ABSTRACT
Staff coverage is inadequate for the one-to-one process, and prolonged conversations at bedtime tend to obviate the necessity for going to sleep. Institutional routines at bedtime often seem designed more for institutional efficiency than for teaching adaptive behavior to an individual child or to a group of children. The staff of Walker Home has developed a network of ideas about the management of children that serves as a background to our discussion of bedtime. The range of "naughty," disturbed, or disturbing behavior of children at bedtime is magnificent in its breadth and variety. The goal is to devise descriptive categories for bedtime behavior that will aid adults in managing children. The child whose bedtime difficulties really begin when he has to stop a pleasurable evening activity presents a different management problem from the child who needs an endless succession of drinks and trips to the bathroom after he is bed.
