Last week, I shared a simple experiment that I used to learn how much sleep I need. Getting enough sleep dramatically improves my connection with my family and the quality of our family home evenings and scripture study. This week, I’m sharing how I’ve helped my kids learn how much sleep they need in a way that was an enjoyable experience for everyone.
I based these steps on Marshall Rosenberg’s method for “Non-violent Communication” which I’ve also heard called “Compassionate Communication: a Language of Life and Love”. I also added the contract idea from a book on parenting by Monty Roberts, the Horse Whisperer, called “Horse Sense for People”. I’ve found that connecting and then making contracts works really well for my family.
You can definitely use your regular FHE time to talk about health and sleep. Ask the kids how they feel when they don’t get enough sleep and how they feel when they do. Share some of your own experiences with sleep deprivation versus getting enough sleep. See if you can get them thinking that getting enough sleep is a really good thing. Then tell the kids that you’d like to discover how much sleep they need. Ask if you can talk to each of them one-on-one to decide how to figure out how much sleep will make them feel great.
Here’s How I Did It
First, I set aside quite a bit of time to talk to each child so I could focus without interruption or distraction. Second, I made sure the other kids were busy with something for a while. Third, I checked in with myself to make sure I was feeling positive and would approach my children with love.
Step 1 – Connecting, Setting Up for Success
- Starting with my oldest girl, I told her I was concerned about how our mornings were going and I gave her specific details from that morning. “This morning when your alarm went off, you stayed in bed and didn’t get up for another fifteen minutes. Then you stomped around and glared at your sister and slumped in your chair during breakfast and talked about how frustrated you were because you were going to be late.”
- I told her how sad I was that our family wasn’t enjoying each other in the mornings and I wanted to help our family have more happiness and harmony and cooperation in the morning.
- I asked her how she would like the mornings to be and she told me she would like everyone to be happy and be ready to go to school on time.
- Then I asked her if she felt she was getting enough sleep. She said, “No.” I asked if she thought she’d feel better and our family could enjoy the mornings more if she got enough sleep and she said, “Yes.”
- I asked her how she felt in the mornings generally and gave her a list of words to help her describe how she felt without criticizing or blaming other family members for her grumpiness in the morning. (This is good practice for taking personal responsibility.) She picked the words that best described her feelings and we talked about how she felt for a while. One feeling that really stood out was “frustrated”. She felt frustrated because she was tired and then she was late getting up. She was also very frustrated that she was often ready on time but her younger sister wasn’t.
- I asked her what she felt she needed and gave her a list of needs to help her describe her needs without blaming or criticizing others in our family. (More personal responsibility practice.) She said she needed sleep, support going to bed and getting up on time, and support leaving on time.
Step 2 – Strategizing for Success
- I asked her what time she thought she needed to go to bed and get up in order to get enough sleep. Interestingly, she named the exact times I had previously thought would be best so I didn’t have to tell her what time to go to bed and get up, I was able to just agree that I thought those would be good times to experiment with. Big difference.
- Then we worked backwards and decided at what times she would need to bathe, brush her teeth, read her scriptures and pray in order to get to bed at the time she thought would be best. We did the same for the morning schedule, working backwards from what time she wanted to leave for school to what time she would have to get up in order to have enough time to get ready without stressing. In all of this, I was asking for her opinion and adding input sparingly. We then wrote out two copies the AM/PM schedule she thought would work. One was for her and one was for me. Believe me, you will probably need this later. Why? Your child will likely have a fuzzy memory about the details of the agreement and his or her copy may not be around at the time.
- We decided to experiment with the schedule for one week to see if it was working. At the end of the week, we would adjust anything that needed to be adjusted, which turned out to be nothing later on.
- I bought her an alarm clock and we put it along with a post-it and pencil by her bed on a little nightstand. She was to write down what time she went to bed, what time she woke up, and make notes about how she felt.
Step 3 – Making a Contract to Create Success
- In order to support her in focusing and taking personal responsibility, we set up positive and negative consequences for each week. She loves to read, so the positive consequence was that she and I would have a special reading date for two hours when she completed a week of going to bed and getting up on time and trying to be pleasant in the mornings. If she missed a day and got to bed or got up late, she would not read after dinner for a week. That really motivated her! And, yes, if she got to bed a minute late or got up a minute late, that was “breaking the contract”. (The point is to practice doing exactly what they’ll say they do – “your word is your bond”. This helps them build integrity and trust with themselves and others.) Obviously, things like needing to go to the bathroom half an hour after bed didn’t break the contract, but if it was happening regularly, we’d address the issue.
- We also scheduled a celebration for a month after we started the experiment. We brainstormed and finally decided that if she worked hard all month – she didn’t have to do it perfectly, though – we would go to a bookstore and a music store and buy her some new books within a certain budget. This also really motivated her because she was really excited out the celebration.
How It Turned Out
The first week went really well. She went to bed and got up on time and was totally pleasant. We had our reading date to celebrate. The next week, she got up late one day so she didn’t read after dinner for a week, which was pretty rough, but she did it without complaining. The rest of the month was smooth sailing and we had a major celebration with her sister (who had gone through a similar process). Since then, which has been several months now, the kids usually get to bed and get up on time and feel good. We did adjust times over the summer and again when school started and went through the same process to come up with what we thought would work.
Was It Worth the Time and Effort to Do All This?
How much time did I really spend doing this? Probably an hour. Then I followed up with the kids and talked to them about it a few minutes a day, always remaining in a supportive energy and not a critical energy. I did spend a few hours celebrating with the kids every week and at the end of the month. How much time did I spend nagging my kids about going to bed or getting up on time before this? More than I’d like to have ever happened – hours upon hours over the course of years probably. So, was it worth doing? Absolutely. It ended up being really fun and supportive for our family and because we weren’t so tired, it definitely contributed to more …
Happy Home Evenings!
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