Bedtime in a household with children can be hectic. Caitlin Slavens, BAACS, MC, R Psych, a registered psychologist and the clinic owner and co-founder of Couples to Cradles Counselling, knows first-hand how often child psychologist bedtime advice is sought-after. She says it’s common for parents to find themselves desperate for advice on how to stop nighttime battles. Step one: Give everyone some grace (yourself included).
“Nobody is really at their best at bedtime,” Slavens tells Parade. “Kids are tired and have less ability to manage disappointment, while parents are usually running on whatever patience they have left and likely have a to-do list after the kids get into bed.”
For kids, she says “bedtime” is code for “stop the fun and separate from the parent.” Cue the requests for an extra glass of water, “just one more story” and another trip to the bathroom.
“Some of that is stalling, of course, but under it there’s often a child asking for a bit more control or closeness before the day ends,” she states.
It’s natural to want to turn on the TV or iPad and hope it settles your kid. Screen-free bedtime ideas may feel like a bridge too far, but it can be helpful to tap into them.
“I’m not anti-screen, but screens can make bedtime harder simply because they’re so engaging,” the psychologist says. “Asking a child to turn off a show or game and immediately go to sleep is a very abrupt transition. A screen-free activity gives their brain a chance to come down gradually.”
Slavens is a particularly big fan of one screen-free and simple bedtime tradition that families have forgotten about, calling it an oldie but a goodie. She reveals it ahead, along with other ways to connect with your kid at the end of the day (even when you’re exhausted).
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The Lost Art of Oral Storytelling and Reflection
Oral storytelling for kids has many benefits, including cognitive development and child-caregiver connection. However, Slavens stresses that parents didn’t wake up one day and decide oral storytelling for kids wasn’t valuable anymore.
“Parents just found easy ways to fill every quiet moment,” she explains. “There’s always another show, podcast, video or text to respond to, and family schedules are packed. Making up a story requires us to stop, be a little silly and come up with something without already having a script in front of us.”
Slavens says it’s part of a trend that she’s witnessed over the last couple of decades: The decline of “unstructured time.”
“We’ve lost some of the natural pauses that used to occur, where it used to be filled with family stories, the chance to ask odd questions or chat about their day,” she tells Parade.
In some cases, parents have replaced unstructured time with tutoring, athletics and other activities designed to promote child development. They aren’t bad, but ironically, children’s cognitive development and storytelling also go hand in hand.
“It’s a lot of mental work to follow a story,” the psychologist explains. “They need to remember what happened earlier, notice cause and effect, predict what might happen next and try to understand what different characters know or feel. All of these pieces help boost language, memory, attention and social awareness.”
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The Psychology: Why Bedtime Is the Best Time To Connect
One reason to include storytelling in a bedtime routine for kids is that this time of night is naturally suited for connection.
“During the day, lots of conversations with our kids are around telling them what to do—get dressed, find your shoes, finish eating, hurry up, slow down and so on,” Slavens explains. “At bedtime, a parent is often sitting still, close by and not asking the child to perform or accomplish anything.”
She often hears this common scenario: A parent tucks a child in, turns off their lamp and is halfway out the door. The child suddenly says, “Mom, I don’t think Ava wants to be my friend anymore.”
“This is the same child who said school was ‘fine’ at dinner,” Slavens points out. “At bedtime, typically, the house is quiet, you’re sitting beside them, and no one is looking for a missing shoe or clearing plates. This may be the first real chance they had all day to tell you what has been bothering them.”
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Spark Their Imagination: 3 Ideas To Start Bedtime Stories
It can be hard to jump into a story from scratch. Before you start oral storytelling for kids at bedtime, it’s important to “set the scene.”
“We want to keep the opening simple and give the child a place they can picture right away,” Slavens says. “‘Once upon a time, in a small cabin at the edge of a snowy forest, a child heard three knocks on the window.’ Then, add a few details, such as a fire popping, wet boots by the door or the wooden porch floor creaking.”
Still stumped? Slavens shared a few more oral bedtime story ideas to get you started.
1. The unexpected visitor
The premise: “A tiny fox wearing a red scarf appears outside the cabin because it has lost something important.”
“Let your child decide what is missing, then have the child in the story help search for it in two or three places,” Slavens suggests. “This works because the story has an immediate problem to solve, but your child still gets to decide whether they are searching for a key, a baby fox or a bag of enchanted cookies.”
2. The midnight stuffie mission
The premise: “After everyone is asleep, your child’s favorite stuffed animal discovers that one of the toys is lost and needs help finding it.”
“Use actual details from the bedroom, such as crawling beneath the dresser, checking the toy box or following a trail of blocks into the hallway,” Slavens states. “Children can add to this story because they already know their house and what’s in and around it. They don’t have to invent an entire new scene in their mind before anything exciting happens.”
3. The day that took a strange turn
The premise: “Choose one everyday moment from your child’s day and change one detail. Maybe the puddle at recess turns out to be an underground portal or the missing glove is found holding a special card in the school library.”
“Ask your child what happened next and follow their version, even if it makes no sense to you,” Slavens shares. “This works because they have a frame of reference to start from, and it gives them an easy way to revisit part of their day without being asked another round of questions about how school went.”
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3 Questions To Ask Instead of ‘How Was Your Day?’
Besides storytelling, using bedtime connection questions (that aren’t “how was your day?”) can help you bond with your child one more time before they head to dreamland. Slavens shares a few of her favorites.
1. “What was one thing that was good about today, and what was one part that you wished had turned out differently?”
The highs-and-lows bedtime routine is similar to the rose-thorn question at dinnertime.
“A child might go to bed still reflecting on the incident when no one had saved them a seat at lunch, even if they had not mentioned it,” Slavens states. “By discussing one positive thing and one difficult thing, the difficult situation gets an opportunity to be worked through out loud.”
Remember, as a parent, it’s not your job to change what happened—which is good because that’s impossible. But Slavens says you can respond by saying something like, “That must have been difficult. Let’s come up with a plan tomorrow.”
“That might be all that is needed for the child to stop worrying about it for the night,” she shares.
2. “What was the funniest thing that happened today?”
You can even tack this one onto No. 1 about highs and lows. (People who do rose-thorn sometimes refer to the “funniest thing that happened today” as the “feather.”)
“You usually receive more than just ‘fine’ since you’re not asking them to go over the whole day, merely to recall one particular moment,” Slavens says. “You might hear of someone falling off a bench at lunch or the teacher making the mistake of calling a classmate by the wrong name, after which the rest of the story is typically developed.”
3. “What was the name of the person you spent the most time with today?”
Slavens loves that this question gives kids a simple starting point.
“For example, they might say ‘Noah’ and then go on to tell you what game they played at recess, what Noah said at lunch and the reason why they might not be sitting together tomorrow,” she notes.
How To Start Small (If You’re Exhausted)
You may be too exhausted to do a whole song-and-dance bedtime routine for kids. But you don’t need much to connect with a child at bedtime. Slavens shares a few simple tips that are actually big steps in the “connection direction.”
1. Choose one question to ask
Seriously. You don’t have to ask all three questions above, or the endless ones you saw in a social media reel last night. One question works, even if the reply is the classic, “fine.”
“If the reply is ‘fine’ or ‘I don’t know’, then you can say ‘OK’ and stop there,” Slavens says. “There’s no need to force a meaningful conversation out of every bedtime session—your role is simply to leave space for your child to speak should there be anything on their mind.”
2. Use a three-sentence story
You don’t need to be Roald Dahl to engage in oral storytelling for kids at bedtime.
“Try saying, ‘Once there was a little bunny who hoped to get to the bakery before it closed, but a sleeping dragon was blocking the road,'” Slavens suggests. “Then ask your child what the [it] should do. You only need to set up the first situation, after which your child can proceed.”
3. Do the same thing with that character again tomorrow
Yep. Bring the bunny (or whatever you chose) back the next day. But add some plot twists. For instance, maybe he loses one of his boots or finds a goose sitting on his bicycle.
“Since you already know where he lives and what sort of creature he is, you just need to come up with one new difficulty,” Slavens explains. “Your child might even take charge and tell you what the bunny should do next.”
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- Caitlin Slavens, BAACS, MC, R Psych, is a registered psychologist and the clinic owner and co-founder of Couples to Cradles Counselling.