My phone went missing one night. For some reason I already knew what happened to it.

I asked Jackie who admitted she hid it away because I spend more time on my phone than with them. My darling joked that they should just handle it but then I began thinking. When did I stop tucking them in at night?

For some reason when they turned 10 I automatically thought, hey they are big, I can spend more time on what I want to do.

I realised there was some kind of breakdown in the amount of time I spent with them, so I decided to commit to putting them in bed. But guess what, the stuff I used which was great stuff last year, didn’t work as well.

Tickles? No! They weren’t ticklish anymore. Bedtime stories? No we read multi chapter books! Suddenly I had a new challenge and had to find other strategies to connect to my children.

So what did I do?

Well we read multi chapter books now, OMG they are so boring but my girls love them. We also play cards and before dinner we go for walks as our prep for sleep time. It’s really great connecting.

There were two really important lessons from this experience.

• Just because they get older doesn’t mean you can let the relationship fall to the side.
• As they grow your strategies need to grow too.

Have a good one.