The Book of New Family Traditions (14 page)

Planting Good Dreams

Some parents draw a circle with their finger on their child’s forehead at bedtime “to put the good dreams in,” but Sue McCandless goes even further. At two, Sue’s daughter started having terrifying nightmares, and Sue started inventing good dreams at bedtime to drive them away. The suggested dreams are vivid and action packed. “I’ll say, ‘Dream you’re riding a two-wheeler without training wheels in a race and your helmet is pink,’” says Sue. The outcome of the dream is left for Taylor to finish in her sleep. The girl says she often dreams what her mother suggests.

Proud-Prouds

Tim Mullin wanted to end his daughters’ days on a positive note and started the ritual of asking them at bedtime to share something they did that day that made them feel proud. Then, he and his wife add something else the girls did that the parents want to specially praise. Tim and his wife often learn things during Proud-Prouds that they didn’t know about their kids’ day at school, and they try to praise things that reflect their values. “We tell them we’re proud of how hard they tried something and not just the successes,” says Tricia. “I don’t want them to think perfection is the goal.”

Monster Spray

Matthew Pompi invented monster spray when his son complained that there were monsters in his bedroom at night. Matthew simply filled a plastic plant-spritz bottle with water and pasted a colorful label to the front. At bedtime, father and son spray under the bed, in the closet, and anywhere else monsters might lurk. Nathan takes the bottle to the bathroom during the night for extra protection and for overnights at Grandma’s house.

Good-Night Family Tree

When my son was an infant, I started a bedtime ritual that includes good nights “to all the people Max loves.” The circle of family and friends that were named changed as he aged, with friends and teachers included in the school years. I would go through all the aunts and uncles and cousins and babysitters, and we always ended with “good night to all the grandparents up in Heaven. Good night to
all
the people we love.” My son would fall asleep feeling surrounded by love, and it was a great way to remind him of relatives he rarely saw.

Touch the Darkness

Some children respond well to rituals that ease them toward bedtime one step at a time. Allison Defferner performs a ritual with her infant daughter that her own mother began: They open the front door and literally reach out their palms to “touch” the night before bedtime. Kathy Schuessler always drops her kids off in their rooms by linking them all together in a trainlike file and “choo-chooing” down the hall.

What We Learned Today Journal

Liz Hawkins, a mother of four, began this when she and her husband were first married. In a hardbound journal, maybe six by nine inches, they would write daily something that they learned, often just one line, maybe sticking in a ticket stub from a museum or show they saw that day. The tradition continued and expanded once the kids arrived. The current journal, since 2002, is bigger, leather-bound, and was started when the family moved to Philadelphia. Jottings can be profound, or goofy. One day, one of Liz’s girls wrote “chocolate syrup sinks in milk.” Liz remembers writing once that shopping with her toddler daughter “was like shopping with a hand grenade without a pin.” The family takes it on trips, too. They do the journal ritual typically around 9:00 PM, when someone yells, “Time to do the book!” If a parent is out of town, they have to put what they learned that day on their Facebook status, says Liz, or text it, and it gets written in the journal later. “Sometimes we are tired and cranky, but we do it. If someone can’t come up with a thing they learned, we might check the Wikipedia app for the daily fact. But really, it takes only ten minutes for all of us to do this ritual, and you really do make a connection.”

Rating the Day

The Eaves family ends the day by sharing the good things that happened that day, plus anything bad or sad, and then each person gives that day a rating. “It can be anything from excellent to blah. We don’t try to force days into being good if they were not,” explains Sue Eaves. “It teaches us that most of our days are at least good, and those that aren’t, we get through them. Also, you can have a day that had some bad things in it, but that didn’t make the whole day bad. This has resulted in some interesting conversations about life.”

Bedtime Stories

Telling stories is a great tradition in many families and cultures, and one of the advantages over stories in books is that you can tell your own in the dark. Kyna Tabor tells elaborate bedtime stories about her family’s pet cats, “an ever-growing cat nation.” Kyna finds her kids hurry to get in their pajamas and brush their teeth at night because they can’t wait to hear the day’s installment about “our cat who was a princess in another land.” I used to tell stories about an invented polar bear named Pete, and my husband specialized in the adventures of Jake, a blue bulldozer.

Hugs and Kisses for Sisters

Debbie House, a divorced mother of two girls, says she decided to strengthen the family’s daily rituals after the divorce “because I wanted them to know that even though the family is divided by divorce, we are still a family. The nightly rituals remind us that no matter what, they will always be loved.” The hugs and kisses for sisters happen every night, even if the girls have just been squabbling. “After that, we do a Girl Hug that is the three of us together,” says Debbie.

Map Ritual

One father I know uses bedtime to teach geography. His son has an enormous world map on the wall of his bedroom, and at bedtime, he closes his eyes and points somewhere on it. He and his father sit quietly and talk about what it’s like in that place: language, history, climate, and customs. At times, they get so intrigued that they look up additional information the next day.

Bedtime Countdown

To keep her kids from popping out of bed constantly because they forgot to brush their teeth or collect their stuffed animals, Cora Berry created a bedtime checklist that stays on the bedroom door. As they go through each item on the list, which includes a prayer and bedtime story, she calls out “check.” After the last item, the lights are turned off.

In-Bed Massage

Comforting physical touch is a great way to relax and let go of the day. Some parents have a tradition of rubbing their children’s backs or necks at bedtime and find that being relaxed sometimes helps normally reticent children share confidences. Others massage their children’s feet (warning: if they are especially ticklish, this might un-relax them). Scalp massage can also be extremely soothing, and some girls love to have their hair brushed and smoothed last thing.

Beyond the Bedroom Wall

Novelist Larry Woiwode wrote a luminous novel by this name, and the title refers to a child’s bedtime ritual. The boy would lie in bed and picture himself in the room, then roam in his mind past the walls to his street, then to the edge of his town, and on and on. It’s a wonderful meditative exercise, like stretching one’s mind out to infinity.

Blow Out the Light

Turning off the light can be a tough transition for small ones. Coming up with a ritual in which they “help blow out the light ” and make a wish may help. Or let them tuck in favorite dolls or stuffed animals.

Bedtime Reading Rituals

For some busy parents, bedtime is the only time they get to read aloud to their kids, and they want to make the most of it. For children, the combination of snuggling and story is heaven on earth. To avoid whining, some parents set limits, such as three picture books for a toddler, or just one chapter a night.

Six Tips for Starting a Bedtime Reading Ritual:

1.
Pick books at or below your child’s current level, as your little one may be tired and able to take in less at this hour.

2.
Start bedtime reading in infancy, and not just with cloth or board books. Simple picture books or rhyming books are great.

3.
Steer away from anything scary: Even at seven, many fantasy books, including Harry Potter, gave my son scary dreams.

4.
It’s generally best to read in the same place each night, whether it’s a comfy sofa in the den, your child’s bed, or your own bed. The books will vary widely, but as in any ritual, it’s more reassuring if some parts of the ritual stay the same.

5.
Always say the name of the author and illustrator aloud along with the title, as this helps kids understand that books are created by people. They will soon spot similarities between an author’s works, like those of Dr. Seuss.

6.
Don’t stop when your child learns to read. Share the reading, perhaps taking turns reading a page at a time.

Stories from Far Away

One of the best parts of many bedtime rituals is the story or stories that parents read aloud, or the retelling of classics like Cinderella and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. If you’ve got the time to do this and have a special story ritual for bedtime or naptime, it’s great to prerecord one of these, so it can be played for your child while you are away. Maybe you always read
Goodnight Moon,
and then say good night to various pieces of furniture and toys in your child’s room. How comforting it will be for your child to hear that familiar story, in your familiar voice.

Choosing Books

The whimsical Chinaberry catalog picks great books by age group and provides tips for reading to very young kids. Call 800-776-2242 for the free paper catalog, or go to
www.chinaberry.com
.

In
The Read-Aloud Handbook,
Jim Trelease explains why reading to kids matters so much. This book has sold over 1 million copies, and it certainly changed my life: It taught me there is no such thing as too much reading aloud, and I think it helps explain why my teenage son still loves books and reading so much. The book also includes detailed lists of recommended books for every age. Trelease has retired from speaking and touring in recent years, but he still maintains an incredibly helpful website that is packed with downloads, updated book recommendations, and the latest research on reading. Go to
www.trelease-on-reading.com
.

Some of our favorites for toddlers and preschoolers are:
The Velveteen Rabbit,
all the A. A. Milne works, and anything by Bill Peet. For grade-school kids, don’t miss the Guardians of Ga’hoole series, all the Eva Ibbotson novels, and the Artemis Fowl series.

Although I didn’t have a digital audio recorder when my son was still getting bedtime stories, there is one model in particular I would recommend, because I’ve used it to do interviews for an oral history project. You can get a small, reliable, and easy-to-use digital recorder for a very reasonable price. Your spouse or babysitter can hit play if you cue up the story, or you can use the USB port to download your story onto an MP3 player such as an iPod. I’ve had very good experiences with the Sony IC Recorder, which costs about $40.

Beditme Prayers

The idea that someone powerful is watching over them while they sleep (in addition to their sometimes fallible parents) is enormously comforting to children. Bedtime prayers are also a wonderful way to pass on religious traditions and beliefs, and help teach a child empathy and gratitude.

God Bless

One of the simplest and most enduring bedtime prayers is for the child to ask God to bless each and every person important to him or her.

Thankfulness

Even before we attended church together, I started saying a prayer in bed with my son every night. It was sort of a loose conversation with God, asking for help and guidance for our family and others, but the heart of it was gratitude. I always started by saying, “Thank you for this day, God,” no matter how rocky it might have been, and ended with, “Thank you for all the good things in our lives,” some of which I would list. At first my son was mystified that I seemed to speak to the ceiling, but later, he would insert his own pleas and thanks to God.