Helping stressed kids
Patch stormed into the house and stomped his way into his room. Then the crying began. I excused myself from the kitchen table where I was having a business meeting with a couple of (fortunately very understanding) friends. Patch sobbed out his tale of woe: My neighbor had sliced the hot dog rather than poking it with a fork, thereby ruining it. Then she completely refused to make another hot dog for him. Patch’s emotional reaction to this event was so huge that it required tag-team parenting, fifteen minutes, starting a movie, and a correctly prepared hot dog to calm him down. Usually Patch is a pretty easy-going kid. It is only occasionally that he winds himself up like this. Except that he’s done it several times in the last week. And he has been crawling into bed with us. And he’s been pretty rigid about what food is acceptable. These are all signs of stress. Patch is not the only one. Link has been acting about six years younger than his age. Gleek has gotten screaming mad and stomped to her room several times in the last week as well. She even buried herself under her covers and fell asleep in the middle of the day.
It is tempting for me to attribute all of this to my lack of nurturing attention in the past month. I’m certain that my stress level has been a factor, but it is not the only one. Another major factor is the daylight savings time switch, which makes putting kids to bed on time increasingly difficult. So they’ve been short on sleep, packed with junk food, and lacking in regular adult attention. Not surprising that they’re acting out a bit.
After Patch’s meltdown and the end of my meeting, I decided that the major imperative for the rest of the day was for me to be available to intervene in child conflicts, and to get everyone (including me) to bed on time. In order to get kids to sleep by 8:30, I have to start snack time no later than 7:30. This is because snack time involves me reading aloud while the kids eat. Then there is individual reading time. This reading time helps the kids slow down enough to feel tired. But this was also Monday, which means we have an hour or more of family time prior to snack. To make space for that, dinner had to be pushed earlier. So I started cooking dinner at 4:30. It was served by 5:30. Family Home Evening started at 6 and ran until 7:30. Snack and reading ran until 8. Gleek and Patch were both asleep by 8:30. Link and Kiki stayed up later. It was important for Link to be allowed to stay up and do something fun after the little kids had gone to bed. He needs to be reminded why he likes being one of the bigger kids. So we played Phase 10 for awhile. Pre-bedtime games may need to be a staple for us this summer as Link begins his transition from child to teenager.
So today was a good family day. Now I need to figure out how to not lose ground on the new family initiatives while also getting some work done.