Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.

Dear Care and Feeding,

Our 4.5 year old has a great imagination and loves playing by herself, and acting out scenes of her own making. I love this—except that she’s doing it instead of sleeping. She doesn’t put up a fight at bedtime, but as soon as we say night night, she’ll play for hours, sometimes not going to sleep until nearly 10 P.M. (despite multiple interjections by me and her dad). She even wakes up in the middle of the night and plays until 4 A.M. Not surprisingly, she’s tired the next day, she sleeps later in the morning and we’re rushed to get her to school.

I’m really concerned that she is not getting sufficient sleep and that it is having and will continue to have negative effects on her health. However, I can’t just tell her to turn the imagination off—nor do I want to! We’ve had countless conversations about the importance of rest for our bodies and minds, and my husband and I don’t stay up late (except for when we’re waiting her out). Just now, I gently put her back into bed, confirmed that she doesn’t want to get sick from not getting enough sleep, and promised there will be plenty of time to play tomorrow … and, as I write this, I can hear her pretending to beat up bad guys with a plastic light saber. Any advice on guiding this child to sleep without crushing her independent and imaginative spirit?

—But Sleep is the Best!

Dear Sleep,

First of all, your kid sounds great! I totally agree that you want to keep her independence and imagination intact. I am emphatically pro light-saber (except, of course, when used for the wrong reasons like Anakin’s murder of the Younglings at the Jedi Temple in Revenge of the Sith).

It’s possible that she is staying up for the attention she gets from your interjecting. You might try sitting with her a little longer at bed time to read books or ask her to tell you stories from her own imagination. Kids’ stories are, of course, meandering, nonsensical, boring, and often full of clichés. Just do your best.

Keep your eye out for nights when she doesn’t stay up late and try to figure out their contributing factors. If you notice that she doesn’t stay up after she’s spent a lot of time running around actively, it might be that she’s understimulated during the day and has a lot of energy left over. Some kids need to run around a lot (ideally outdoors) to get all that energy out. If you notice that she goes to bed easily if there have been no screens that afternoon (including your phone), consider reassessing her screen diet. The same goes for her actual food diet. I generally assume no one is letting their 4.5 year old have caffeine and then writing for advice on sleep, but stranger things have happened.

You mentioned you’re concerned about the effects of lack of sleep on your daughter’s health. This is definitely something to mention to your pediatrician at her next checkup. They might ask about things like diet, activity level and even screen time to try to help figure out a fix, and probably some stuff I have not thought of. They might even suggest melatonin supplements. I am not a doctor. Pediatricians are! Don’t try fixing this with melatonin on your own. And, please also never show your daughter Revenge of the Sith at any age.

Dear Care and Feeding,

My two younger boys are 10 and almost 8, and attend a predominantly Hispanic populated school. I’m not sure how to explain current events to them. The ICE raids have already come up at home—probably because they heard things on the playground—and for now my husband and I gave a vague explanation. But they’re smart boys and if kids come up missing from school, they’ll want to know more. I don’t believe in treating them like they’re incapable of understanding but our youngest has anxiety. Suggestions on how to explain without causing anxiety? Or is there no way—because as an adult, I feel anxiety hearing the news.

—Loss for Words

Dear Loss for Words,

Before you try to explain it yourself, reach out to the school. Ask how they plan to support and educate students about this issue. Any school with a significant population of students impacted by changes to immigration enforcement should have this thought through, and should be training their teachers for it. Ask for the materials the school is using so that you can be sure that you’re providing non-conflicting information to your kids and try to use all the same vocabulary as their school counselors and teachers. If this school isn’t doing this already, advocate for it! Call or email the principal, and have other parents you know do the same.

In the meantime, it’s better for your boys to learn about this from adults rather than other kids on the playground. Start your discussion by assuring them that they are safe and do not need to be afraid. Then, depending on your politics, you can try to explain to them why immigration authorities might come to their school and what they should expect. Ask them what they’re hearing on the playground. Ask them what they’re afraid of. If you feel like they’re up for it, you can also educate them about immigrants’ rights to attend public schools. There is no way to prevent your child from feeling anxiety about the state of the world—you can emphasize that their feelings make sense, that they can come to you with any questions, and that it’s the adults’ job to do the worrying.

—Greg

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Before my son was born, I felt like we were in a great place in terms of family support. My parents live a 7-hour drive away, but my husband’s parents and brother are only 30 minutes away. My mother-in-law in particular was so adamant that I could always ask them if I needed anything, and she was very excited to look after the baby (so she said!). Well, the one thing I asked them to help with during the birth was to take care of our dog. My brother-in-law had promised to dog-sit for us—but while I was in the hospital, he disappeared.