Setting yourself up for faith conversations in 2024

My nine year old  has had trouble sleeping for a long while now. For some time I would just dismiss it and explain she just had to lie there until she fell asleep – after all, after bed time is your time right?! You’re tired after a long day and it’s the only time you get to yourself! Soon I realised this wasn’t fair on her as much as me and so I tackled it head on. The key word about mentoring is INTENTIONAL. Mentoring happens when you decide to facilitate and support your child in a purposeful way. So we began a long process together to crack it… It involved calculations; how much sleep she needed and how much she actually gets, what time she falls asleep and what time would be optimum in order to get enough… and agreed a plan to work back from the latter to the former in 15 minute intervals each week. We built in bedtime activities that don’t involve screens (eg playing chess together), a routine every night including a snack, quiet time, and ‘talk time’ where she gets to offload all questions and thoughts long before bedtime so they don’t keep her up. We discussed monsters and strategies for combatting fear, loneliness, fidgety-ness… We bought a great book about ‘dreading your bed’ that we read together. The results have been remarkable. Not only has her sleep habits and bedtimes improved considerably but I’ve loved all this quality time with her and it’s been fantastic to interact with her in a new way and on a deeper level.