Fewer Books, More Conversation

The original idea of giving our son a certain number of books at night seemed like a good idea at the time. He loves reading, and it was an incentive to obedience. In addition, it was important time to grow closer as "the boys." As our son grew older, he began asking more and more questions. More questions means that the same number of books takes more time to complete, time we'd rather he spend sleeping so he's not grumpy in the morning and so that we can get our stuff done at night. My solution was to try and rush him through his questions and comments in order to finish the books so that it wouldn't take all night. The result seemed to be that we lost much of the close relationship we had. As he gets older, I think the dynamics of the father/son relationship changes a little. I almost think the older he gets the more affirmation he needs from me, and that instead of providing it I focused too much on sticking closely to the nightly schedule. Finally, last night I felt as though I was missing the point of reading to my son. Yes, I want him to be smart, and yes, I want him to read, but it is not the act of reading to him that accomplishes those goals. Instead, after reading the books last night, I apologized for rushing him and proposed that we just read what we can until bedtime so that we can talk about things that come to his mind. He liked that idea and tonight was the first try. It was a success. It has been a long time since we laughed together that much before putting him to bed. I think he felt that my focus was him rather than the clock. I also think that smart kids and good kids are better developed by quality time than by trying to upload a bunch of information into their heads. With this new approach, we joked, discussed questions, learned a lot, and grew closer. I needed this as much as he might have. I missed feeling this kind of closeness with my son. Like bathing them one at a time, I think this read-what-we-can-before-bedtime idea is a better to have quality time and still stay on schedule.