I'm Bill Corbett, the author of the book LOVE, LIMITS & LESSONS: A PARENT'S GUIDE TO RAISING COOPERATIVE KIDS and I've spent over 25 years working with parents and teachers with children with challenging behaviors. How would you like to have your children in bed on time most nights and to STAY in bed? Then you're going to enjoy listening to the solutions I have to offer in this episode. It's bad enough that we parents are soooo tired at the end of the day. And if the bedtime routine that you've been dealing with, seems to go on for hours, parenting in your home could be a nightmare with endless yelling. As in most pareting tips that I offer, success with your kids means setting things up in advance is key. Successful routines start with rules, boundaries and patterns that children can follow. So when you're creating routines, you'll be more successful with your children if you practice them with the kids in advance and as often as you can. Children learn by watching and then participating in somewhat of a practice or make believe mode. You won't be very successful if you suddenly spring a change on them without warning. It's normal for them to resist because change feels uncomfortable for them. It's uncomfortable for anyone, even adults. So you'll be more successful with anything you've learned in this podcast if you set up practice runs with the kids so they will expect new routines to happen. In this episode I'm reading a chapter from my book, Love, Limits & Lessons: A Parent's Guide to Raising Cooperative Kids. It's available in paperback, kindle and now on Audible. Whether children should be allowed to sleep in bed with their parents or in their own is a personal choice for the adults involved. I can quote experts and present evidence-based data to support both sides of this discussion. This article offers suggestions for those parents who have decided not to practice family bed sharing and who need help in getting the kids to their own beds and remain there. Bedtime can be a very stressful time of day for families. Parents and children come together after a tiring day of work or school and yearn to reconnect with each other. While parents do want that reconnection, they also see an evening full of tasks that must be attended to before they can truly unwind and relax. But with all those dinner, homework and cleanup tasks that must be accomplished, it becomes difficult to allow that reconnection to occur as it should. Oftentimes, the children feel frustrated, sensing that their caregivers aren’t there 100%, so they express the frustration even further through misbehavior and a lack of cooperation. When bedtime arrives, it can take an hour or more just to get the kids into bed and to remain there. By the time they do, parents are exhausted and dreading having to do it all again tomorrow night. Keep in mind that children don’t like to go to bed because it means the end to their day and more importantly, the end to their time with parents. They also seem to have this sense that a party begins once they are put to bed and don’t want to miss out, so they will do whatever they can to delay it. To help with this process, here are 10 things parents can do to make bedtime work more effectively. Six Preparation Steps for the New Bedtime • Allow your child to find some way of personalizing her room. From picking out a new lamp shade to an entirely new paint scheme, letting her be as creative as possible will help her feel as though the room really belongs to her. • Keep bedtime consistent and on time. Determine what bedtime will be going forward and announce it to the children. If an event or activity causes a late night, don’t let the plan fall apart. Reinforce the boundary the following evening and keep moving forward. • Create a checklist of all bedtime activities that must be completed in the half hour or hour prior to bedtime. Allow them to help you make the list and then post it for all to see. For toddlers and preschoolers, create large drawings or cutouts to represent each activity and tape them at the child’s eye level on a wall in sequence. • Minimize the number of toys kept in the children’s bedroom. They are able to fall asleep best when there are few distractions in their rooms. • Avoid allowing your children to have entertainment electronics such as televisions, DVD players, computers, or video games in their bedrooms. • Purchase a visual timer to manage the schedule of bedtime activities. Four Steps for Implementing the New Process • On the day you decide to begin the new process for bedtime, make an official announcement that you’re going to do some different things at bedtime tonight. Be sure to get to the kids eye level and use an exciting tone of voice when announcing the change. Say to them, “Starting tonight, once you’re ready for bed and I have tucked you in, I can’t speak to or look at you until morning.” For younger children, ...
