Highly Successful Kids

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Comment by Vicki Jardine on June 13, 2009 at 10:44pm

Sleep! It can be so illusive. Generally most people have difficulty getting to sleep, but once asleep, they sleep well enough. Then there are those that just don't sleep well. I am guessing your son Titus falls into the first group as that is the most common. I do not have a medical background, so my advice is purely based on experience with the first condition.

The main thing to do is to create a sequence of events, a pattern that occurs every evening. These events go together in your son's mind and signal to his body that it is time to wind down and prepares his body for becoming restful. It is not just one thing to do, but a few things. And they need to be done in sequence as each event is more peaceful and relaxing when it follows the one before it.

Here are some ideas, but you can probably think of others and you can put them in the order that makes sense to you:

- About an hour or two before bedtime all exciting and rough play should cease.
In their place should be activities that are done sitting down and quietly.

- Many parents use the evening meal to mark the change of atmosphere.

- No contoversial topics to be raised from this point forward. This is not the part of the day where you would bring up negative events of the day or announce any information that could cause tension. The idea is to be tension-free.

- There should also be no violent or emotionally loaded television content after this time...nothing to get the mind or feeling stirred up. You can record appropriate shows that have a calming effect and they can be viewed at this time.

- No video games at this time. These actually cause the nervous system to be on 'high-alert' and super responsive. The complete opposite of what you are aiming for.

- You may want to play music that is relaxing and calming throughout this part of the evening.

- Then you can have some calm activities like coloring, playing with sit-down toys but not something like a boardgame where there is a winner and a loser. If you sit down too and color you may find your son actually looking forward to this time of the day.

- Then about 45 minutes before you want your child to be asleep, you can begin the 'ablutions'...the bathtime, brushing teeth, doing hair, putting clothes in the hamper, putting on pyjamas and getting clothes out for tomorrow.
- Whatever the steps are...these should be highly supervised at first and done in the same order every night.

- Then when everything is done, the lighting should be adjusted to signal the time is close....and then you can read a story to your child. Chapter books are good for this, like the Wind in The Willows as they introduce a variety of characters and a story line that takes time to develop and so the words themselves have a mellodic effect and you can pause now and then and encourage your child to imagine the scene you have just read about.
If you are not able to spend that time, then you can purchase a lot of great children's books on CD and you can pop one of those on for your son. If possible begin by listening with him for a few minutes...cos tomorrow, you just want to drop som comments about the story into the conversation. What you are trying to do is create some explicit anticipation of the story time the next night.

- If you are a parent that is away at bedtime, then you can arrange to record yourself reading a story to your child and he can play that at bedtime.

- You may want your child to pray before sleep. If so, then this should be done before the story.

- After the story, the lights to be very, very dim...or a special colored light bulb can be placed into a lamp. This creates a real hazy effect and can be a final signal.

By the time you completed these steps every night in the same order, your child's brain will come to expect to go to sleep after the story. It might take 2-3 weeks to establish the routine, but if you stick with it, you should find your child being able to go to sleep more easily.

Then you can add various things too, like a special bedtime piece of music or CD or a painting or poster on the wall by the bed that has a lot of detail and can be stared at and can hold your son's attention. It should not be of a person or a thing...but rather a scene.

Your son might like to have bedtime flashlight. But be careful to not allow games to break out at this time. It is just for lying down and looking around with...and feeling secure.

So, I hope these ideas have helped. Just remember that you are creating a habit around 'going to sleep' and setting the stage to help your son relax and be induced to relax enough to be able to drift off more easily.

Let me know how you go with this.

Here's to slumber! Vicki

Comment by WP Allen on June 13, 2009 at 5:58pm

Thanks for this great group. My son Titus is my world and I definitely want him to be as successful as possible. I do have a question about sleep patterns. My son doesn't sleep very well. I have always had the same problem and I use a natural sleep aid named Melatrol but it's not for kids. What do you recommend to help him sleep? I know success can be hampered by lack of sleep. I know I'm not at my best when I lose sleep and I don't want the same for him.