“I don’t want to go to bed!!”
“Can I get a sip of water?”
“But I’m NOT Sleepy yet!!!”
“Can I just stay up for a few more minutes?”
“I’m hungry!”
and my personal favorite “Can I ask you a question?”
Does this sound like your house? It sounds like mine. My oldest child is now ten years old and I am ashamed to admit that I am still doing bedtime battles with all three of my kids (ages 10, 7, 5). I know, I know, just show them who’s boss.
But the reality is… I’m tired! While I function at 110% in most of my daily activities, when it comes to bedtime, I. AM. POOPED. I don’t want to fight and therefore I just let it go. I know, I know, this is completely wrong.
Subliminally I think “Well, if they go to bed late, they will wake up late and then I will have the mornings to myself”… until I realized… I’m too pooped for mornings too. I know, I know… you told me so!
So here I am in the midst of another bedtime battle wondering how am I going to change. Then I thought of the principles that I teach my students in my Becoming a Master Student course and I thought… well write a SMART intention statement. And of course, with any goal, you need to share it. So here I am at 11:53 p.m. at night, telling my kids to go to bed as I write a SMART intention for their bedtime routine.
According to the Becoming a Master Student textbook by the Houghton Mifflin Company your intentions should be positive, small enough to keep yet still make progress, observable, set time limits, ask for assistance of the people they depend on and identify rewards. SMART goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time bound.
My SMART intention: I intend to tuck my kids in bed 15 minutes earlier every night until we reach our goal of 8:30 p.m.. This is relevant to our lives to preserve my sanity and their health. Our target date for reaching this goal is October 11, 2018.
Action Plan: There will be no screen time after 7 p.m.. We will start the bedtime routine with dinner starting 3 hours before the target bedtime. For the remainder of this week, we are looking at around 8 p.m..
Rewards: Together the kids chose a prize that they would get after successfully reaching our target goal for 21 days.
Reinforcement: We will review the benefits of rest each day as as family and integrate a spotlight into our homeschool routine.
How about you? Have you found a way to squash the bedtime battles? I wanna know!
Share your bedtime routine below.
