PEARL 3

Bedtime

“Time for bed, sweetie.” You say it every night. And every night you

have to jump through all sorts of hoops before you get any action. It’s
always something: “After this program ends.” “Can I have something to
eat first?” “Read me a story.” “But I’m not tired.” “There are monsters in
my room.” When it comes to finding reasons for not crawling under the
covers, every kid is an Einstein. The fact is, you cannot make children go
to sleep. Their eyes will close and the dreams will descend on them when
their body clocks tell them to. All the parental orders in the world can’t
make it happen.
The sad thing with many parents is that they put their children to bed
simply to get them out of their hair in the evening. These parents say,
“Mommy and Daddy are tired, so it’s time for you kids to go to bed.”
Ideally, the children should be able to be awake and out of their parents’
hair — at the same time. Instead of saying, “This is how much sleep you
need every night,” the Love and Logic parent says, “This is how much
sleep you have an opportunity to get at night because you’re in your
room.” That opportunity can begin at 7:30 or 8:30 or some other time.
Allow the child and your need for privacy to determine the time. This
takes the heat out of the bedtime battle. In fact, it makes it no battle at all.
Bedtime, like many other control issues, can be defused by giving up
control. Parents tend to underestimate children’s need for just a tiny bit
of control. So when they see their kids going for all the control, they
think that’s what the children really want. In reality, all they want is a
little control, not the whole enchilada.