When do you say no?

So we have recently been going through a battle with our three year old. It started when we moved into our new house last summer. Gradually he had worked himself into sleeping with us every night. It got to the point where my wife wouldn't want to be woken up in the middle of the night so she moved his bed into our room. He would start the night there and then crawl into our bed in the middle of the night.

After talking with some friends about this I started hearing horror stories about 12 and 13 year olds still sleeping with their parents. I started having visions of this third wheel, who likes to kick and slap and move all over in the middle of the night, being a permanent fixture and it was a scary sight. Since I was the one taking issue; I was the one that had to take the action as well. One night I was talking with our son and I told him he was getting older and someday he would need to move his bed back into his room. I was laying the groundwork for moving him back to his room when he turned 4. Well he said he didn't want to do it tonight but that he would do it the next night. Surprised I agreed and let him sleep with us that one last night. The next night we moved his bed back into his room before bedtime and went through the normal ritual. My wife didn't know about our agreement and was a little upset (I'll get to that in a minute), but she let me continue with what I was doing (although visibly upset about my method). Our son slept in his bed all night and everything was great; until the next night. The next night was a real chore getting him to bed and he threw a fit. I stuck to it and told him he had to sleep in his own bed. He woke up a few times throughout the night but each time I went in and comforted him and he stayed in his bed. It has been a few weeks now and it hasn't gotten much better. He still asks every night if he can sleep with us, I still tell him no. He still gets up at least once in the middle of the night for "something", and I still have him stay in his bed. But it's hard.

So in talking to my wife I found that she likes having our son sleep with us. It's comforting to her. She wouldn't mind at all if he were to continue sleeping with us until he's 12 or 13. She was upset with me because she wasn't privy to our previous nights' conversation, but once we got through that she still wasn't happy because she would rather let him sleep with us than be woken up in the middle of the night.

So I'm not quite sure what to do at this point. Our son still wants to sleep with us, I think my wife probably wants him to sleep with us, but I don't want our 2 year old joining the party and I don't want our 3 year old sleeping with us into his teen years. Does anyone have any insight to offer?

Drugs...

This week my 15yo daughter called home needing a ride after school. Apparently she was hanging out with some friends after school on campus and they decided they were going to smoke pot and asked her to come along. Her really good friend wanted to go with them and didn't want to go alone. My daughter didn't want to go along, but she also didn't want to leave her friend alone either. Not knowing what to do she called her boyfriend who promptly hung up on her and called his father. He called her back and told her she better call her mom right away, which she did.

Words can't really express how proud I am of our daughter for making a good choice. We are also extremely proud of her boyfriend for his decision making process. That night we took the kids out for ice cream to talk about what had happened and open the air for anything else they might want to say. It only reinforces the knowledge that being involved in your child's life is extremely important. You might think you know what's going on in their life but they're pretty good at keeping things to themselves if you're not asking the right questions.

There are many reasons why this is an extremely important thing that has happened; but this really stands out for us because our daughter has been struggling academically this year. She's at a new school in a new school district and it's hard work to fit in and be accepted. Her decision to call her mom was a pretty big one on so many levels. I'm sure this won't be the last tough decision she will be faced with, but hopefully our reaction to this one will help her feel comfortable in the future. She was grounded for most of the school year and we recently gave her most of her privileges back and she has really stepped up and started working hard not only in school, but at home as well. Just when we were starting to worry about a situation coming up like this going the wrong way, she comes through and really makes us proud.