Cheer up, sleepy teen... (help!)

[dangermom]

I have a delightful 12yo girl, who is somewhat easily upset. Every so often she'll stay up too late reading, and last night when we went to bed we caught her still up at 11.30 pm. :glare: Disaster looms in my day, so I need your thoughts.

 

What I want to do, what I usually do, is to get her up at the usual time and tell her that she chose to stay up late, but that doesn't mean she gets to slack off on a school day, so suck it up and deal. This invariably ends in disaster. By lunchtime at the latest, she will be a crying mess, unable to handle the slightest difficulty, and if writing any sort of paragraph or essay is on the to-do list, I will be very tempted to put her on a bus to Peru.

 

What do I do with this kid?? How do I get her to either go to sleep at a decent hour or not inflict her tiredness on the rest of us poor innocents?

[Karen in CO]

I've always allowed my kids to stay up to read, but I have had to change that rule recently for my older dd. She will not go to sleep if she's involved in a book. I have done the unthinkable and started taking away her book at 10pm if she's still up reading. Yep, I physically take the book to my room. We had a talk about if first, and she agreed that she isn't able to regulate this herself and agreed that she'd feel better with more sleep. She's a beast of attitude if she hasn't had enough sleep, and I just couldn't take it anymore. I am also guilty of staying up way too late reading, but I am old enough to put on a smile and get through my day. I just don't think girl this age has that ability yet.

 

For today, I'd suggest giving her an hour or two of more sleep and having a talk with her after she's awake.

[Caitilin]

I dunno, I'd go for the bus to Peru idea...:auto::lol:

[Remudamom]

I would get her up like you said and just accept that she's going to have a bad day. Hopefully she will learn from the consequences. It's her choice and you can't let her get around it by sleeping in or slacking off.

[Juniper]

Plan a nice treats throughout the day to reward yourself for not losing your cool! A nice cup of herbal tea wit lemon and honey.

 

I would be planning lots of things she could do in her room, and I might consider confiscating books by whatever cutoff she needs in the future.

 

:grouphug:

[dangermom]

OK, I'm going in; it's wakeup time. Wish me luck. :gnorsi:

A) Best title ever.

 

B) Our rule is that the privilege to stay up late reading can only happen once a week, when nothing is going on the following morning, and can be revoked based on behavior. The morning after these nights the reader is allowed to sleep in.

[dangermom]

Well, I woke her up and she explained that she hadn't been able to sleep. She has indeed suffered from insomnia on and off since she was about 8, so fine. But, I explained to her for about the billionth time, if you're trying to read yourself to sleep, you pick Kipling's History of England or something, not your newest exciting fantasy book.

 

She has agreed to make her best effort at a good day's work and to try not to make the rest of us suffer. I hope it works, because today we're doing our weekly 2-hour science lab with a boy who comes to do it with us, and this week there is cake involved. Cake always helps, right? (The authors of Friendly Chemistry, aimed at young teens and up, know their audience. Also I really like this curriculum.) I have to go draw a periodic table on it in lines of frosting.

[Swimtaxi234]

I am completely guilty of staying up late to read, so I know where my teenage daughter gets it. She keeps saying that she "gets lost in a book and doesn't realize how late it is." :D I fuss at her (while agreeing at the same time).

 

Thankfully my daughter only does this 1-2 times a week because she is too tired from swim and water polo practice.

[justLisa]

DD and I are happy going to bed earlier, but DS and DH are freaking night owls. There is just no way for them to sleep early no matter how early they wake up. Having said that, I myself am having a horrible time getting to sleep lately even though I am tired.

[lauracolumbus]

I'm going through the exact same thing w/my dd12. Except that she just recently discovered her love of reading. I'm not about to squelch, so on most days I let her sleep in and make her school day last longer. She knows the consequence of her actions means doing work after 3 pm, but it works.

 

Laura

[katilac]

If she sleeps late, can she just work late? Like into the evening? It gets the work done, and it's not a punishment - it's just that the work needs to be done.

 

My girls are 12 & 14. If they don't get enough sleep, they can choose to wake up and power through, or sleep in and work later. Again, it's not a punishment: sometimes they seem to need extra sleep even when they go to bed early, and sometimes they need to work late even when they are up and at 'em fairly early.

 

Occasionally, they will have 'one of those days' when we can tell continuing to work is not going to help. in that case, we just figure out how to allocate the extra work over the next few days.

 

Why don't you and dd come up with various options, and figure out acceptable ways to deal with it? It helps to rough out deadlines for the year in advance (a third of the way through this subject by this date, half-way through by that date).

 

Remember not to allocate assignments to every single school day when planning, b/c there are going to be field trips, sick days, and so on.

[Amy in NH]

Let her read, let her sleep late so long as she gets her work done.

[dangermom]

It went surprisingly well today. I think she really made an effort. She is very ready for bed now! What a relief.

[blakereese]

I was that sleepy teen (love the thread title!! :lol:). I had no real rules on my bedtime at that age and I would read late into the night/morning. I didn't have the luxury of homeschooling though, and had to get my bum out of bed before 7am, like it or not. :glare: I definitely had a rough time in my first two classes of the day, but I always made sure they were lighter classes. I did very well in school, but would have done better I am sure with more sleep (or if I was homeschooled!! that was impossible, however!).

 

And now, as an adult, I am still the same way. I have tried so many times to reprogram my body, but I am just a night owl and always will be. I get up in the morning, but I don't like it. ;) It takes me a good half hour and a cup of coffee to join the real world, and even then I am not 100%. But my kids are up bright and early (they are like their Dad :glare::glare:) so I have to deal. I stay up late reading every night, it is MY time, and I just can't give it up. So if I am asleep before 1am, I am thrilled.

 

I guess I am saying that I sympathize with your DD, but at the same time she needs to get up as soon as she can and get her work done. She is very lucky to be homeschooling so she can at least sleep in a little bit. Hang in there, mama. At least she is staying up late READING, ya know? Could be worse.