When I was a young mom, one of my good friends used to call the period of late afternoon to bedtime the "bewitching hours" because it seemed like everything converged at once. There was dinner to make, homework to complete (or maybe find), baths, and bedtime and it all just seemed like a lot. With all that goes on in the after school hours, it's no wonder that by the time bedtime rolls around, most parents are spent. And yet, often bedtime requires so much of us as parents that it can be tricky to muster up the strength and compassion to move smoothly through this time of night. The good news is that we can take small actions that have a significant impact. Here are a few ideas to help you bring some calm to the bedtime routine.
Implement a rose, bud, thorn bedtime routine to create connection. Often kids want to put off bedtime so they can spend more time with us. After a long day at school or after being with friends, they're looking to feel the comfort that comes with proximity to us. Even if that connection feels chaotic, exhausting, and crazy, it's meaningful to them. Giving kids a few minutes of focused attention goes a long way and rose, bud, thorn is a small strategy that has a big impact. At night, after pajamas are on, teeth are brushed and kids are settling you ask them to share their rose, bud, and thorn for the day. A rose is a fun or happy part of their day, a bud is something they're looking forward to the next day and a thorn is something that was sad, challenging or frustrating about their day. (Feel free to change the order to rose, thorn, bud, if ending with thorn doesn't work well for your child/children). This activity usually takes less than 3 minutes but leaves kids feeling like they've been listened to and "seen." If it works for your family to share these together you can do that or you can check in with each kiddo one-on-one. To start this practice you could say something like "Hey, we've all been so busy lately, I just want to spend a few minutes hearing about your day. I have this activity called rose, bud, thorn, would you be willing to give it a try? Here's how it works: we each share 1 awesome thing from our day, 1 hard thing from our day and then we share something that we're looking forward to tomorrow." Younger kids will usually be so excited to share. Older kids may be reticent but if you consistently ask, they will often open up over time and even offer multiple roses, buds and thorns. When we give our full attention to listening for the 3 minutes, this often becomes a conversation kids look forward to. As a bonus, it's a simple way to help kids talk about feelings and it helps parents keep tabs on how things are going for their kids.
Find your goofy switch. While patience can understandably run thin at bedtime, it can be helpful to notice our frustration and then think of what our humorous self would do. I have a sister who is so good at this. When emotions are running high, she'll get more playful, more ridiculous, and more funny. She'll use different voices, overly exaggerate movements, pretend not to hear something correctly and say off the wall things like "You peed your pajama pants? Oh wait, you said you need your pajama pants." Eventually laughter replaces tense words because her silliness is contagious. Obviously she is sensitive to the specific triggers of each kid and doesn't use humor to humiliate or exacerbate strong emotions but she has gotten really good at creating laughter from tears. Whenever I find my frustration levels rising I think of her and try to find something to share laughter about. At first it was a little uncomfortable to be goofy but it works so well that I use playfulness to lighten the mood all the time now. An added benefit is that we're teaching kids a coping skill as we allow and acknowledge frustration and then shift it into lightheartedness.
Use a mindfulness story to manage worry. As with many kids, when my daughter was little she would worry at bedtime. It can be challenging to deal with big worries all alone and very natural for kids to want an adult brain to help manage those worries. During those years we came up with so many stories about how to manage worrisome thoughts. One story in particular that we used for a while was to think of the worry floating away in a hot air balloon. We'd describe the colors of the balloon, how big the basket was, how high the balloon went and then where the wind took it. By the time we were done the worry was far, far away. For particularly sticky worries, we might need to imagine the balloon taking a few loop-the-loops midair to laugh at the worry trying to stay in the basket. These stories can be used day after day and year after year to help little minds relax at bedtime. Using mindfulness stories is one of my favorite ways to manage bedtime blues. For more mindfulness stories you can use at bedtime and anytime, you can check out this podcast.
Learning to manage frustration at bedtime is like unlocking a parenting level. It takes practice but it's rewarding when it begins to happen more consistently. When we can notice our frustration, accept the discomfort of it and then chose strategies to help us through, we're modeling emotional intelligence for our kids. We're also helping to create connection, joy, and resilience for ourselves and the tiny people around us and those are the kind of moments that send the bedtime blues packing...preferably in a purple polka dot hot air balloon headed to Antarctica.
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