sleep & fear/moralizing in child-rearing
I can't help but think how damaging it would have been to Tater and to our relationship with him if we had treated his inability to sleep on time as a willful disobedience, as lots of parents do including my sister-in-law. My mother-in-law has told me, approvingly, about how SIL's daughters were FORBIDDEN to be out of bed past nine and would stay in bed out of fear until they fell asleep.*
If anything though, our experience with the blanket shows the inability to sleep is a physical thing that children can't help, not a moral failing or their dastardly plot to make their caregivers' lives miserable. Sure we theoretically could have forced Tater to stay in bed, but he would have suffered from it because he would still deal with the underlying physical causes that kept him from sleeping. It's sad and angering how much children are punished and terrorized for things that could be much better dealt with by trying to help them rather than making them comply.
* I have, like, so many issues with SIL's childrearing in general--this is the woman who threatened to go to the cops because her daughters said a bad word, prompting hours-long tears and apologies. Perhaps even worse, she has a degree in early life education 😬