Post by wanderingback on Jun 23, 2022 9:22:08 GMT -5
I have no specific advice since I don’t have teens but being on these boards starting in 2006 is the first time I realized that adults go to bed early lol. This post just reminded me of that.
My whole family (parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins) are all night owls! My parents never ever went to bed before me. And now both of them (divorced) in their mid 60s still go to bed after 11:30 every night. So yeah as a teen I always went to bed before my parents, but hypothetically speaking I don’t think it’s a problem for a teen to be up after their parents, unless there is a history of them causing huge trouble late at night.
"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
I have no specific advice since I don’t have teens but being on these boards starting in 2006 is the first time I realized that adults go to bed early lol. This post just reminded me of that.
My whole family (parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins) are all night owls! My parents never ever went to bed before me. And now both of them (divorced) in their mid 60s still go to bed after 11:30 every night. So yeah as a teen I always went to bed before my parents, but hypothetically speaking I don’t think it’s a problem for a teen to be up after their parents, unless there is a history of them causing huge trouble late at night.
Yeah, my dad is early to bed and keeps farmer time, but my mom is up later than I am usually and I go to bed at 11:00-11:30 then read until about 12. I am always surprised at the amount of early to bed people.
I think now is an important time to teach teens how to regulate sleep themselves. Went to bed late and now you are dragging the next morning? That is a good lesson to learn.
I mentioned my son is running XC. It took two weeks of feeling like ass on his runs to realize he needed to be discipline with bedtimes during week despite it being summer.
We give the freedom until something happens that shows us we can’t trust him. So far that hasn’t been the case. Also we have a basement so that helps with the tranquility factor of when I want my kids out of my face as a poster said above lol. I absolutely need wind down time at night. Teens are not tranquil.
Post by sugarbear1 on Jun 23, 2022 10:17:31 GMT -5
This is a dumb question, I'll admit.
DS1 will absolutely screen all night of left to his own devices. Do you all set up a curfew on their phone / iPad / Xbox? I don't actually care when he sleeps.
My kiddo is 9, he goes to bed at 9 on school nights, on weekends/summer he is allowed to stay up until 11 😬🤷♀️
He's super rigid and not flexible, so once we set boundaries we have to stick by them always so if H and I are tired at 10 or 10:30, he plays with his tablet or reads in his room until 11. I hear him set an alarm with Alexa so I'm pretty sure he follows it because...he's not flexible lol.
DS1 will absolutely screen all night of left to his own devices. Do you all set up a curfew on their phone / iPad / Xbox? I don't actually care when he sleeps.
Yes, we do. We use Apple's screen time controls and enable Downtime at night. The only thing she can do during Downtime is make emergency phone calls (to a certain list of people). And the phone/laptop aren't allowed to be in her room during Downtime anyway.
Obviously, when she goes off to college she'll have to completely self-regulate. But right now, she's a still a kid, she needs a ton of sleep as a teenager, and we pay for the phone plan. So, our house, our phone plan, our rules.
ETA: our kid would also 100% screen all night if left to her own devices. While we don't force a bedtime, I'm glad that the screen time curfew forces her to do other things if she still wants to be awake after that time (read actual books, draw/paint, sleep, etc.)
Mine are 12 and 13 and bedtime is just a suggestion. I’m definitely asleep before them. In order to get us all up and out of the house in the morning, I have go to get up earlier than my kids and I guess I need more sleep then they do.
My 16yo stepson doesn't really have a bedtime. We've kind of let natural consequences work it out for him though. We still expect him to be up at a reasonable time on the weekends so if he stayed up until 3am playing a video game then he's going to have to deal with the consequence and be tired the next day when I make him get up at 9am to go to his brother's baseball game.
Post by stephm0188 on Jun 23, 2022 10:51:15 GMT -5
Mine will be going into 9th grade.
He has sports practice most mornings, so we have an understanding that as long as he's getting up and moving without being grumpy, we won't impose a bedtime schedule. He's usually in bed around 10 and getting 9 hrs of sleep for days he has practice. On mornings he doesn't, he'll stay up later and sleep in, which is fine. I care that he's getting enough sleep and that he's learning to regulate that himself. He doesn't have practice tomorrow and will likely stay up past midnight and sleep in til 10 tomorrow... and it's fine. I recognize that from a biological standpoint it's totally normal for teens to tend to become night owls and that they need more sleep, so I try to balance that with also enabling him to be a functional human being.
His bedtime has nothing to do with mine, though. I'm always in bed before he is.
Post by jeaniebueller on Jun 23, 2022 10:52:55 GMT -5
MY 13.5 year old stays up later than us on weeknights in the summer. He usually goes to bed around 11. He is pretty good about doing that though. I might have different rules if he snuck his phone all night
Re people who are concerned about kids leaving all the lights on - we have alexa on some of our lights and she turns them off if they have been left on after a certain time.
My 13 and almost 16 year old don’t have a bedtime. Especially in the summer. I go to bed well before them. I’m not that worried about what they might be doing after I’m in bed. I know what they usually are doing: watching TV, making food or playing with makeup looks. Nothing particularly nefarious. Our front door has a wifi enabled lock that texts me when it’s locked or unlocked so they can’t leave through the front door or anything without me knowing. And there are exterior cameras so it’s not like they can leave undetected if they wanted to. Gotta love technology! 😂
We also have a few lights on timers that turn off at like 11pm. That helps, but they are also good at turning off lights and being quiet and respectful of the people who are sleeping.
My 13 year old’s devices have downtime enabled and her devices aren’t allowed in her room at all. My 16 year old’s devices do not have downtime any more. That’s new as of this summer. In 2 years she will be an adult so I figure it’s a good time to start practicing to control herself.
Post by edwardo123 on Jun 23, 2022 12:03:26 GMT -5
My 13 year old doesn’t necessarily have a set bedtime during the summer. She swims year round and recently moved up to a team with 13-15 year olds. She has practice M-F 6:30-9:30 AM, Saturday 7:30-11, and has conditioning for cross country several afternoons a week. Because of this, she goes to bed by 10/11 on her own. During the school year, she usually goes to bed the same time, but her school doesn’t start until 9.
I go to bed around 10. I take her phone to charge in my room.
Come on. The time is obviously irrelevant. Wtf are you worried about them doing while you're asleep?
This is a good point. If there is a reason you're hesitant to trust them on their own, that's different than just being hesitant to take that step as a parent. It is weird at first going to bed without "tucking" your kids safely in bed at night. lol
Its like the first time you drive away from your kids when they're left alone for the first time. You're nervous but its a necessary step in life.
If I don’t have to work early the next day the kids need to be home by midnight. Usually I want my 14 year old home before the sun sets in the summer which is about 10 unless he’s with his sister (18) then midnight is fine too. My 16 year old son can’t be in town past 8 and isn’t aloud in town at all on Friday/Saturday nights right now (not because of his behaviour) but can be in our area until midnight as well. I just realized this is a bedtime and not home time question lol. Bed time is whenever they want as long as they are quiet and not getting up past noon the next day so we have time for activities before dinner. I don’t take away electronics or limit video games over summer break.
Mine are 15 and 11. They don't have set bedtimes anymore. They go to sleep after me virtually always because I have to be up at 4:30am. It's never been a problem for us. They're really good about getting enough sleep during the school year. In the summer, they stay up later and sleep in later.
Post by maudefindlay on Jun 23, 2022 15:56:16 GMT -5
Are you worried one or both will sneak out? DH and I say goodnight to the kids at 9pm and they are all in their rooms then. We go watch TV in our room, no idea when they actually fall asleep, but they are pretty pleasant in the morning, so must not be too late.
David is 13, going into 8th grade. His bedtime during the school year in 9:30-10-ish, but he gets to wind down with a 30 minute TV show from his bed. He had some insomnia a couple years back and we have a whole system set up that I'll spare you the details of, but it totally works for him, so we allow the TV before bed. In the summer, we're way more laid back. We're usually to bed before him, and he puts himself to bed when he's tired. He's not the type that's going to stay up until dawn, he's just not wired that way, he's an early riser and usually the first one out of bed in the morning. He says he needs to shut everything down before 11 because if he stays up later, he still wakes up early and doesn't sleep well so I just let him do his thing. I did tell him when he reaches high school, he may see his sleep cycles change, but we'll deal with that when the time comes.
As an aside, when I was driving him and his friend around, David was bragging to his friend in the backseat that he's up until 3am every night during the summer, lol. Sure! I just smiled at him and rolled my eyes in the rear view mirror. He's told me he so wishes he was night owl, I think he thinks that's cool, lol. It just made me laugh.
Post by DarcyLongfellow on Jun 23, 2022 17:44:52 GMT -5
My oldest is going into 8th grade and turns 13 next month. She hasn't really had a bedtime since elementary school.
During the school year she doesn't have a set bedtime, but she's usually in bed by 10:30 or so, 11 at the latest. During the summer it's closer to midnight. She's always been a nightowl.
As far as being up later than I am, I'm even more of a nightowl than she is, so I'm frequently up until 1 or 2 in the morning, so I've never had her stay up when I go to bed. If I'm sick or something and in bed, I'll tell her to tell me when she's going to bed so I can go tuck her in. She's obviously very capable of putting herself to bed, but I like to just go in there and give her a goodnight kiss. Sometimes she stays awake to read after that, which I'm fine with.
I know when I was in college, and probably high school, I'd be up later than my parents. I remember my dad's rule was that he would leave his bedside lamp on when he went to sleep. When I got home, I had to go turn his light off. That way if he woke up at night he'd know if I'd made it home safely.
Post by HRH Queen Dick I, Orphan on Jun 23, 2022 19:41:54 GMT -5
@sameoldstory posted this thread yesterday evening, almost 24 hours ago. She posted again a few times this morning in other threads, but ignored this one.
Golly, what might have happened to her? I hope she wasn't attacked by a flock of pissed off geese.
I think it's best to lock the thread until we solve this mystery. T&P!