Boarding school at home
I don’t understand boarding school because I believe it’s our duty and joy to have our kids at home. But the last napless days when I knew that Tin was so dog tired that he had better sleep, I have to say I have resorted to the military tactics that are probably used in boarding school. Mainly, I knock hard on the wall between our bathroom and his room three times as I watch him dancing in the window instead of lying down and say very sternly, “Glavne Binga” – which is Croatian for put your head down on Bingo, his pillow. If I say this in English, it doesn’t have the same effect. He always lays his head back down but then starts crying.
I thought to myself after round three of this that maybe there was another way to handle getting him to sleep as we don’t believe in parental involvement, we believe that he should be able to go to sleep by himself and soothe himself.
So today, when a friend sent me this link, I read with interest the soothing and comforting way this nanny put her ward to sleep. But it involves parental intervention. If a child becomes accustomed to a parent patting them or rocking them to fall asleep, then if they wake on their own, they have not learned how to soothe and put themselves to sleep.
The days I tried not to resort to the Croatian military tactics were the days that Tin didn’t sleep, and then didn’t sleep well in the evening, and then didn’t behave well in the waking hours. He needs his sleep. So it’s home boarding school tactics I fell back on.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
November 26th, 2011 at 5:12 am
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