Author’s practical guidance
Winding down a child who winds up
Source named in the book: reactivity and recovery (Rothbart)
Rothbart's work describes two separate things: how strongly a child responds and how long it takes them to come back down.
Say this now
“We've got a long, slow bedtime tonight. No rushing.”
Sets the pace as the plan, and stops you speeding up when they do.
“I'm going to sit here quietly for a bit. You don't have to talk.”
Offers presence with nothing to respond to, which is what they need.
Do this
- Give this child a longer wind-down, starting forty minutes before lights out.
- Drop your own voice and pace first — they match what is in the room.
- Cut the last hour to one activity, not three calm ones in a row.
- Keep the same low-key ending every night and resist improving it.
- Judge it across a week, since any single evening is about the day it followed.
Avoid this
- "You were fine ten minutes ago." — ten minutes ago is when the descent started.
- Tickling, wrestling or a funny voice to lighten the mood — it puts them straight back to the top.
- Adding new steps every night to find one that works — the changing is itself stimulating.
If it repeats
If a longer wind-down does not touch it after two weeks, look earlier in the day. For a child who comes down slowly, a busy late afternoon is often the real cause of a hard bedtime, and the half hour that helps most is the one at five.
Why the book suggests this
Rothbart's work describes two separate things: how strongly a child responds and how long it takes them to come back down. A child high on both is not being difficult in the evening. They are still descending from a day that ended forty minutes ago.
This is why the standard advice can fail on exactly the child who needs it most. A fifteen-minute wind-down is enough for a child who settles quickly and far too short for one who does not, and the difference is in the child, not in how well you ran it.
From this collection
Same Words: Every Night
45 prepared situations in this family area.