Bedtime on School Night
Find a Conversation
| Sun, 10-23-2005 - 4:50pm |
I remember this being a topic of discussion over the summer, but what about during the school year?
DD just got a call from a friend with an invitation to go see a double-feature at the drive-in movie theatre -- tonight (Sunday). DD, who was doing homework at the time and knew that not only would she not be allowed to go out on a school night by me and also realized that doing so on a school night would make for a crummy day tomorrow, couldn't bring herself to come right out and decline the invitation, let me be the bad guy and say no.
I'm pretty anal about my kids getting enough rest/sleep all year round, but especially during the school year. I'm not so strict that they can't stay up and watch a favorite show during the week, or finish up homework, but I feel strongly that young teens need sleep and do better in school when they're rested and so do enforce a lights-out and bedtime! At the end of the day, my kids are tired!
I am getting some flak for this. DD's friend attends a different school and has a shorter commute, fewer classes, and a significantly lighter academic load than DD and going to the movie on a Sunday night is no big issue. The mother of DS11 best friend has made more than one snide remark about my obsession with getting the kids to bed over the years -- the boys have been best friends since 1st grade, now in 6th. They (DS friends' family) don't do 'bedtime' in their house, they just all go to bed when everything they need to do is done, they often entertain during the week so it could be 11:00 or it could be midnight or whenever when the kids get to bed. This boggles my mind!
Am I totally off-base with this?

Pages
Not at all. Dd, 14, really needs her rest and she is finally beginning to actually understand that. She is a freshman and usually is in bed by 9:00 on school nights. And this JUST changed this year (up from 8:30). This year she is helping a friend go through the confirmation process and she attends the Sunday night Life Teen Mass with her which is followed by a program. The friend lives 25 miles away, so I drive her there and then she spends the night and the mom drops them at school the next day. I could never have allowed this a year ago, but she does get to bed at a decent hour (although not 9:00) when she's there.
Some kids need more sleep - and more structure than others. You know what your kids need.
jt
your kid doesn't need more than 8 hours sleep...so rules that put them to bed any earlier than what is neccessary to provide 8 hours have nothing to do with what is best for your kids.
my kids are active enough during the day that they almost always crash before 11p....which gives them the 8hrs they need.
Some kids need more than 8 hours - and the best thing you can do is help your teen figure out for him/herself what s/he needs to function well in school. My DD14's "bedtime" is 10pm - sometimes she goes earlier depending on how tired she is. Her alarm goes off at 5:45, and I wish she'd be in bed earlier, but she doesn't seem to need it on a regular basis. When I tried to get her into bed by 9:30 she fought it and also had trouble falling asleep. Now we never have battles - she knows she needs the sleep.
Some of her friends seem to be up very late - don't know how they function in school.
Sue
DS13 is in this line too - he, like me, needs a good 8.5-9 hours to function well. He's in bed by no later than 9:30 during the school week (his choice; dh stays up later; I don't as I'm up to get ready for work early), and is up by about 6:15. That seems to be ample, but then on weekends he might even sleep longer.
Sue
Well, seems like I'm in good company here. DD goes to bed usually by 9:00, except on the nights "Lost" is on and she'll stay up til 10:00. She gets up at 6:00, is out of the house by 6:50 and has a really long school day. This schedule seems to be working for her. One day last week, she was so tired she went to bed at 8:30 all on her own. She'll often sleep in quite late on Saturdays -- sometimes til 10:30 or 11:00.
DS doesn't put up much of a fuss over his bedtime either. He gets up at 6:30, we leave for school about 7:15 and he's still usually a little grumpy -- this morning he was a real bear! I let him stay up to watch his favorite show once a week too but he knows not to be really grumpy the next morning or the privilege of staying up late goes away!
Thanks everyone!
Wow...I must be the only one who has teenagers with the "night owl" circadian rhythms. If I tried to impose a 9:30 p.m. bedtime with my teens (13 1/2 y.o. dd and 16 y.o. ds) it would just not be worth the battle, and especially dd would lay awake in bed for hours anyway (as I did when I was a teen). I start nagging them to bed around 10 p.m., and they are both always in bed and asleep by 11 p.m., sometimes earlier if they are tired, and get up at 7:00 a.m. Neither of them ever have any trouble getting up. If they did, I would have a problem, and might have justification to insist on an earlier bedtime.
I do impose a bedtime with my 9 y.o. ds, though. :)
You're not off base. All my kids go to bed by 10:00; that's lights out, teeth brushed IN BED by 10. Most of the time, they're in bed before then! (i think it's cause they don't want to hear me nagging lol). There is one night a week my 14SS is up kinda late, but we allow it because he's with us (me,DH and 14SS play in a pool league together) and most of the time he falls asleep on the way home...
Bottom line, you know what your kids need better than anyone else. If it's a special occasion and she's earned a little relaxing, I'd let her go with her friends. But, that's just me. If grades are poor and she complained about being tired all the time, then she wouldn't go. This is one of those "trust your gut" things.
Good luck!
I haven't read all the responses to this, but NO you are not way off base. I am sort of bed/sleep obsessed too. I get strange looks from my counterparts because I can EASILY go to bed with the dishes not done, or laundry to do or whatever needs to be done....heck it isn't going anywhere! It'll be there tomorrow.
My youngest goes to bed around 9 or 9:30---and if he's tired he'll go earlier. It is my oldest that we have a hard time with....he NEEDS more sleep but he wants to be like his night owl friends and stay up late.....so we have a bedtime set for him at 10 (actually it is supposed to be 9:30 now because we are using that as leverage/punishment for not getting to bed on time before.....we are lowering it by 1/2 hr when he doesn't do as he's told---this includes logging off the internet and putting his cell phone in the living room---if he doesn't do these on time--he gets 'docked' by 1/2 hr--logging off 1/2 hr earlier, phone in the living room 1/2 hr earlier and bed 1/2 hr earlier) but we are lucky if he is in bed by 10........so we are fighting this battle right now, and LOSING.
I believe not so much in BEDTIME but as in getting a good nights sleep, and KNOWING what your body needs. I need much more sleep than DH, and I think my DS15 does too. I think my DS 12 may be more like my DH. I was a FIRM believer in bedtimes when the kids were littler, but bedtime is set for their own well being now, not because I think a bedtime is so important........does that make sense?
Shels
Pages