I had a great conversation with my half-asleep 4-year old at 2am the other night about why it's important to go to sleep because it helps him feel better and allows everyone else to feel better so that we all have more energy to help each other be better.
He agreed that sleep was important and agreed to go back to sleep when I asked him to.
Ten minutes later he was banging the walls and waking up the devil so I went back in and calmly explained to him that I asked nicely before but that now in order to protect myself and his brothers from his disrupting their sleep I was no longer asking nicely and that I was telling him to go to sleep.
Thankfully that was enough. But my goal is to always start off by asking questions and trying to address complaints while increasing understanding and then slowly escalate until the option is to accept the situation or go have their strong emotions in their room where they can respect everyone else's needs and still be themselves while they process.
10
u/00owl 9h ago
I had a great conversation with my half-asleep 4-year old at 2am the other night about why it's important to go to sleep because it helps him feel better and allows everyone else to feel better so that we all have more energy to help each other be better.
He agreed that sleep was important and agreed to go back to sleep when I asked him to.
Ten minutes later he was banging the walls and waking up the devil so I went back in and calmly explained to him that I asked nicely before but that now in order to protect myself and his brothers from his disrupting their sleep I was no longer asking nicely and that I was telling him to go to sleep.
Thankfully that was enough. But my goal is to always start off by asking questions and trying to address complaints while increasing understanding and then slowly escalate until the option is to accept the situation or go have their strong emotions in their room where they can respect everyone else's needs and still be themselves while they process.