As parents, we often feel that we know what is best for our children. While we certainly do know what is healthy and safe for them, sometimes they know more than we do about what they need at any given time. Dylan reminds me of this at least once every day.
You see, sometimes he tells me that he needs something and I brush it off. I take the usual route of assuming that I know what he really needs and I proceed in the direction of my assumption. A few minutes or a few hours later, I realize that if I had simply given him what he had asked for in the first place, a tantrum or challenging period of time could have been avoided.
I have been getting better about listening to Dylan when he tells me what he needs. I feel that right now is my window of opportunity to show him that I care about what he needs, and that he can trust me to provide what he needs after he tells me about it as long as whatever he is requesting is safe and healthy. For example, at bed time this evening it was clear that he was not ready to go to sleep after our standard three books and a snack routine.
When I asked him what he thought would help him go to sleep, he told me that “playing table” would help. “Table” is a game that Dylan invented a few days ago – it involves me getting onto all fours and pretending to be a table while he places stuffed animals and other things on my back. The real fun comes in when the “table” pretends to be overwhelmed by the weight of the load and collapses in dramatic fashion or fakes a very dramatic sneeze and sends items flying every which way. He laughs heartily and the game begins again. Not exactly what I would call sleep inducing behavior, but that’s what he wanted so I set a timer and we played for ten minutes. After that, he went right to his bed and asked me to cuddle with him. Within ten minutes he was asleep. Had I not listened and tried something else that I thought was more likely to induce sleep, he may not have gone to bed until much later. I am glad that I listened, because he got to bed at a reasonable time without a struggle.