What time do your teens wake in the morning?

[alisoncooks]

My oldest is having a seriously hard time waking in the morning. It’s become enough of a problem that she’s behind in a lot of her schoolwork. We are chronically late going places because she takes so long. (I hate being late and it’s unfair to younger dd, who does wake more easily.) I wake her around 9:30 but it’s often noon or later before she is up for the day (this is with repeated wakings).

I’m at my wit’s end. Could this be a medical issue? She’s probably due for a thyroid check. What else should I be looking for? I don’t think it’s related to mental health.

[Jaybee]

One of my young adult kids is having sleep issues as well. He has been putting in place some things to help (getting off devices, etc.), but we are looking at the possibilities of allergy testing and a sleep study. He is getting frustrated, because he never feels rested.

[Katy]

How late does she stay up with screens? What time does she fall asleep? How many hours of sleep is she getting?

[Rosie_0801]

Mine can get up early enough for school and will happily sleep as long I let her on weekends and holidays, which is never later than 10. 

The neighbours kid can get up early enough for school and will sleep 1am-1pm on holidays and weekends.

Anyway, yours is probably normal.

[Arcadia]

DS18 tends to wake up around noon or later. He wakes up before 7am on days he has class since we have to leave by 7:40am. He has always slept late and wake up late. DS17 tends to wake up at 9am unless he did an all-nighter for his dual enrollment class. 
 

I like that DS18 wakes up much later than DS17 so that I can help DS17 with school work. If we need to be out, I just remind DS18 the evening before and he would wake up early. He sets his alarm clock to 6:30am.

[catz]

What time does she typically go to bed?  Like my teen is still sleeping at 9:38 but I also caught her still up at like 2 am last night.  She is typically a good self regulator but is wound up about a couple things right now, they're also throwing me off actually.  Nothing too crazy, mostly college admissions waiting waiting waiting.  

Following up medically isn't a bad idea.  But there have been times where I've just forced a 8-9 am get up for a week and then the sleep schedule starts to shift and adjust.  I am not going to force a teen into bed, I can't stay up that late!  I do think this does fall into the range of normal for many teens.  But I also think normal teens can shift their clocks back at least a bit if they need to do so.  

I've always required my kids that had lots of extra curriculars that would start mid afternoon to get up at a reasonable time.  We have been a bit more lax with just one kid (other kid at college and somehow survived 8 am classes, etc) home since covid and she is doing full time dual enrollment so has to manage her own work load.  

[73349]

I would make sure she's getting to sleep at a reasonable hour first.

Mine wakes at 6 but has to be pushed to start school by ~8:15. We don't allow screens after 7 PM (or after he gets home from evening activities).

Edited March 23, 2023 by 73349

[freesia]

My first guess would be she’s staying up too late. Make sure all all screens are handed or unavailable in to your bedroom by 10:00. If she is younger than 16, in our house we would give her a choice—if she can’t be up and working by x time, then she will have a bedtime on week days. We think of the early teens as teaching time for responsibilities. An older child is different, but we don’t give nighttime access to screens until high school graduation. 

[alisoncooks]

I’m sure she’s staying up too late, though she’s not *supposed* to have devices in her room at night.  She’ll be 17 in a couple of months. 

She is more of a night owl than I am (and my other teen is like me).  We’ve also tried shifting some responsibility to her but that didn’t improve things. 

In the fall, she’ll switch to taking her DE courses in person (with a 30+ min commute), so maybe it’ll work itself out when an outside force (not me) requires early rising. 

[HomeAgain]

When sleep becomes a problem, you start with the basics: looking at patterns and diet.

Oldest ds would sleep in until 10 or 11 on his free days, but we kept a decent structure for work days: no screens after 9pm, up by 8:30 am, multivitamin during the day and at least one healthy meal provided by me.  I kept a rotation of music I would play in order to wake him up:

The opening of the Lion King

Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride

Aqua's Get Happy

Good Morning! (from Singing in the Rain)

😄I'd play them outside his door at full blast until he got out of bed.  Not the worst choice in the world, but oh, man, there are a few songs that will still jolt him wide awake.

Anyhow, toward the end of his teens he found he really liked swing shift work.  His college classes shifted to afternoon and evenings, his jobs were always closing shift.  Even now, in his twenties, he volunteers for the swing/night shift at his 24h workplace.

All that said, it really helped to make concessions on my end when he was younger.  I set up 'office hours' for when he could come to me for assistance.  I made sure to check on his work daily.  I gave open invites, but not requirements, to things he would enjoy but weren't necessary. I insisted on some form of physical exercise every day, but he could choose what and the duration.  It was a little bit of give and take to find what works for him and didn't put a burden on the family.

[freesia]

15 minutes ago, alisoncooks said:

I’m sure she’s staying up too late, though she’s not *supposed* to have devices in her room at night.  She’ll be 17 in a couple of months. 

She is more of a night owl than I am (and my other teen is like me).  We’ve also tried shifting some responsibility to her but that didn’t improve things. 

In the fall, she’ll switch to taking her DE courses in person (with a 30+ min commute), so maybe it’ll work itself out when an outside force (not me) requires early rising. 

My guess is that devices are making their way into her room. They are addicting and interfere with sleep. I would keep devices in your room at night and program the computers to not go online after 10–or, better yet, put a password on them and lock or shut them down. Even the best most compliant kids struggle with this. I totally could be wrong, but before I’d look for medical reasons, I’d make absolutely sure this isn’t a screen issue. (I’m not suggesting you get all confrontational with her, just establish strict boundaries and make sure they are followed.)

[catz]

We have always used a docking station in the main area of our house for devices and my 18 year old still uses it.  Even my college student uses it when he comes home (we don't ask him to or care, he just does it!).   If a kid can't self regualate with their device, I'd do it for them for a while.  

[Miss Tick]

By that age I had started backing off on boundaries. In your situation I would point out that my dc were responsible for keeping up with their work and if they chose to stay up late and sleep in they would probably need to be doing some school work in those late night hours. I would also talk (in my long winded fashion) about the addicting qualities of screens and social media and that if they are not in fact using screens that late we could investigate medical issues, but of course it could also be a normal teenage distinction of their circadian rhythms. Then I would ask them to make a catch-up plan, and let me know if they wanted any help trying to change their wake/sleep schedule. One of my teens would totally welcome me to come alongside and help them achieve their goals, and one would take all my blathering in stone-faced and want none of my help at all.

[Guest]

@HomeAgain, I play All My Exes Live in Texas to wake my DS up 🙂 

works every time! 

[Arcadia]

48 minutes ago, alisoncooks said:

In the fall, she’ll switch to taking her DE courses in person (with a 30+ min commute), so maybe it’ll work itself out when an outside force (not me) requires early rising. 

Is she taking DE courses online now? DS17 would stay up late and complete his assignments so that he doesn’t need to worry about power outage the next day. We have a mobile hotspot to use during power outages but it is much slower than broadband internet. We had a power outage yesterday and today their community college is closed due to power outage. Their community college was closed last week Tuesday to Thursday due to power outage as well. Over 193,000 were without power yesterday in my region.

[Starr]

Assuming she's not getting enough sleep. She's making this your problem. She doesn't want you to regulate her time and she isn't able to do it herself. And it's causing a fallout with the rest of you. I wish I had helped one of mine to learn how to manage time/sleep better. And how can she take DE classes if she can't even finish her work now? First year college students have lots of time management issues. I would look at some of the suggestions above and think about what else works for her. It's easier now than next year. Hugs

[Carrie12345]

I have an almost 16yo who gets up before 8 most mornings and a 12yo who just went through a period of sleeping until ELEVEN, but now gets up before 7 and sometimes startled me when I get up! But now he sometimes naps to make up for it.

In my own experience, they figure out how to cope when necessary.  
My 19yo sometimes has to leave for work at 4:30am, and sometimes 8:30am.  
My 20yo works 12, 24, and 36hr shifts.   
I don’t know about my 24yo’s specific wake up times now, but he holds down a job!
They cope.

[elegantlion]

Some people function better as night owls - my son is and my father was. As a teen, my son needed 12-13 hours of sleep to function at his best regardless of bed time or screen time. Unfortunately, the world tends to view night owls differently because our world operates on a 9 to 5 mentality. Teens have an especially hard time because they also require huge amounts of sleep and are learning to self-regulate. 

Because we could, we often started high school at noon or later. The summer before college, we worked to help shift his sleeping habits. One hour earlier bed/rise times one week, then shift another hour the next. He never took an 8 a.m. class but he did manage to get up and around for college 9:20 courses. 

As an adult, he's still a night owl. He can get up in the morning when need be but it's still not his natural pattern. 

If her schoolwork envolves things you need to see, ask for it to be on your desk - whatever you desk may be - by the time you wake in the morning. She may work better at night. 

[Loowit]

If left up to my 17 yo, he would sleep until noon or often much later every day.  Sleep and wake up time has been our biggest contention point the last several years.  It is funny because when he was little he was always up at the crack of dawn.  He is now a night owl, and would stay up all night and sleep all day if I let him.  He is a bear to wake up in the morning, and his sleep cycles get messed up very easily with just a few late nights.  He jokes that he is Batman.

I have tried to push him to be up by 10:30 every morning, which to me is really late for a school day, but it is the compromise we came to.  I'd say this school year we have hit it maybe thirty percent of the time.  It is frustrating to me.  He has formed bad habits, which is a lot my fault.  We have allowed him to have a computer in his room and don't limit screens in his room.  He can have his phone, kindle, or whatever.  But he has just, in the last few months, started to figure out what works to help him get to sleep on time, so we are making slow progress.

We did bring up his sleep issue with his doctor at his physical a couple years ago,  A lot of it really boiled down to DS just didn't want to get up because he didn't feel like he needed to, and he had some mild situational depression.  He felt he had nothing to look forward to doing during the day.  School work was boring, so what was the point in getting up.  So I worked on trying to find things to make it worth his while to get up for.

He can get up on time when it is something important to him.  Last summer he had a job working at a scout camp as staff.  They have to be up pretty early every day.  He was only late once, and that was by like 3 minutes.  He is never late if he has an appointment to be at, so really it is a choice he is making.  I would have been much more concerned if he wasn't able to get up for things he enjoyed and it seemed like a more physical issue.

I worried about the same thing with my eldest who also had issues with wanting to sleep late all the time, but she has managed to make it to early morning classes and jobs just fine now that she is an adult.  And when she comes home on breaks from college she will still sleep until noon a lot of the time.  My middle has always gotten up when asked, and naturally gets up about the same time as me which is around 8 am.  Now he gets up when his commanding officer tells him to, which he tells me is 0400 lately.

Would it be possible for you to just leave without your oldest a few times as a consequence of her not being up and ready on time?  Not sure that the activities are something that can be missed, but that might be a motivator, and keep your younger DD and you from being late.  Also, it isn't a bad idea to get her check by a doctor if you think their might be an issue like thyroid.  Making sure she is getting plenty of physical activity and sunlight during the day can also help.

[Amy in NH]

Quite a few years ago I took my dd to the doctor for insomnia - doctor says average teen circadian sleep time is between midnight and 10am (according to a Harvard study that led Harvard to shift the start times of their classes), so my kid who couldn't fall asleep until 2am and got up at noon was within normal limits.  So long as they get their schoolwork done during their waking hours, they can sleep whenever they are tired.  This took a shift in my thinking, but it has worked well for all of them.  Since I have given them leniency and understanding, they are more willing to make the effort to drag their butts out of bed on time when we legitimately need to be somewhere in the morning.

[SKL]

On their own, my teens will happily sleep past noon.

Mine go to b&m school, which starts at 7:50am, so I wake them at 6:30 ... and 6:40 ... and I used to wake them over and over, until I finally said I'm not doing it any more.  2x is 2x more than they should need.  🙂

My eldest (16) has a hard time in the morning.  Part of it is OCD, part of it is just probably needing more sleep (but she waits too long to start her homework every evening).  She'll push it farther every day until the tardies start, and then her ride leaves without her (so Kid2 can get to school on time), and then she recalibrates and starts the whole cycle over again.  She definitely caused some of my white hair.

I can't say much - I have always struggled with mornings.  I have tried just about everything with little result.  I just want to retire so it won't matter any more.

[Farrar]

Am I the only one who thinks this is mildly funny? This sounds so normal to me. That's just how teens are. They sleep late. They stay up late. While there are exceptions and while they can be forced to change a bit by outside forces, this is their natural circadian rhythm. Fighting it too much isn't that good for them and homeschooling is a reason to move everything to be later whenever possible. My kids also did DE, but I never let him schedule anything too early.

[athena1277]

My 15yo gets up between 7-8am.  He is supposed to start school between 8-9.  Schoolwork going into the evening hours does not work well here.  Plus dh gets up really early for work, so having a teen up half the night and needing to sleep all morning while the rest of us are up is just a problem.   He has screens until 9pm, lights out at 9:30.  
 

We did the same with oldest dd.  She’s now in college and has a typical late night, sleep until 30 minutes before her first class schedule now.  She fusses about morning noise when she’s here, but I told her I’m not going to tiptoe around all morning because she chooses to stay up late.  She mostly adjusts to our schedule after being home a few days.

[Kassia]

46 minutes ago, Farrar said:

, this is their natural circadian rhythm. Fighting it too much isn't that good for them and homeschooling is a reason to move everything to be later whenever possible

This was one of my favorite things about homeschooling in the teen years.  I loved that dd was getting plenty of sleep unlike two of her older brothers who had a 7:25am high school start time.  The school bus would have picked dd up at 6:24am!  Way too early.  I don't understand why high schools have such early start times when the research shows it's bad for teens for so many reasons (academically, mental health, safety with driving, etc.).  

[HomeAgain]

9 minutes ago, Kassia said:

This was one of my favorite things about homeschooling in the teen years.  I loved that dd was getting plenty of sleep unlike two of her older brothers who had a 7:25am high school start time.  The school bus would have picked dd up at 6:24am!  Way too early.  I don't understand why high schools have such early start times when the research shows it's bad for teens for so many reasons (academically, mental health, safety with driving, etc.).  

DS13's bus comes at 6:45 to start school by 7:30.  I know exactly why they do it here.  It's all about cost for both the parents and the district.  The same busses are used for all levels of school, so they only need so many because as soon as one drop off is done, the next is ready to go.  It also saves parents money and allows the high schoolers to babysit siblings.  High school gets out first and the teens are home in time for drop off of the next two busses. 

It's absolutely the worst, as are many decisions of this district, but it all comes down to money.

[ScoutTN]

10 minutes ago, Kassia said:

This was one of my favorite things about homeschooling in the teen years.  I loved that dd was getting plenty of sleep unlike two of her older brothers who had a 7:25am high school start time.  The school bus would have picked dd up at 6:24am!  Way too early.  I don't understand why high schools have such early start times when the research shows it's bad for teens for so many reasons (academically, mental health, safety with driving, etc.).  

High schools start early because  sports, jobs, and major ec’s take lots of after school time. They have no choice.

For example: One gym and 5 bball teams make’s scheduling tight. Field sports often do not have lighted practice fields, so they have to be done by dark. 

[ScoutTN]

We adjusted Dd’s homeschool schedule somewhat to accommodate her night-owl preferences, but with outsourced classes and even more so, ec’s and a job, there is a limit to  how flexible we could be. 

[alisoncooks]

1 hour ago, Farrar said:

Am I the only one who thinks this is mildly funny? This sounds so normal to me. That's just how teens are. They sleep late. They stay up late. While there are exceptions and while they can be forced to change a bit by outside forces, this is their natural circadian rhythm. Fighting it too much isn't that good for them and homeschooling is a reason to move everything to be later whenever possible. My kids also did DE, but I never let him schedule anything too early.

Lol, I wouldn’t mind so much if she were actually productive during her waking hours. She’s so behind with her work. 

Maybe the two things are separate problems. 

[ScoutTN]

On regular weekdays:

Ds15 (in school) 6:30am/11:00 pm or later.

Dd17 (homeschooled) 8:00 am/11:00 pm

 

On weekends/holidays

Ds15 9:00am/12:00 am 
Dd17 10 or 11:00 am/12:00 am 

[Farrar]

11 minutes ago, ScoutTN said:

High schools start early because  sports, jobs, and major ec’s take lots of after school time. They have no choice.

For example: One gym and 5 bball teams make’s scheduling tight. Field sports often do not have lighted practice fields, so they have to be done by dark. 

I disagree that that's the primary reason. That's a force making sports have to take that time, but there's zero reason why that means students have to start at 7 in the morning, as many schools do (meaning that kids who have longer bus rides sometimes need to be up at 5 in the morning to catch a bus). You could just as easily make the sports team have a before school practice instead and not subject every kid to that schedule.

My understanding is that in many districts the primary reason that it's hard to switch has to do with busing and elementary schoolers. Elementary schoolers need maxim parent work time in the classroom so starting them at 8:30 or 9 makes the most sense. Swapping it would mean that parents would have to get up earlier and get them there and then would have to pay for more care in the afternoons. High schoolers don't need outside supervision in theory but they need to share the same buses with the elementary kids and get a staggered start. So then they start them at before because starting them after would be way too late to have afterschool activities on a schedule that's at all friendly to parents and families, not to mention sunsets and dinners.

[Farrar]

9 minutes ago, alisoncooks said:

Lol, I wouldn’t mind so much if she were actually productive during her waking hours. She’s so behind with her work. 

Maybe the two things are separate problems. 

They could be separate. But I also think they could be related. A kid whose whole schedule is a fight against their natural sleep cycle is more likely to be less productive.

Of course, you're the one who is seeing her. Maybe she is struggling with a tiredness beyond the norm. I'm just dubious. I had this exact conversation with many 8th grade parents back when I was dean of a small middle school where parents were shocked at how their normally chipper kid had suddenly had a switch flipped and become a grouchy night owl they could barely drag out of bed.

[ScoutTN]

Our PS does share busses and daycare issues are real.

But the sports thing is real. All but one of Ds’ coaches (so 8/9) are part time and could not not be at their FT work in the morning or early afternoons. Refs are not available in the mornings or early afternoons. Our trainers have day-jobs too. Teachers with younger kids need to be home in the evenings. If high school sports were 9-11 am (plus showers and transportation) school would go well into the evening. 
 

Job thing is real too. My Dd and most of her friends work in restaurants that are not open in the morning or babysit. 
 

Scouting runs on volunteer adults - who are not available in the daytime -so meetings must be evenings. So school cannot happen then. 
 

School has to fit with the rest of the world and that means an early start.

Edited March 22, 2023 by ScoutTN

[Arcadia]

17 minutes ago, alisoncooks said:

Lol, I wouldn’t mind so much if she were actually productive during her waking hours. She’s so behind with her work. 

Maybe the two things are separate problems. 

Quality of sleep would affect productivity. I need my caffeine when I don’t sleep well. DS18 would be a grouchy bear. DS17 sleeps like a log even on airplanes. So I would monitor for quality of sleep. My kids are happy when they slept well and sufficiently. 
 

DS17 is a slower worker than DS18 so my expectations of how much DS17 can handle in a day is very different from DS18. For example, DS18 did three DE classes in summer in 2021 and still have time to play games on his cellphone and watch YouTube on his laptop. DS17 can only cope with one DE class the same summer and had little down time.
 

[ScoutTN]

I do know homeschoolers who have adapted their teens’ schedules heavily to night-owl schedules, but those families do not have kids with more than one substantial EC that is not 100% homeschoolers. They also have parents with flexibility in their work schedules or outside-of-homeschool commitments.
 

No jobs, scouting, competitive sports, youth orchestra etc. They also have few outsourced classes. Volunteer gigs can often be more flexible.

[catz]

The ECs is where we would get into trouble without getting some school work done in the morning.   They were still sleeping in considerably more than most of their peers.   One can argue that these systems are poorly designed for circadian rhythms of teens and I totally agree.  But had we not been using a bunch of outsourcing and extracurricular stuff during the teen years, my kids would have ended up in school most likely.  Those were important educationally but also socially.   I could drone for hours about the merits of some of the stuff they did over those years.   My kid applying to college this year has been asked and called out repeatedly about what she wrote about in her common app essay related to an EC    

A lot of parenting teens to me feels like making least bad choices for the kid in front of you.    

[Farrar]

I just don't buy that schools couldn't start at 9 am and have all these things be fine. Most jobs do not start at 6:45. Teens should not be the absolute bottom of the totem pole. Many private schools open at a more reasonable hour like 8:45 and it doesn't ruin the extracurricular lives of those teens.

I know many homeschoolers who have made a late day start work fine who also do plenty of extracurriculars. Again, I think this is a false choice. There's no reason to make kids get up earlier than we make adults. This is one of my least favorite things - when we ask teens to do things that we would never make ourselves do and then we act like they're ungrateful brats when they can't live up to those expectations. Teens have a literal biological need to sleep late. It's not something they can just power through and be happy about. It will always be hard for most of them. There's no reason we can't accommodate that a little more.

[Lecka]

Here 1st hour for high school starts at 9:00.  There is a “zero hour” option that starts at 8:00 or so.  
 

The last period can be a sports team so they start practice at the same time.

 

The last period can be work release or an internship so they can leave for that.

 

If they don’t have enough credits or miss a rigorous academic class, they can take it during zero hour.

 

It’s also allowed to attend school between zero hour and 5th hour and just be done with school after 5th hour.  
 

There are 6 periods, zero hour can be a 7th period, and then lunch doesn’t count as a period.  
 

Elementary school starts at 7:50, and I think they open the doors at 7:30, and serve school breakfast and school lunch.  
 

Middle schools start at 8:30.

 

For high school there is only bus service for students who arrive for 1st period and leave after 6th period.  
 

Sports practice start during 6th period and then still run later after school, so they seem to have the same schedule as other schools that start earlier.  It’s true that students who repeat electives (who are in sports plus music or things like that) can need another slot to get their academic classes, and then they can take a class during zero hour.  My niece in orchestra and cross country did this.  I’m not sure if she had to do it for graduation credits or if it was a choice to take the classes she wanted to take.  
 

Edit: I think cross country was before school for one semester and she took zero hour the other semester, for several years?  Or maybe cross country was over and they would have had an hour break but instead she went to zero hour.  I’m not sure.  

Edited March 22, 2023 by Lecka

[Kassia]

27 minutes ago, Farrar said:

I just don't buy that schools couldn't start at 9 am and have all these things be fine. Most jobs do not start at 6:45. Teens should not be the absolute bottom of the totem pole. Many private schools open at a more reasonable hour like 8:45 and it doesn't ruin the extracurricular lives of those teens.

I know many homeschoolers who have made a late day start work fine who also do plenty of extracurriculars. Again, I think this is a false choice. There's no reason to make kids get up earlier than we make adults. This is one of my least favorite things - when we ask teens to do things that we would never make ourselves do and then we act like they're ungrateful brats when they can't live up to those expectations. Teens have a literal biological need to sleep late. It's not something they can just power through and be happy about. It will always be hard for most of them. There's no reason we can't accommodate that a little more.

QFT

There are so many advantages to later starting times for teens and the science supports this.  Why are we making them start so early when it's bad for them?  

Edited March 22, 2023 by Kassia

[catz]

A number of years back now, our school district swapped elementary and high school start times so high school is later.  8:30 is the start time, so not too bad.  That was a major improvement, everyone in general is a lot happier with the swap.  Though it did change usage of before and after school programming for working parents.

When I say I got my homeschool teens up early, it would be in the 8:30 to 9 range on days we had to leave the house.  I do know local homeschoolers we mixed with that would find that abomidable and tended more unschooly than us, but it worked for us for many years.  Most of those families did a lot less out of the house than us.  Which is totally fine of course - no one size fits all.  

[Amy in NH]

3 hours ago, HomeAgain said:

DS13's bus comes at 6:45 to start school by 7:30.  I know exactly why they do it here.  It's all about cost for both the parents and the district.  The same busses are used for all levels of school, so they only need so many because as soon as one drop off is done, the next is ready to go.  It also saves parents money and allows the high schoolers to babysit siblings.  High school gets out first and the teens are home in time for drop off of the next two busses. 

It's absolutely the worst, as are many decisions of this district, but it all comes down to money.

 

3 hours ago, ScoutTN said:

High schools start early because  sports, jobs, and major ec’s take lots of after school time. They have no choice.

For example: One gym and 5 bball teams make’s scheduling tight. Field sports often do not have lighted practice fields, so they have to be done by dark. 

So then schedule sports and games for mid-day, and academic classes when it's dark. 
The bus can pick up high school students last, after the younger grades have been dropped off, if it's a scheduling & money problem.