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.

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