How many of us have had trouble putting our highly dysregulated foster children to bed at night? Although we’ve gotten over most of the bedtime problems we used to have, I remember those days wondering if we’d ever get a good night’s sleep again. Of course, there are many things we do to make our children feel safe when it’s time to sleep, but Tim and I accidentally stumbled upon a “kill 2 birds with one stone” technique that we still use from time to time.

We like to use everything we can for our own benefit, that makes sense, right? Why not use your child’s desire to stay awake as a way to gain more valuable instructional time during the day? Many activities end at bedtime. Here are some examples…

Gabriel was having a hard time memorizing math facts, but he HATED making flashcards. We have some math games that we played with him and he did at least one worksheet every day, but he was still struggling and we knew flashcards were the best way to solidify those facts in his brain. Tim started carrying the stack of flashcards to Gabriel’s bedside at night and voila! Suddenly math flashcards were highly desirable. He did as many as we wanted because he knew that the more he did, the more time he had to stay awake. It worked like a charm!

Even with our oldest son, who has no history of trauma, we have been able to get extra practice in Latin, grammar, and math at night before bed. With it, you get the quiet time and extra alone time with mom and dad, so learning topics that would be considered too difficult during the day suddenly become fun if done at bedtime. Who knows?

Here are 4 activities you can do with your child at bedtime:

1. Spelling Practice: Take turns asking each other questions about the spelling words.
2. Read historical fiction at night before bed as a family or read each child their own book that matches their current studies.
3. Sing educational songs that practice skip counting, times tables, or other exercises.
4. Ask your child to read you a bedtime story to practice reading throughout the day.

We have started to use this concept in other ways since we discovered it. I often give history and science lessons at lunch; then we clean the table and do an experiment or craft that fits the lesson. Lunchtime provides time when children sit at a table because they want to eat, AND their mouths are full, so you can get plenty of instructional time for your auditory learners. Come on everyone, chew with your mouth closed! After lunch, you can reinforce the lesson with your experiment or craft.

Anything that might normally be met with disgust can be moved to bedtime or the lunch table if you’re creative enough. For example, our children do not like new experiences. They like to know what to expect, so when I first introduced them to the “Classic Kids” audio story series, I didn’t do it during normal “school” hours, I started playing one of these wonderful CDs at lunch (when Their mouths were full (remember, take what you can and use it to your advantage!) and they were immediately hooked. If I had tried to set up the stories and make it sound like a lesson, they would have squirmed and complained. As it is, now they request these CDs and even bring them to their rooms to listen to over and over again, how gratifying!

Pick a topic your child is struggling with and try to come up with a creative bedtime activity that reinforces what they’ve learned. See how willing he is to participate and learn when he feels he has “extra” time to stay awake. Ah, the art of being a father…