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From: amyl@gatech.UUCP (Amy Lapwing)
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: RE: Putting Children to Bed
Message-ID: <11802@gatech.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 29-Jan-85 22:28:15 EST
Article-I.D.: gatech.11802
Posted: Tue Jan 29 22:28:15 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 31-Jan-85 00:37:35 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: School of ICS, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta
Lines: 88

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   I have been reading with great interest the recent series of
articles concerning ways of getting children to go to bed
and/or sleep through the night.

   I have no children (yet!), so I do not write to tell of my
experiences.  Rather, I would like to make some observations on
what I've read here in net.kids that have not yet been made.

   First of all, it seems that those parents who say their
children are not going to bed reasonably easily or who are
not sleeping through the night are those parents who seem to
rely on the child's volition, rather than their own, to accomplish
these tasks.  Thus, it seems apparent from the discussion that
if you rely on your child wanting to do something you want
him/her to do, you have problems.  On the other hand, parents
who make it clear that the child will do what they want him/her to
do, regardless of whether that is also what the child wants,
are not writing in about having sleeping problems.  This second
group of parents must obviously take it upon themselves to decide
what is best for their child, and then follow through with
deliberation (and discipline) to see that those decisions are
carried out.

   So, in the going-to-sleep issue, I see two schools of thought:

      1.  The child will go to sleep when he is sleepy, therefore
          he does not need to be forced to go to bed.

      2.  The child needs more sleep than he usually wants to
          admit, therefore the parent must enforce a bedding-down
          routine.

It is principally parents of the first group who are writing in with
problems.

   My second observation is that which of these two groups you as
parents belong to depends largely on your

       feelings, philosophies, upbringing

and less on your

      knowledge of children's psychological and emotional needs.

For example, Pete Kaiser writes in to say he and his wife thought
about a disciplinary approach of shutting their child in at bedtime
and not going in "for any reason" to "condition" her to go to sleep
at a regular time.  They opted not to do this because "we chose
simply not to."  In fact, they felt good about themselves because
they perceived that they were showing their child that her needs
mattered to them:  if she wanted to stay up till 11 p.m., they were
amenable.  Now, whatever approach you take to child rearing, you 
should be comfortable about it and feel good about what you are
doing.  Some parents center their lives around the child, making
sacrifices (such as a good night's sleep) to please the child,
and they like this state of affairs.  Other parents consider their
children as people who share in their lives and who must learn to
adapt to the parents' lifestyle as the parents make allowances for
their needs, in a give-and-take that is comfortable to the parents.

   My last observation, then, is that all of you who have written in
about this issue have related the ways you have learned to deal with
your children.  However, some of you support your practices or 
philosophies by making statements such as (and I paraphrase)
"The child needs to know we care for him, so we always pick him
up when he cries", or "Our child does not need much sleep, so
we don't force her to go to bed at some arbitrary hour."
I, as a layman, have no reason to believe these claims that
a child could require as little as 8 or 9 hours of sleep a day,
or that some psychological damage will result from not picking
up a child each time it complains.  These are just claims and
should not be made without sources.  Readers have no reason
to believe them, and, in fact, could be doing themselves a disservice
to follow advice that is not soundly based.

   So please, parents, tell us about the child-rearing practices
you are comfortable with, but don't try to back them up with
(probably) false claims as to their soundness.  And especially,
don't try to make the more disciplinary of you feel guilty
with cheap shots about their humanity.
 
                                           Amy Lapwing Pitts
-- 
Amy Lapwing
School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA
CSNet:	Amyl @ GATech		ARPA:	Amyl.GATech @ CSNet-Relay
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