
If you start at an early age, you might have a chance of
eliminating these strategies. Make it part of the bedtime
routine. Have you been to the bathroom? At a certain age, it
is wiser to say `Go to the bathroom.' A question will elicit
the answer, `I don't need.'`Go and have a drink NOW.' If he
says he does not want one, say that's fine, but there is no
more till the morning.
Where there are adult children in the house and also little
ones, bedtime is often even more difficult. The little ones
seem to hang around regardless of the time. A howling
protesting toddler will have three wilting surrogate
`mothers,' who will rescue him from his bed at the slightest
opportunity. It is very difficult to combat both the
teenagers and the toddler.
Teenagers who have been taught the importance of enough
sleep, and understand the value of sleep, might still defy
the rules. They might see their parents staying up till all
hours, and notice the dark shadows under Mother's eyes the
next day and every day. They might hear the perpetual "I'm so
tired," and the message will come through: It is quite all
right to disobey these rules. Children imitate their
parents.
One father told me that he puts the onus onto his children at
an early age. If they don't wake up, that is their
responsibility. If they miss the bus, that is their loss.
They will have to walk. If they are late for school, he will
not write them a note of apology. This works on perhaps a few
children, at a certain age, in certain circumstances. A seven-
year-old cannot cross dangerous roads on his own. If the
school is at the other end of town, it is too far to walk.
Some teachers might co-operate with this strategy, others
might just send the child out of the classroom for the day.
(In my opinion, this is a criminal thing to do, but it
happens.) Some children might just stay in bed.
However, this father is not entirely wrong. A woman was tired
of nagging her seven-year-old daughter to get out of bed and
to get dressed in the mornings. The whole day was affected by
this tense beginning. It would have helped if she had just
dressed the child, but she felt that it was the wrong thing
to do for a child of seven. The girl attended an easygoing
school, where teachers turned a blind eye to tardiness.
Furthermore, it happened to be only a five-minute walk from
the house. This mother spoke to the class teacher privately,
asking her to try and inculcate punctuality into her charges.
She also mentioned her difficulty in getting the girl to bed
at night and out of bed in the mornings, and asked the
teacher to help her with the problem. It worked
miraculously.
The child was in bed before eight in the evenings: "Teacher
said that anyone who goes to bed on time for four weeks will
get a prize," and dressed within minutes in the mornings. "I
have to get a star for coming on time." Incidentally, this
particular case made quite a difference to the punctuality of
the whole of that school, because they discussed it at a
staff meeting and decided that punctuality made for a better
day. Teachers can often help where parents fail!
A parent reading this might well say that these things sound
fine in print, but that they don't work in their house. Like
many parenting problems, not everything works the same in
each family. There is nothing to stop parents from making
their own star charts, or using any other form of bribery.
The most important rule is to start the routine when the
children are young, and to daven when they are older
and more opinionated!
