Parents of HS kids

[mysteriouswife]

What is your bedtime for your teen? What time do you expect your teen to have homework and chores completed?

I’m done arguing with DD. I’m to the point of not caring what her grades are and letting life consequences take place. She wants to go to a highly competitive school. She is not grasping the reality of not having decent grades and turning in assignments on time.

[gummybear]

We have a 14.5 year old - she’s in 8th so almost high school. We don’t have a set bedtime for her - we let her police herself. The only rule we have is phone out of the room overnight and generally speaking, I’ll text her “lights out” if it’s much past midnight. I will say, she’s an extremely self-disciplined and motivated student (not so much in other areas).

As far as parenting goes , I too subscribe to the school of thought that you let your kids fail/fall short and have consequence be the punishment rather than setting more and more rules and clearing pathways/problems for them. How old is she? I think kids have unrealistic ideas about just how accomplished they are (not a knock at you, I just feel society coddles this generation). Maybe have her meet with a college counselor so they can set expectations? That might motivate her.

[firedancer10288]

Mine is in 8th grade currently, so I realize I will lose control over this soon! But bedtime is 9:30 (meaning in her room and off electronics) and lights out by 10-10:30. I’m usually asleep by then anyway, so if she’s still up I wouldn’t know, but the only thing she can really do is read, so I’m not bothered. If she stays up to late she lives with the natural consequences the next morning. Her phone gets charged in the kitchen over night.

Homework I don’t really pay attention to as long as she’s turning things in on time and her grades are decent. There have been some
Instances where I have to sit on her for a few weeks to make sure homework is getting done, but she is usually able to turn it around quickly.

ETA- chores are another story. I usually have to nag to get anything done, but tying it to something she wants to do usually works.

[mysteriouswife]

She is also 14.5 freshman. Your DD and my DD sound similar with the lights out rule. She needs sleep. Maybe I need to loosen up a little and let life lessons take place

[mysteriouswife]

Apr 25, 2022 16:39:26 GMT -5 firedancer10288 said:

Homework I don’t really pay attention to as long as she’s turning things in on time and her grades are decent. There have been some
Instances where I have to sit on her for a few weeks to make sure homework is getting done, but she is usually able to turn it around quickly.

This is my DD exactly. We are in the few weeks of micro-managing phase. I think she is just burnt out like the rest of the world.

The few replies are making me feel better. Thank you for allowing me to vent

[cjcouple]

15yo 10th grader is in bed around 10 on school nights. Some times it's 10:30 on basketball nights. He has practice until 9, comes home, eats and showers.

Homework and chores done by bedtime. Usually he is done by 8. On basketball nights before practice at 7.

[gummybear]

These kids are all pieces of work! Luckily she’s young enough to right the ship. At that age a couple of slip ups are good for them IMO! I say pick your battles. We are too weary for this.

Our daughter (and me, parent of the year) went to an Ariana Grandé concert on a school night during standardized test week. It was 5th grade so really no big stakes. She wore me down bc all her friends were going. The next day she was exhausted and got a 76 on that section of the test. Everything else was her normal (98-99%).

She wanted to go out the night before her entrance exam for her 1st choice high school. I put my foot down and refused. Pointed out the great AG debacle of 2019. She stayed in and ended up acing the test and getting a scholarship! Life lesson at its finest!

[1confused1]

My son is a freshman and is usually in bed by 10 or 10:30 (he is also a 3 sport athlete, so he often goes to bed earlier). He has to have all his homework done before he goes to bed. Probably not helpful, but I don’t worry about him and grades, he is super driven and has goals to play baseball in college so he knows he needs to keep his grades up to help stand out.

[georgeharrison]

My kid is 16 and finishing his junior year. He doesn't have a bed time, but if he is up too late, I'll be like, "Dude, you need to go to bed." The rest of the stuff, we are now at the point where he is going to do what he's going to do and that's up to him. He knows what he needs to do to get into the college that he wants to go to. He knows how to get good grades - if he wants to. Chores...ugh. That we do duke it out over, because I very much want my house to be clean. But he's a 16 year old, grotty boy.

[MixedBerryJam]

Is 14 around 9th grade? I think that was the age where I actually did away with “bedtime” and made them take responsibility for going to sleep and getting up. I just was talking to an acquaintance about this. In the middle of the day one day while the kids were IN SCHOOL I walked by the stairs and hollered for them to get up. Because I was hollering up the stairs to get up like 20 times each morning. So I told them I’d holler up once, and the rest was up to them. If they weren’t ready when it was time to leave they’d have to get themselves to school. This involve a one mile walk to the bus, which they road to the train. They learned very fast (days) what an appropriate lights out time was for them. I said this last night, too: I do not miss those days.

[Roc A Bee]

I have a 15 year old freshman. No real bedtime. The consequence of the early morning is enough. If we notice too much sleepiness, we take her phone for the night.

[stemmie]

9th grade was a shit-show here. A lot of my friends said their kids struggled with the transition to high school regressing rather than gaining maturity. Bedtime was never an issue for us-- my kid loves to sleep and is an early-bird. But the academic and time management stuff caused a lot of upset in our otherwise chill household.

One thing that did help was having someone DS respected deliver the message- for him it was a coach. Things were a lot better in 10th.

[wanderlustmom]

Our daughter is 15 and not a night owl. Her phone and Wifi turn off at 10 but she would go to sleep at that time anyway. She swims too and often early so she likes to go to bed.

Our son is 17 and a night owl. We have to watch him. He gets on his phone middle of the night, falls asleep in basement when he’s not supposed to, finds ways around his WiFi being off. We catch him and take his phone the next night. It mostly works, we catch him on his phone a few times a month still. He has hard classes and daily soccer so he needs to go to bed. Most nights he sleeps 11-7. Not great but not terrible

[orval]

My ds is 15 and a freshman. Usually goes to bed between 9 - 9:30 gets up at 6 am. He usually has his homework done by 7 unless he has a tennis match/long practice then he might go to 8. He can't function on little sleep and he knows it, so he really can't concentrate after 8 on his work.

[rootbeerfloat]

DS is in 9th grade. He's asleep between 10:30-11, I think; it's after I fall asleep. He's up at 7:20. Homework is usually done by 9 at the latest, though it doesn't seem to be a lot to me, but I can tell through the grading app that he turns things in.

He needs a lot of reminding for chores.

[orval]

Apr 25, 2022 16:55:06 GMT -5 melmaria said:

I was shocked this year with some friends kids who have a solid B average (like 3.4, 3.5) and did not get into what I consider an easy/ party school in our state.  They still got in somewhere but unless you have some good weighted GPA classes to bump it up sounds like you could be screwed.  

[lolalolalola]

Mine are in 9th and 11th grade. The 14 yo has her devices off and plugged in outside her room by 10 and she is supposed to be lights out by 11:00. But I go to bed at 10 so I have no idea if she follows that rule or not. She is terrible at handing in assignments (ADHD related I believe). She eventually hands them in and has all grades on the 90’s so I just let her be…

My 16 year old is very responsible. We let her manage herself 100%.

[rooster222]

Mine are 11th and 9th grade. We don't have bedtime. My oldest goes to bed by 10pm usually. My youngest keeps some pretty late nights, 11-12pm. She catches up on the weekends. I'd prefer earlier bedtime but she does well in school so it doesn't seem like a battle worth fighting.

[devonpow]

DS1 is 15 and in 9th grade. We don’t enforce a bedtime. Weeknights he usually goes to bed by 11 (we have a few rare incidents where he stays up later- I honestly am usually asleep before he goes to bed). He gets up on time in the morning, gets As, and runs 6 miles every day after school for track practice. I don’t know how he functions but he does! I figure if his grades slip/we have trouble with him in the mornings etc we can crack down, but until then he seems fine with his schedule.

The only day he can sleep in is on Sundays. Even then he still gets up by 9 most weeks.

For homework, he usually does it after dinner. He’s very scheduled/rule following of his own accord so we don’t set parameters for stuff like that. DS2 (currently in 4th grade) I’m assuming is the one who will be difficult about this as a teen!

[madringal]

DD1 is 14 and will be a freshman in the fall. We don't really have a bedtime for her, but I say she goes to bed on her own most night around 10. We have not had to micromanage her academics much at all. I check her grades a few times each quarter and if they are slipping I say something. If she's got all As and a B or two I don't. She is heavily involved in athletics so she has pretty good time management skills.

[jinkies]

My son is 14, 8th grade. He goes to bed between 10 and 11. Bus comes at 6:50 am.

He gets up on his own, never complains, and has good grades so Im letting him live his life. If it started to become a problem I would institute more rules.

[ECB]

I feel like if you want to take a step back and let her learn a few lessons - now is the time.  It's her freshmen year - the sooner she learns, the better.  Perhaps if she flounders a bit now - it may shake her up enough to realize she needs to take more responsibility. 

[TR]

Apr 25, 2022 17:24:18 GMT -5 orval said:

Apr 25, 2022 16:55:06 GMT -5 melmaria said:

*snip*

I was shocked this year with some friends kids who have a solid B average (like 3.4, 3.5) and did not get into what I consider an easy/ party school in our state.  They still got in somewhere but unless you have some good weighted GPA classes to bump it up sounds like you could be screwed.  

This is an oddly aggressive response lol

[sineadorebellion]

I think we lucked out with our almost 15 year old, 9th grader. No real bedrooms but wifi and phone automatically shut down at midnight on her every night anyways so I'm sure she probably just crashes out of boredom by then. I wake her up at 630a after getting her younger sister on the bus but she's pretty good about getting herself out the door on time. She generally doesn't put up a fight about chores either.

Homework is on her - she's attending a college prep high school so we've discussed at length that she's responsible for her grades, especially since it doesn't follow a traditional grading structure. If those slip she loses the ability to do extra curriculars (UIL eligibility) and will lose privileges at home as well. Haven't had any issues yet but she's still just a freshman.

She's not really sure what she wants to do about college yet and that's okay for the moment. I think she'll probably be in good shape still if she does start to lean towards attending one.

[Deleted]

Not all kids want to go to college. My 15 year old sophomore doesn’t want to. At least not right after HS. She doesn’t have a good GPA. She doesn’t want to do the work for a good GPA when she will get the same HS diploma as the valedictorian with her average GPA. Doesn’t see the point.

In any case I tried micro managing all her grades and assignments and bedtime and it made us both miserable and didn’t change anything. I actually can’t force her to be an A student or fall asleep at 9pm.

I have basically no idea what time she goes to sleep and don’t really care all that much. She’s getting some freedom to make some not life altering mistakes at the moment.

[ksun]

DD is in 8th grade. Phone turns off at 10. Usually they're asleep before that. I don't give them a bedtime.

[mysteriouswife]

Apr 25, 2022 17:07:47 GMT -5 MixedBerryJam said:

Is 14 around 9th grade? I think that was the age where I actually did away with “bedtime” and made them take responsibility for going to sleep and getting up. I just was talking to an acquaintance about this. In the middle of the day one day while the kids were IN SCHOOL I walked by the stairs and hollered for them to get up. Because I was hollering up the stairs to get up like 20 times each morning. So I told them I’d holler up once, and the rest was up to them. If they weren’t ready when it was time to leave they’d have to get themselves to school. This involve a one mile walk to the bus, which they road to the train. They learned very fast (days) what an appropriate lights out time was for them. I said this last night, too: I do not miss those days.

She started kindergarten at 4 due to her birthday. Most kids are 15 in 9th grade

[themoneytree]

We have a lot of trouble with our 11th grader. She CANNOT (or will not) get up in the morning. She sleeps through the loudest alarm with bed shaker that we could find.

She doesn’t go to bed late we tried to let natural consequences take effect but she’s been through the after school detentions and the weekend detentions and next is a three day suspension. So we’re back to acting as human alarm clocks complete with snooze button to try and get her through the last weeks of the year. Her week night curfew is 9.30am, she’s in bed under her own volition by 9.45/ 10pm but still no dice in the morning.
We’re down to a single wake up call in the morning (in addition to the alarm) but it’s still really annoying.

It’s honestly not great and causes a lot of conflict and stress for her. I have no idea what to do. She can sleep through smoke alarms.

Her grades are mostly good - not amazing, but solid and she did really amazing in the SAT. It’s just the getting up.

[mysteriouswife]

Apr 25, 2022 19:03:47 GMT -5 ECB said:

I feel like if you want to take a step back and let her learn a few lessons - now is the time.  It's her freshmen year - the sooner she learns, the better.  Perhaps if she flounders a bit now - it may shake her up enough to realize she needs to take more responsibility. 

I think you are right.

Again thanks for all the responses. It sounds like we all are experiencing a lot of the similarities. She is a good kid overall. We are at the end of school year. If we can make it a few more weeks I will be happy.

[mysteriouswife]

Apr 25, 2022 20:07:22 GMT -5 @mrsgreeko said:

Not all kids want to go to college. My 15 year old sophomore doesn’t want to.

I fully agree with this. We are not forcing either kid into college. We will support their choice of gap year or not going. They will be expected to hold a job or do something during their downtime.

DD is adamant about going to a big university in another state. This has been her dream since 5th grade. We will see what 3 years brings. She has As and Bs. This last 9-weeks isn’t going so hot. We will just see where the cards fall. We don’t typically say much about grades unless she just flat out does not do anything