Putting Boy to bed

Finally, living with only three of us, Japanese week started.

Even though I was the only adult, I could spend the days feeling relieved because there was plenty of support, such as they told me in advance that if I had any problems, call us anytime. They often asked how our situation was going by calling.

Nevertheless, of course there were a few difficulties.

One of the difficulties was putting Boy to bed.

When you were a child, even though bed time was decided, have you thought that you wanted to stay up at night for many reasons, such as you wanted to play games, watch anime and so on?

Boy is one of them.

Until this time, Father and Nana had been preparing Boy for bed before going to bed themselves.

However, I had to do this alone on this week.

Finally, bed time is coming. I was worried this would be a struggle.

My prediction was a huge hit.

When it was bed time, I asked him to go to bed but he didn’t move, saying he would go to bed after he watched one more anime.

Also, he has to brush his teeth before sleeping.

However, even though there were some empty snack bags around Boy, he resisted by saying an obvious lie, “I did!”. That’s why, preparing for bed was not making any progress.

Even though his bed time was 8:45, it was after 30 minutes that he finally got into bed.

Now, go to sleep!!

When I looked at Boy, I didn’t know why, he was holding a sketchbook.

Boy: “I want to draw!”

Me: “No!!”
(In my mind: If he starts drawing, he definitely won’t go to sleep for a long time.)

“Today is too late. You can do that tomorrow.”

I tried grabbing the sketchbook to retrieve it from Boy. However, he still insisted that he wanted to draw and never let it go.

It was really a scramble situation.

This is not getting anywhere.

I had no choice but to call Father and ask for help.

“Hi Hotaru.”

Father was willing to answer the phone though it was late night.

I told him the situation and passed Boy my phone.

After they talked little bit time, Father told Boy that,

“You can draw pictures but it’s already late night so we should decide how much time you can draw. 10 minutes, ok?”

He didn’t end the phone call after they had decided the end time and talked with Boy about things such as “What picture are you drawing?”.

Then, after 10 minutes.

Father sang a lullaby (Twinkle Twinkle Star).

And then,

Good night.

Boy, who had resisted so much and was so excited, fell asleep easily.

I was very surprised. At the same time, I learned that it was sometimes effective to let children do something they want to do a little bit, deciding how long they do this together, rather than forcefully suppressing what they want to do.

Since the next day, I started following Father’s example and when Boy said he wanted to draw, we decided how much time he could do this and then let him draw.

And I found that I was be able to talk with Boy, who was usually aggressive towards me, calmly during this time.

Moreover, I could see some of Boy’s abilities which I hadn’t been able to find so far, such as he was a good drawer and he was be able to write neatly.

Now I have no opportunities to put Boy to bed anymore.

However,

The calm time before going to bed is a time when you can feel closer to your family.

I still believe this now too.