Please Stop Reading!
I am an author-mother in a predicament: I need to ask my son to stop reading. That’s right, to stop reading.
My son wasn’t one of those very early or very precocious readers, and there were moments when I wondered if he’d take to it at all. Well into first grade, he was happy to be read-aloud-to, to read pictures, and to make up his own version of book stories.
I remember when I discovered my son actually was reading. I was changing the sheets on his bed to accommodate a guest. When I lifted his pillow, there, face down and open, was a book. Next to the book was a flashlight.
“Don’t lose my place,” my son said.
“Are you reading after bedtime?” I asked.
“You do it”, he said in his defense.
He had a point. There just isn’t time in my day for reading — until after bedtime.
So what do I say to the pile of books cascading off my son’s dresser onto the floor, when my night table looks the same?
A couple years later, he’s into chapter books which are harder to finish, never mind put down. And, after a summer of relaxed routines, things are not where they need to be to to have a (smooth) morning school and bus schedule.
“Put the book down, it’s lights out,” I’ve been saying, to set the stage.
He complies. Sort of. Temporarily. The blue lava-lamp nightlight has served as after-hours lighting no matter how many times I turned it off.
“PLEASE STOP READING OR THAT LIGHT WILL BE IN TIME OUT”. I have become more emphatic.
Both of us tend to be sleep deprived and cranky.
“You really can’t read at night,” I tell him.
How sad. How tragic, that in the goal of advancing education, I need to limit my son’s propensity for reading. And yet, how necessary for mutual mental health!
I’ve solved the problem, at least for now, by instituting a “school year policy”. My son gets to read to himself for a few minutes, then we’ll do family read-aloud, the very last thing before bedtime.
We’ve begun the year with “Matilda” by Rhoald Dahl, and two nights in, so far, so good.
Tags: bedtime parent-child reading aloud schedules Stanley