Sending Kids to Bed Early As Punishment Parents Families.com

How many times have you threatened to or sent your kids to bed early for misbehavior? I’ve done it a number of times and I’m sure some of you have done the same. Parents should not use an early bedtime (or nap) as punishment. I know many of you have bedtime challenges with your kids and sometimes sending them to bed early is the only thing you can do to keep your cool.

According to famed pediatrician, T. Berry Brazelton, naps and bedtimes are challenging for kids because they have to separate from their parents and the rest of the world. We want to make bedtime as pleasant as possible to help ease this separation. However, if we use an early bedtime as a punishment our kids will form a negative association with having to go to bed and battles will inevitably ensue.

If you are certain that a child has been misbehaving because he is tired, then it is perfectly okay to send him to bed early. However, make sure he understands that he is going to bed early so that he can rest, not as a punishment. When a child is tired, you probably won’t get too much resistance anyway.

I have been having nighttime challenges with Tyler off and on since he graduated from the crib to a big boy bed. These fights come and go and unfortunately, we’re in a “go” cycle and have been for the past several months. Some nights it takes two hours or more for Tyler to actually settle down and go to sleep- so we’re talking 10:30 or later. Last night I told him he would have to start getting ready for bed at 6:30 if he couldn’t settle down and go to sleep at his designated time (8:30). Now I realize that I need to find an alternative to an earlier bedtime as punishment.

Since he has been out of school for the summer he wakes up later most days so at 8:30 he’s probably simply not sleepy. I read somewhere that an early bedtime is as much for the benefit of the parent as it is for the child. That’s been my stance since I have to work around Tyler’s schedule. If he’s up until 10:00, then I have to work until maybe 1:00 or 2:00. But I can probably save myself the inevitable hassles by adjusting his bedtime to 9:00 and hope that he’ll go off peacefully. And no matter how much I may want to punish him with an early bedtime, I now realize that I may be able to stop the offending behavior temporarily, but in the long run, I will make bedtime hassles worse.