Since all my kids are now in high school, with the eldest being a senior, bed time isn’t so much an issue any more. They pretty much get themselves to bed and I’ll occasionally catch them taking naps again. Now, curfew is the big battle ground. But, it used to be negotiations and discussions around bed time…
Ultimately, parents get to decide (or should decide) when a child’s bedtime is. This doesn’t mean that you will be able to make them go to sleep, as I wrote yesterday, but you can make sure that they have the opportunity to get an appropriate amount of rest. When my kids were little, it was pretty non-negotiable. Since they are all so close in age, they all had the same bed time, and I decided when that was. In fact, I set the whole evening schedule—dinner time, bath time, story time, bed time, etc. As they got older, however, a little more negotiation came into play.
Part of our bed time decision was influenced my increasing after-school activities. It became increasingly difficult to squeeze in sports and other activities, family dinner, homework, relaxing, bath, etc. and the bed time gradually became a little bit later. By the time my kids were older elementary students, I also let them have a later bedtime on weekends. This didn’t mean they had “no bedtime” but they did get an extra hour on Friday and Saturday nights. Again, since my kids are all just one year apart, we didn’t ever really have any big gap in bedtimes between the three of them. I do know of other families where bed times are connected with specific ages and when a child reaches that age, he or she has his bed time adjusted.
How about in your family—how do you decide and choose the bed times? Who gets to choose—is it purely a parenting decision or do the kids have a say too?
Also: You Can’t MAKE a Child Sleep
Expect Complaints About Chores and Rules
When Your Child Won’t Go to Sleep