Are you new to parenthood? Perhaps you didn’t know that every baby and kid pretty much melts down in those few hours before bed. Some call it arsenic hour, some witching hour, some just before bed moodiness. Thank goddess for Dr. Laura Markham, whose thoughtful tips make it slightly more manageable;
Every parent knows arsenic hour, when hunger, homework, and exhaustion merge into one big emotional accident waiting to happen. One obvious reason that kids have meltdowns at the end of the day is that they’re hungry and tired, whether they’ve been home with you or out at school. But there’s another reason. After having spent the day apart, your child feels disconnected from you. Until he reconnects, he’ll let you know how alone he feels by acting ornery and uncooperative.
It’s also classic for kids who are at daycare or school all day to lose it when they’re reunited with you. It’s hard work for little people to keep it together all day in the face of all those developmental challenges, disappointments and rules. All day, they store up big feelings they can’t process, waiting to be safe with Mom or Dad to let those emotions fly. The minute they see you, their “executive self” relaxes, and their “baby self” comes out to seek comfort. Be ready to be emotionally present for your kids, focus on connecting with them, and you’ll stave off some meltdowns and set a pleasant tone for the evening.
How?
How To Survive The Evening Witching Hour With Kids
1. If you can manage it, change into your jeans before you leave the office. I know, it sounds crazy. But the minute you do, you begin to relax. And make sure to use the bathroom before you leave the office! What if you’ve been home with little ones all day? Steal five minutes to wash your face, have a cup of tea, and do nothing. Really, nothing.
2. Then, before you pick up your kids, sit in the car for five minutes by yourself. Put on some soothing music. Breathe deeply. Notice the sensations in your body. Acknowledge how you’re feeling. Then, pretend your heart is doing the breathing, and imagine the breath going in and out through your heart (this has been proven to lower stress hormones.) Tell yourself what a good job you did all day. Think of one nice thing you can do for yourself this evening (A hot bubble bath? Call an old friend? Go to bed early?) and promise yourself that present tonight. Acknowledge that after the kids go to sleep is your time, this next few hours is “kid time.” Then, get in touch with how much you love your kids and how much you want a nice connection with them. Once you’ve filled your own cup, you’ll find you have a lot more to offer your kids.
3. Give your kids lots of hugs and “pre-emptive” attention when you pick them up. When your kids get in the car, what they need is to re-connect with you. Turn off the radio and focus on them. Give everyone a big hug and a loving look in the eye. Make a ritual of starting with the youngest, and ask them about their days. Be sure to ask open-ended questions to get them talking while you drive. You’ll find your kids will come to love this ritual and wait for their turn with great anticipation.
4. Keep your kids with you when you walk into the kitchen to start dinner. Why? Because they haven’t seen you all day and they need to reconnect with you. Until they do, they’re much harder to manage, and much more likely to fight with each other. They’re also more likely to get into trouble while you’re preoccupied with getting dinner on the table — pediatricians will tell you that kids have more accidents at this time of day. They’re overstimulated from being tired, which means they have stress hormones coursing through their veins — that’s how kids manage to get through the afternoon when they’re tired, and it’s what makes them so cranky and often hyperactive at this time of day. Using TV at this point can become an addiction because it tamps down the feelings your child has stored up all day, and numbs children out, so when it’s time to turn off the TV, all those unprocessed emotions come bursting out.
Instead, start a routine of sitting your kids down at a little table in the kitchen with a healthy snack, and some paper to draw if they’re toddlers or preschoolers. Ask them to draw you a picture of their day. If they’re older, they can sit at the kitchen table and do homework while they snack. Young children may show you with their crankiness that they need your help to restore emotional regulation; the best way to do that is a short roughhousing game in which you get them giggling to let off their tension. Not a structured game, but any silly little interaction in which you express your affection and undying love in such a hammed-up way that it gets your child giggling. (Be a bucking bronco…Sing silly songs….arm wrestle.) You’ll find that three minutes invested in re-connecting this way can transform your evening.
5. Put healthy snacks in front of the kids as soon as you walk in the door. Set up a low table in the kitchen that your kids can sit at and draw and snack. Worried that you’ll spoil their appetites? Make sure the snacks are healthy. Crackers with peanut butter, cheese slices, carrots, olives, broccoli florets, raisins, bananas, apple slices, cucumber slices, cherry tomatoes, red pepper slices, raw or cooked green beans, hard boiled eggs, even a healthy smoothie…..anything nutritious that takes less than five minutes to prepare, or that can be prepared the night before. In fact, think of this snack as the first course of dinner, and make sure your kids are getting protein or vitamins from it. It’s amazing how many more vegies kids consume when they’re served as a snack rather than competing with the carbs on the dinner plate. Don’t forget to feed yourself a bit as you prep dinner, so you recharge your own batteries.
6. Are your kids antsy, not able to sit in one place to draw and snack? Put them to work and tell them how much you value their help. As you chop the vegies, they can put them in the bowl. Or they can get ingredients out of the fridge for you. When it’s time to eat, have everyone set the table together. If you don’t have a “safety tower” for little ones to work next to you, you might find it a life saver.
7. What to do when your youngest is a baby or toddler who is just too tired even to sit and snack in a high chair? Get out the sling or baby backpack and let her watch from your back as you make dinner.
8. Simplify so you can connect. Don’t answer your phone and don’t return phone calls before dinner. In fact, turn your phone off. Don’t go through the mail or complete school forms. Do not turn on your computer to “quickly check email.” Just get everyone fed as soon as possible. Once that’s completed, everyone will have more internal resources to draw on to tend to any other tasks that need to be accomplished, including any kid chores.
9. Use the power of music. Research shows that music can lift our moods, calm us down, make us happy. As soon as you walk in the door, put on soothing music.
10. As a matter of simple survival, don’t spend more than 20 minutes getting dinner on the table. Anything that’s quick and nutritious is fine to serve for dinner on weeknights. When you cook a meal on the weekend, why not cook several batches and freeze some (Stews, soups, beans, lasagna, casseroles)? You should be able to get out a frozen meal twice a week before you leave for work, and just add a salad and bread that evening as the meal is heating. The other three meals? Pasta, eggs, beans or broiled fish or meat. If your gourmet sensibilities are offended by this simplicity, think about what’s more important — an easy, happy family evening, or a gourmet meal. You can always cook on weekends when you have all day and (hopefully) adult backup.
I know it seems like extra work to cook and plan ahead. But the daily stress of being hungry and not knowing what you’ll serve hungry kids for dinner can ruin your life and sabotage everything positive you do with your kids. If you’re more of a free spirit, you don’t have to plan, just look in your freezer every morning. If you can’t find anything, make the decision right then: Will you order pizza or make scrambled eggs?
11. Feed young kids as early as possible. Seriously, why wait? They’re starving. They’re tired. You need to get on with their baths and get them to bed. Why not feed little ones at 5:30pm, 5pm, even 4:30pm? What if one spouse can’t get home until later and the kids are too young to wait? Feed the kids early. Finish homework, bathe everyone. When the other partner gets home, everyone can sit down for Happy Hour together. Serve fresh fruit to the kids while Mom or Dad eats. (Or maybe both parents eat at this point.) That way, kids get some experience with family meals even during the week, and get to connect with both parents, but they get fed at a developmentally appropriate hour, they have time for a soothing bath, and they get to bed on time. If you love working with children my friend said that there are a lot of birmingham teaching jobs that need dedicated teachers to help guide the next generation. My friend tells me its so rewarding and she couldn’t be happier that she took the dive into becoming a teacher.
Dr. Laura Markham is the author of Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How To Stop Yelling and Start Connecting. To get Dr Laura’s parenting tips right in your email inbox; sign up: AhaParenting.com.