Struggling with bedtime battles? Discover an incredible bedtime hack that transforms chaos into connection, making bedtime one of the best parts of your day.
Episode Number: #28
Description: In this episode of the Whole Parent Podcast, Jon delves into the challenges of bedtime routines and reveals a transformative hack to turn bedtime battles into moments of deep connection with your child. He discusses the reasons behind kids' resistance to bedtime and shares a practical, brain-based technique that not only helps kids fall asleep faster but also strengthens the parent-child bond.
Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction And Importance Of Bedtime 02:04 - Personal Anecdotes About Bedtime Chaos And Routines 04:56 - Common Bedtime Resistance Issues And Practical Solutions 06:31 - The Bedtime Story Hack Explained 18:21 - Practical Steps For Implementing The Bedtime Story Hack 26:12 - The Importance Of Sleep For Children's Development 35:28 - Closing Remarks And Call To Action
Key Takeaways:
The Bedtime Story Hack:
Tell your child the story of their day in a calm, soothing voice to help them transition to sleep.
Engage their memory and language centers to regulate their emotional state.
Consistently use this technique to turn bedtime into a positive, connecting experience.
Why Kids Resist Bedtime:
Novelty and learning: Kids resist sleep because they are constantly learning and don't want to stop.
Routine and regulation: Maintaining a consistent bedtime routine helps prevent resistance.
Hormonal factors: Avoiding overtiredness and managing cortisol levels is key.
Benefits of Sleep:
Essential for physical, mental, and emotional development.
Improves memory, emotional regulation, and overall health.
Creates opportunities for deep attachment and bonding with your child.
Struggling with bedtime battles? Discover an incredible bedtime hack that transforms chaos into connection, making bedtime one of the best parts of your day.
Episode Number: #28
Description: In this episode of the Whole Parent Podcast, Jon delves into the challenges of bedtime routines and reveals a transformative hack to turn bedtime battles into moments of deep connection with your child. He discusses the reasons behind kids' resistance to bedtime and shares a practical, brain-based technique that not only helps kids fall asleep faster but also strengthens the parent-child bond.
Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction And Importance Of Bedtime 02:04 - Personal Anecdotes About Bedtime Chaos And Routines 04:56 - Common Bedtime Resistance Issues And Practical Solutions 06:31 - The Bedtime Story Hack Explained 18:21 - Practical Steps For Implementing The Bedtime Story Hack 26:12 - The Importance Of Sleep For Children's Development 35:28 - Closing Remarks And Call To Action
Key Takeaways:
The Bedtime Story Hack:
Tell your child the story of their day in a calm, soothing voice to help them transition to sleep.
Engage their memory and language centers to regulate their emotional state.
Consistently use this technique to turn bedtime into a positive, connecting experience.
Why Kids Resist Bedtime:
Novelty and learning: Kids resist sleep because they are constantly learning and don't want to stop.
Routine and regulation: Maintaining a consistent bedtime routine helps prevent resistance.
Hormonal factors: Avoiding overtiredness and managing cortisol levels is key.
Benefits of Sleep:
Essential for physical, mental, and emotional development.
Improves memory, emotional regulation, and overall health.
Creates opportunities for deep attachment and bonding with your child.
Welcome to the Whole Parent Podcast. My name is John. Today we're talking about sleep, we're talking about bedtime and we're talking about why kids resist bedtime and a absolutely game changing hack that parents can use to absolutely transform the bedtime battles and struggles into some of the best, most connection-based parts of your day. Because, let's be real, like bedtime is a struggle and, at the same time, we know from research, from science, from behavioral neuroscientists, that this is like one of the times in the day when you can do your most connecting with your child, and so that's what we're talking about today. If you don't know what this podcast is if maybe you're this is the first time you're listening the whole parent podcast is all about providing parents who are in the trenches everyday parents like you like me I'm just a dad with practical advice and some of the brain-based like tricks and tips and hacks that make parenting more effective and, honestly, just plain easier, because all of us have a lot on our plate. I think everybody wants to parent effectively and develop a deep, lifelong connection with their child. I think everybody wants what's best for their child, like long-term, you know they want, they want to raise a child who's ready for the world and resilient and mentally healthy and emotionally healthy and physically healthy and all that other good stuff. And so this is the podcast that is designed to help you do that. So if you are just listening for the first time, sit back, relax. We're going to dive into this hack. We're going to explain why it's important, why sleep is important, why bedtime is important, and what you can do to make it a little bit easier.
Jon @wholeparent:
All right, so if you were like me, I have three kids so far I have a seven year old, I have a four year old and I have a two year old. Bedtime is probably one of the most chaotic times of my day. Like I can't even tell you. I was like I was talking about this with my wife the other day. We have this this friends next door who, like, don't really have a bedtime routine. They're, they have kids that are basically the same age. They have one kid is much older, but then all the rest of their kids are basically exactly the same age as our kids, and this family, like doesn't really do bedtime, and so if our kids are playing together, sometimes, like bedtime routines get all thrown off. And if you've listened to other episodes of the podcast. I think I did one really early on on bedtime stuff. I'll link that in the show notes.
Jon @wholeparent:
You know that bedtime routines are like one of the ways that kids brains get ready to go to sleep, and so during the summer, when we pull our kids out of these routines, sometimes bedtime can just like get really, really nasty. And what I mean by that is like when you have a kid who's really routine, based in their bedtime routine, it's easy, like it's not hard, to get them to go to bed. But when that changes and bedtime gets hairy, sometimes you have to pull out the the hacks in your back pocket, and so this is one that I've been pulling out, especially when bedtime routine breaks down, like we go to the pool and then like we miss bedtime and then I get home and then I got to feed the kids and like by the time I get my two year old in bed he's the one who I do most frequently. He's like my bedtime routine buddy and my wife tends to do my four year old by the time I get him in bed, like I got to do something because he's so out of whack. He's like not, he's like overtired all this stuff and I know he could be up for like another hour if I don't do something. This is my hack that I have been going to. So let me just preface it by saying, before I get into it, that if this is you, if you're like, oh my gosh, I'm so glad this episode is coming out right now because my kids are like resisting bedtime and like bedtime has become terrible and the routine is all thrown off or maybe the routine isn't thrown off, but it's still become really challenging and it's like, oh my gosh, my kids take an hour to go down every night and they're just like frequently waking up, they're just coming. You know, if you have an older kid, maybe that come out five, six, seven times during the. You know, okay, it's time for bed. And then they, oh, but I need water, oh, I need this, I need that. Oh, I got to go to the bathroom. Like if, if all of that is you right now, this is the episode for you. And especially if you have like a toddler who's like tantruming, like if they're like, okay, it's time to go to bed and they just freak out and they just fight you hardcore, like you are in the right place and also you are not alone, and that's the other thing I want to say with this. You are not a bad parent. Your kids are not likely unique in this.
Jon @wholeparent:
When I talk to pediatric sleep specialists, I have one who's like my go-to guy. He's one of the top researchers at Duke. He's one of the people who I talked to on this podcast. He was my like first guest episode. He he talks about newborns primarily on that episode. When I talked to him about this, he's like, yeah, this is like a super common problem. In fact, this is one of the most common problems and if you didn't know this, like I'm on social media. That's where I kind of started. The podcast came later.
Jon @wholeparent:
Like when I post a video about like okay, your kid takes, you know, an hour to go to sleep, and then I did this hack and I'm going to be talking about that and why it works today. When I posted that video, I had like a million people watch that video, which has really not been happening lately for me. Like I've had very my I'm not like play the world's tiniest violin for me, but my view rates have been really down and my engagement's been down and I've been losing followers. Trials of an Instagram influencer. Don't cry for me, argentina, but really, when I posted this video, like I had a million people watch it and like 15 or 17,000 people follow off of that video alone. Why? Because this is so not unique. Like everybody feels like they're alone, like, oh my gosh, everybody else's kids just like go to bed. Like they're like okay, time to go to bed and kids just walk upstairs and they just put themselves to bed, right? No, that's not true. Like everybody struggles with this. Like everybody that I know personally has gone through a phase where their kids struggle. And this works, for, in my opinion, because of the way that it works, it works for all kids. So I'm not going to keep like just teasing this. We're going to talk about it right now.
Jon @wholeparent:
The hack is to tell your child a bedtime story, but specifically to tell them the story of the day that you had together. And you don't have to go super far back. You don't have to start at the time when they woke up, especially if you haven't been with them for the whole day. The way that my wife and my schedule work generally, I'm with them in the afternoon, or at least the last three weeks, this is the schedule that we've been doing. I do like the early morning until about 8 am, and then she does from like eight till noon, and then I do from like maybe one, one 30,. We kind of do that middle noon, lunchtime, naptime together, and then I do from like one 30 until six 30, which is then bedtime. Even if it's just like the last couple hours. It's to tell them the story of the last couple hours. Very, you know vibrant details, if you can remember them, and tell it in to them, not as in like you were there, but but use their name. So tell it as if you're telling a story about like a completely different person, but it's obviously all of the characters they know, and to do that in like this kind of calm and soothing voice, for for like three to five minutes.
Jon @wholeparent:
And what I've heard in the comments of the social media video, but but also from so many parents who, like none of this stuff is stuff that I'm just like trying out on social media. This is stuff that I've worked with parents for now years and and given them this okay, this is going to work and this is why it works. And as I've worked with parents, like I've never found a parent for whom this did not work to some extent, and so let me explain why this works from the standpoint of the brain, and then I'll tell you why it's important at the end. Because I think, once you understand how to do it, at the very least you'll like if anybody tunes out before the end of the episode I know sometimes like I just get interrupted or distracted At least you'll know, like, what to do. Okay, so from the brain perspective, there are so many reasons why kids resist sleep, and so I want to just kind of fly through them really quickly, and then, after I fly through them, I'll explain how this hack specifically combats a lot of those things. So the number one reason this is the reason that I mentioned on the video.
Jon @wholeparent:
The number one reason that kids resist sleep, especially toddlers, is because they're learning so much and everything feels novel. So just imagine it from the perspective of like. Just take their perspective, like if you found yourself in their shoes. This is what it might feel like for you. You just spent the first 18 months to two years of your life with essentially no autonomy, right? So babies when they're born, zero to six months. I'm thinking about this now because my wife's pregnant. I haven't talked about that on the podcast yet, but I did announce that on social media. She's due in October.
Jon @wholeparent:
So I'm thinking about this. I'm a man, I'm about to go back into this again but zero to six months, zero to 12 months. Your kid has basically no autonomy. They can't do anything for themselves. They need your help for everything. So then compare that to a year later, at two years old, like at two years old, like, so, so different.
Jon @wholeparent:
So at two years old, kids are really fall, like, coming into a sense of like oh, I can do things for myself. And a lot of parents report. I know this isn't really related to sleep, but but it is where where kids will say they'll go through this like I do it, stage right, like me, do me, do I do it? Where they want to do everything for themselves. And so in the process of going through this, like they are learning as they do all this stuff for themselves, all of these new things constantly, they're just learning, learning, learning and learning. And this is why two-year-olds and three-year-olds, generally speaking, still need naps, because they learn so much that when they fall, when they fall asleep, they actually internalize all that information and their brain categorizes that. Their hippocampus categorizes it and stores it into places where it can be processed for long-term recall later. And so when a kid is like out in the world and they're like, oh man, I'm just learning about bugs and I'm learning about this. I'm learning about that. I'm just learning how to like be my own self. Everything is new. And everything is novel because, even if they've experienced it before, they've never experienced it as like they're in control there and they have the sense of autonomy to like do things for themselves. And so when you're telling them, okay, it's time for bed, you're essentially telling them it's time to stop learning. And if you have ever gotten in that flow state I've recently gotten this I created this quiz for highly sensitive kids like three hours would pass and I was just like oh man, I'm learning how to do this.
Jon @wholeparent:
I'm learning how like ask good questions. I'm like integrating. You know I'm having conversations with other therapists and psychologists to be like, okay, is this a good question to ask? I'm like bouncing. Like okay, how can I rephrase this question? Like using chat. Ai, so like I can like get a good sense. I'm like bouncing, like okay, how can I rephrase this question. I'm like using chat AI so like I can like get a good sense. I'm like reading, rereading the highly sensitive child by Elaine Aaron, so I make sure that I like hit all the points. And so, like I'm in this flow state of like, oh man, I'm really, this is novel, this is new. I really like this.
Jon @wholeparent:
I've never created a quiz before in this way been like, oh no, like go take a long walk, right, like when my kids disrupt me, when I'm in that flow state, I can sometimes react very kind of harshly and kind of snap it like God, just get away from me right now. Which is like, man, you can't believe that the whole parent does that. No, a whole parent does that. When a whole parent is in flow state, right, why am I preferring myself in the third person? That low state, right, why am I preferring myself from the third person? That's so weird. This is a weird thing to say, but I do that, right, like I'll snap at my kids.
Jon @wholeparent:
Well, the same is true for them. They're like learning everything, they're like coming into themselves. They're like, oh man, the whole world is novel and new to me. And then you're like, okay, it's time for bed. And they're like no, I want to keep learning. This is dumb. Like I don't want to go to bed. Look at, there's like so much to explore. Like, imagine if you were just dropped on an alien planet and you were just like, hey, like, just like, you can just like learn anything you want. You can figure out anything you want. You can like any any problem that you've ever had. You could probably like find a solution to it. This is a struggle. Like they don't want to deal with that.
Jon @wholeparent:
And then you have all the other factors that are totally unrelated, things like okay, well, if you wait too long and they're overtired, they literally have hormones that are trying to keep them awake while you're trying to put them to sleep. And so there's so many psychological reasons for bedtime resistance, and none of them are like your kid is a monster and your kid is horrible or your kid is bad. All of them are just like these. These patterns of development lead to some resistance at bedtime, and one of the ways that you can overcome that resistance is to actually feed those needs. So so you know, for example, you can put them to bed at a reasonable time. That's not the hack that we're talking about today. But that's definitely a hack that works. You can put them to bed during their ideal sleep window, when they're showing kind of the subtle signs of tiredness rubbing their eyes, things like that but before they go to that like second wind burst of energy thing where all the hormones are released so that they can go. But you can also, especially with the I want to learn more, you can actually specifically say, okay, well, let's learn more together through telling a story. So let's, let's take a step back, let's take a step back and then take a step forward. So that's why kids resist bedtime.
Jon @wholeparent:
Now what happens when they resist bedtime? So once your kid starts to get in a resisting state of mind, a combative state of mind I don't want to go to bed, no, bed, right. You're going to immediately deal with a child who's no longer in a thinking state of mind and is just in a reactive, emotional state of mind. So why do I talk so much about bedtime routines, even though I just started this episode by telling you that I've, like, basically failed as a parent as related to bedtime routines? I'm not failing as a parent just in that one aspect. I am. No, I'm not doing a good job of that right now.
Jon @wholeparent:
So what happens with bedtime routines? They basically take away that decision-making process for them. There is no resistance for them because the bedtime routine is long enough usually 30 minutes or so where you're just going from thing to thing to thing predictable, predictable, predictable, stay on the routine, stay on the routine, stay on the routine and then they don't push back. But what happens when they actually start to push back? Because you missed the routine or for whatever reason? Now they're in this reactive state of mind. They are being run by what's called their limbic system. When they start getting run by their limbic system especially when they're tired, like it makes it more easy for their limbic system to take control of their body or take control of the rest of their brain when they're reactive.
Jon @wholeparent:
In that way, you're not going to be able to reason with them, you're not going to be able to logic them, but you can still communicate with them, and you can specifically communicate with two parts of their brain at the same time. Putting the part of their brain, the logical part of their brain, back in the driver's seat where you want it to be. Putting the part of their brain, the logical part of their brain, back in the driver's seat where you want it to be. And one of the really easy ways to do that is to draw upon their memory, which essentially communicates to the part of their brain that's reacting and being emotional and says hey, I'm going to give you a task, but I'm going to give you a task that requires you to work with the other parts of the brain in order to achieve that task. And so you're communicating to the part of their brain that's struggling and you're saying, hey, turn on the other systems. You're kind of I don't want to say like you're manipulating, but in a way it's a form of manipulation. You're saying, hey, look, I want you to turn on the other parts of your brains because I'm not really going to be able to communicate with the emotional part of your brain.
Jon @wholeparent:
The only real way to communicate with the emotional part of your brain is to either draw on memory you can do some stuff with singing and songs and music, because music works with that part of your brain as well as the logical part of your brain. You can do some other things limbic resonance, emotionally validating experiences, all of those things that are like emotion centered. That's the stuff you can do, but in the bedtime version of this, really, the resistance is I don't want to go to bed. Why? Because I don't want to stop learning. Right, that's one of the main reasons. So let's review what we've learned, let's review what we've done.
Jon @wholeparent:
And so when you do this, you are activating the part of their brain, the limbic, the neocortex, because that's the language part of their brain. So you have the brain, some of the brain, so you have the brain stem at the bottom, you have the limbic system in the middle and then you have the neocortex. Often we talk about the front part of the neocortex. It's called the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is the language part of the brain, the part that constructs stories. For example, john, how can one be, how can limbic system be memory and the logical part of the brain be stories? I thought memories were just stories. No, that's a collaborative effort between your limbic system, or your child's limbic system in this case, and their prefrontal cortex, constructing that story. That's actually meaning making.
Jon @wholeparent:
Why is it that people who are traumatized struggle to tell the story of their trauma? Because their limbic system does not want to communicate in those moments with their prefrontal cortex, and so it's through integration of those two parts of their brain that they can calm down and regulate and process through, not just traumatic things, but when they're escalated about not wanting to go to bed. So what you're going to do is you're going to sit down with your child. So that's why it works. It actually speaks to the part of their brain that's dysregulated and says, hey, I want, I'm going to give you something to do. I'm not. You don't have to just spiral and spin and fight me. I'm going to give you something productive to do. And, by the way, the thing that you're going to do that's productive is going to engage the other part of the brain, the part of your brain that also is logical, long-term thinking, processing, et cetera.
Jon @wholeparent:
The problem with adults is that their brain is spinning and spinning and spinning and they need to like focus on their somatic breathing so that they can stop their thoughts in order to fall asleep. With kids, usually you have to engage their thinking to get them to fall asleep, because the part of their brain that's just escalated the part of their brain, in other words, their limbic system is literally pumping their body full of wake-up hormones. So when your child is screaming and tantruming and fighting bedtime, the hormone that's being released by their limbic system, cortisol. What is the hormone that wakes you up in the morning, when your alarm goes off, when the sun comes up? Actually, cortisol, stress hormone. That actually is what your body gives you. It gives you a little shot of stress hormone not too much, not to like make you stressed out but it gives you a little shot of stress hormone and says get up time for the day. That part of your child's brain that's doing that. It's pumping their body full of cortisol when they're fighting sleep. And so it's going hey, look, stay awake, stay awake. You got to calm that down in order to get them back online.
Jon @wholeparent:
So you're going to sit down with your child. This is the practical implementation part of this episode. You're going to sit down with your child and you're going to say hey, can I tell you a story? And sometimes they'll resist, sometimes they'll be no story. I don't want story, I just want this Go downstairs. That's what my two-year-old always says Go downstairs. He also says, oh, not again, which is really cute. He doesn't talk much, but he does say that he goes. Oh no, not again. When he doesn't like something that he knows we're going to hold a boundary, not again. So he said no, not again, no story, you just start telling it. So I heard this story about this kid. We use my son's name because this is the example and it's easier for me to use my son's name, my two-year-old's name. I heard the story about a kid named Liam and in the story he was playing with his friend, miss Jenny so just giving you last night's version, it's the easiest one for me to remember and with Miss Jenny they were playing with Play-Doh and they were playing with kinetic sand and they did an art project.
Jon @wholeparent:
And if your kid is really resisting and still going no story, no story, no story this is the point in which you can actually ask them a question and I would not recommend asking them questions throughout to get their input. Asking them questions like this is helpful for developing memory retention and practicing memory, but when you're trying to use this to help them go to sleep, you don't want them to be answering a bunch of questions for you. But if they're still fighting you, this is kind of bonus hack, how to make the hack work. When the hack's not working, you can say like, oh, what was that art project? What were they making with paper. And it's amazing kids. When you ask them a question that they know the answer to from their memory, which again is the same part of their brain that's active when they're fighting they will oftentimes go like oh okay, like we're making decorations, that's what they're making yesterday, Making decorations. They are making decorations for the 4th of July with paper, with red paper and white paper. What was the other kind of paper there? You know, if he's still fighting, what was the other kind of paper? Pink? Yeah, it was blue. He calls everything pink, doesn't really like colors. My other kid, by this age almost no verbalization could identify every color. All kids are different. Yeah, it was blue, it was blue paper.
Jon @wholeparent:
And then, after they did decorations, you see how I'm telling the story. It's calm, soothing. Then Liam went to look for his brother, matt. Matt was next door playing, and then Matt got home and they ate a snack and I'm not going to make you sit through, I'll put you to sleep, because that's all these stories are designed to do. But then, going through each thing and here's the key they know the characters. Even more important, they know the plot.
Jon @wholeparent:
You are putting into language their experience and so you're activating the learning part of their brain. You're saying hey, you've been learning all day, you've been learning all this new stuff, let's recap the learning. And in the process of recapping the learning, and in the process of recapping the learning, they actually decide oh, this is time, like I can, I've done learning, I don't need to keep learning, I can actually go to sleep now. So, as you're talking to them in the soothing voice which parents voice, children can release melatonin, oxytocin makes them feel kind of sleepy and whatever. So you're doing that. You're using your voice, which is a very powerful tool that you have. You're telling stories, which is engaging their limbic system and regulating it down. You're activating their prefrontal cortex, which is helping them to listen and put their story, their memories, into language, which is simultaneously then regulating down their emotional center. It's engaging their parasympathetic nervous system, which is the part regulating down their emotional center. It's engaging their parasympathetic nervous system, which is the part of their body I mean you can do this while you can like rub their back while you're doing this that's kind of another bonus way to do this that engages the vagus nerve, which then, in turn, activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which basically provides antidote hormone to cortisol and epinephrine or adrenaline that's being pumped into your child's body because they're resisting, resisting, resisting bedtime. So, like, as you're doing this, you're just like slowly moving them towards okay, and it's going to be like.
Jon @wholeparent:
Then he went upstairs with dad and he said no, I don't want to go to sleep. And you don't have to tell this part of the story. I actually do, because I find that it's helpful. But some kids, like, as soon as you mentioned that they didn't want to go to sleep, they'll just fly off the handle. You're going to have to try it and find out for yourself with your own kid. No, I don't want to go to sleep. But then dad said I'm going to tell you a story. And then Liam closed his eyes and he laid on his pillow and he felt how warm it was and how he had a blanket over him and he knew that it was time to go to sleep so that his brain could grow and it could get clean and it would like, and you can say all the things and all the reasons that I'm about to tell you, because we're close to the end of the episode and this will literally move them into a state of mind where their body begins to say, okay, we're activating the memory circuits, which are also the circuits that are going to be active in the first moments of sleep to categorize the information that we're receiving. So, as you do this, you're actually moving them towards sleep from a neurological and neuro perspective, from a brain perspective, this hack is moving them towards the activity that their brain will do the second that they fall asleep anyway as kids which is that the hippocampus, which is a structure in your brain the hippocampus being part of the limbic system, which we've talked a lot about today is categorizing the information, creating a narrative out of the sensory information of that they took in that day, moving short-term memory into stored memory, long-term memory, and kind of wiping out the short-term memory, kind of clearing the desktop, organizing everything into the folders where it goes and clearing the desktop from the clutter. That's what their brain is doing at the early stages of sleep. And so, as you do this, you're actually kind of telling them like, hey, this is what you're, you're telling their brain, you're speaking almost directly to the brain. This is what we're going to do now. We're going to start working on categorizing this information. So here's why this is really important and I'm going to give you as quickly as I can, boom, boom, boom, three things, because I think this is massively helpful for numerous reasons.
Jon @wholeparent:
Thing number one let's talk specifically about why kids need sleep. So sleep is one of probably the most greatest predictors of long-term physical, mental, emotional health for kids. If your kid is not getting adequate sleep, if you're not helping them to get the adequate sleep that they need, your kid is not going to be regulated, happy, able to learn all of these things. So kids who don't get enough sleep struggle in school. I'm not saying that school is the end metric, but if school is an indicator that they're struggling to learn, well, we got to take notice right. So school, struggling school they struggle to perform athletically. If that matters to you, it probably matters to your kid.
Jon @wholeparent:
If they're a little bit older seven, eight, nine that's where you really run into sleep problems. And then in teenage years you really run into sleep problems right, when you don't have all of the say that you once had. They really struggle in all of these different facets of their life and that is because sleep is the great equalizer for the brain. They struggle with anxiety. They can struggle more with depression People. Obviously depression and anxiety can cause insomnia, which then compounds the impact and in fact, I think if you look at chronic difficulty to sleep, this is linked to some of the worst mental health and physical health outcomes, like the inability to be able to sleep is one of the most debilitating things. Just ask anybody with chronic sleep issues. One of the most debilitating things. People really fall into all sorts of bad situations from this. So, number one your kid needs sleep because it's massively important to their development and then I'll say that too, their growth Growth is obviously what your kid is doing. When they're a kid, they're growing. They do a ton of growth when they're sleeping.
Jon @wholeparent:
Sleep also what we know from research. It has been proven over and over. Sleep is the time when your child again categorizes memories and and moves short-term memory into long-term memory so it can help them retain, it can help them have better memory. The better sleep that they get. It also cleans their brain. So I've said that in passing. I tell my kids, all my kids, that and it is the the like. That's another sleep hack man. Just tell your kids that their brain gets clean while they're sleeping and they're just like let me go to sleep right now, like literally what happens when you sleep.
Jon @wholeparent:
What we know is that we have neurotoxins that build up in our brain Like that's just part of life, right, it's just part of being in the world. Like you get toxins in your body. People can try and limit that and limit that and limit that. Definitely people who live in like high chemical environments, who are exposed to lead and other dangerous things, like they are going to have more for sure. But what we know is that during sleep, your brain literally cleans itself. It takes the neurotoxins, like it flushes your brain from neurotoxins and pushes those out of your brain into different filtering parts of your body. That can, that can then filter those out and then you can, you know, get rid of them through whatever means urination, defecation, whatever and so, as that happens, like your body is actually removing neurotoxins, and so that's one of the things that your kids need to know. They're like that's what happens to sleep.
Jon @wholeparent:
So sleep is massively important for kids. That's number one. Number two, what we know from researchers, social scientists, actually what they're, what are called affective behavioral neuroscientists or affective neuroscientists like Jock Pengstaff that actually, if you want to really connect deeply with your child, one of the key times to do that where you get a high return on your investment of your time, is right before your kid falls asleep. So many parents get into this bedtime trauma, struggle, thing where they're just fighting and fighting and fighting with their kid every single night at bedtime. Doing a hack like this where you turn bedtime into a positive experience for your child, actually pays so many dividends on the backend.
Jon @wholeparent:
So so what he was able to show was that the time that parents spend with their kids right before bed, right before nap, right after your kid wakes up, so like things around sleep, but also things around transition, so another time that can work, especially if you have a kid who doesn't nap. They're older, it's like right when they come back home is that these reconnection points are like super charged for attachment, and so parents like you can imagine it this way like you could spend hours and hours with your kid, engaging with them, playing with them, and that's all really great for attachment. But actually what's even more effective than that is to just spend the intentional time at bedtime, to like just do bedtime really well, to really really prioritize this, and so if you're a parent who's a little bit worried, like, ah, I mean, I work a lot or I travel or whatever, and I'm worried that my child's not gonna be attached to me like, do bedtime, like be the parent who makes bedtime a positive experience. Cuddle with your kids, sit with your kids, read to your kids, tell your kids the story of their day Massively, massively helpful, because it actually is the time of, like, supercharged attachment. And then the last piece of this and I think that this is also massively important is that through this regardless of sleep so, like, let's separate out sleep One of the most compelling and powerful things you can do for your child's neurodevelopment is to help them to tell the story of what happened to them that day, to put the story into words.
Jon @wholeparent:
Well, what's one of the primary ways that we teach kids anything? By modeling. So all that to say when it's time for bed. You have this invaluable opportunity to employ a hack like this, whether you're using a bedtime routine or not, by the way, you can also just implement this into your bedtime routine. Do this every single night. Great, it'll still work. It doesn't have to be like oh, break glass in case of emergency, it's not going to stop working, like, but you have an opportunity to actually model for your kid memory.
Jon @wholeparent:
This is how I put my experiences into words. And other than sleep, which is a massive predictor of mental, emotional, physical health, and attachment, which is a massive predictor of mental, emotional, physical health and relational health, you know what else is a massive predictor of mental, emotional, physical health and relational health? You know what else is a massive predictor of mental, emotional, physical health and resilience? The ability to narrativize, that is, to put into words one's own experiences. This is how talk therapy works. This is how most protocols for PTSD work. The ability to put your narrative, your story, into language, thereby connecting the emotional and memory sense, memory, information to logical processing. And language is one of the ways that you make sense out of the world.
Jon @wholeparent:
And so, with anxiety and depression on all time highs, especially in adolescence, what's the prescription? Teach your child to be able to narrativize their experience. How do we do that with little kids who probably aren't really able? Well, we can do exactly what we're saying here. Bonus points you do it two times a day. You can do this at lunchtime. Go through their whole morning before their nap, and in those times you might not be trying to wind them down. Ask them a bunch of questions, but at bedtime, you don't necessarily need to ask them a bunch of questions, you're just modeling for them. Here's how we're going to put the story of your day into language and into a comprehensive narrative that you can draw on later. It's incredibly powerful. Totally beside the point of bedtime, this becomes a tool for long-term physical, mental and emotional health.
Jon @wholeparent:
So, as we conclude this episode, this has been an episode all about this hack telling your kids a bedtime story which is just actually not made up. It's just the story of their day. The reason that this works is because when your child is escalated, especially, but all the time at bedtime, you are trying to integrate the emotional part of their brain, the limbic system, with their neocortex, the language center, as well as the logical thinking, processing, moral thinking, long-term thinking, et cetera, introspective awareness, metacognition, just throwing out a big bunch of big words. Now you're trying to connect those things together, and one of the ways in which you can do that is by helping them to narrativize, tell the story of their day. And so when you, when it comes to bedtime, especially if you have a kid who's resisting bedtime, who's fighting bedtime, no, bedtime. I don't want to do bedtime, especially if it's one of those days when you've missed your bedtime routine for whatever reason doesn't make you a bad parent. Sometimes it just happens. Sometimes you have to prioritize something for a different kid. That's what we're doing right now Got to prioritize relationships. Sometimes for the seven-year-old, he's got to take a lot of backseat to the needs of his little brothers. Sometimes their needs are going to take a backseat to him. That's just part of life, and so bad time gets hairy.
Jon @wholeparent:
Use this hack Sit down with your kid Calmly. Tell them the story of their day. If they're resisting, ask them questions. Help them to participate in the story. Then, once they stop resisting, just tell them the story, calm, peaceful voice. Put a hand on them. If you want to release a little bit of extra oxytocin into their bloodstream at this time, right, put a hand on them. Help them to calm down. Tell them the story of your day very calmly and then, as as as you go through this process, you're going to have so many external benefits. Your kid's going to sleep better, which is better for them. You're going to have a better attachment relationship with them when, during the premier attachment time of the day, you're not fighting with them every single day, and then you're also going to help them long-term physical, mental, emotional health by teaching them to narrativize their story.
Jon @wholeparent:
Okay, I've gone way, way too long in this episode. I wanted this episode to be 15 minutes. This episode is going to be like half an hour, 45 minutes. I don't even know yet. I'll have to edit it and find out.
Jon @wholeparent:
But if you, if you like this podcast, if you want to learn more hacks, if you want to, you know help. If you're a parent who, on whatever podcast platform, please share this y'all. This podcast gets out to a couple thousand parents. I would like to see this podcast become as big as the social media platforms that I'm on, and why? Because I think this is the best way to consume the information. One minute videos yeah, they're great, but I can't get into the depth that I get into here and I think that it really matters. I think that you're way more likely to do it if you understand it, and so share this with parents in your life.
Jon @wholeparent:
If you have a parent in your life who's just like, oh man, my kid's not going to bed, hey, here's the resource. You get to be a hero today. You get to show them this podcast and then they're gonna do this and be like oh, 25, 28, 29 episodes. You know we'll go through all of them, so so share this with somebody. Make sure that you let me know also the reviews, apple or Spotify whether you're listening on Apple or Spotify, please let me know. Hey, I really enjoy this. You can always message me. There's actually a link to text me directly to me in the in the show notes as well. But yeah, until next time. This has been the whole parent podcast. I really hope this helped you parent better today.