"bedtime" for teens...

[perdidochas]

Not true. Every adolescent does not need that much sleep. One of my DD's does absolutely fine on 6-7 hours.

Why would you give him sleep medication to force him to sleep when he doesn't want to? That sounds crazy to me. He's no different than most teenagers.

My kids were not even home from practices by that time on a lot of nights when they were that age. That seems really early for an 11-12 year old.

I agree. My 12 yr old has a 9 o'clock time to be in bed--he can read after that, but no TV/videogames.

 

[perdidochas]

This hits the nail on the head. We have had several sleep related issues with our 16 DD this year, in addition to her having an underlying sleep disorder. We have seen 3 different specialists this year in a well respected health care system. All 3 physicians have told us that a disruptive (to us) sleep pattern is normal in teenagers. In the absence of a planned activity after school, DD will come home and sleep during the afternoon and then be up late at night, often 12 or 1am doing the volumes of homework that she has. She gets up at 7am very tired and cranky and it all begins again. Of course during swim season she is up at 5am and that takes a toll on all of us.

This drives us crazy, her DF especially, as he gets up early around 5:15 for work and wants it quiet at night. Of course we wonder why she doesn't go to bed early, get a good night sleep and then be able to continue going to bed early (10pm or so). All 3 Doctors we have seen have told us that her sleep pattern is normal for teenagers and we need to deal with it as best we can. Luckily, her HS starts later at 8:10 unlike our local public high school that starts at 7:18.

More and more research is backing up this sleep pattern in teens is normal. In our school district the elementary schools start at 8:54 am, middle school starts at 8am and then high school at 7:18. Of course this makes sense with the bussing schedule, but not so much sense when you look at the sleep patterns of our kids. Seems like it would be better for the younger kids to start earliest and then the HS kids latest. DD is already talking about how she can't wait to go to college to be able to have classes that start later in the day.

I don't buy the whole biological sleep argument. I think it's an artifact of artificial light, TV and too little exercise. I've never read that in earlier times teens went to bed later, etc.

Your system does that so that the elementary school kids don't come home to an empty house, and so that high school kids can get after school jobs.

 

[perdidochas]

Thanks you all.
His dad is glad that his son has a "mom" in his life now.....I swear he tells his son "just do what she says" and then he goes off to work. LOL. He gives me his opinion on these things, but then he says "whatever you think is fine, we'll do that".
Which is fine with me, because it means I rule the roost and I like that. lol.

It is not hard because I think we do not really have a "normal" steparent-stepchild relationship. Stepson is nice to me and actually listens to what I tell him (not *always* willingly, but he is 15, so I expect an attitude every once in a while, lol, but even after all his complaining and sulking, in the end he will do what he is supposed to do).

I think because he has never had a mom in his life before and he always wanted one, then he is more inclined to be nice to me. (Since he has no real mom, I'm "it" for him. I don't think he sees me as a "real" mom because I am too young to actually be his mom- I'm 11 years older than him- but I just mean that since he doesn't have a mom, I have no "competition").

Plus, I guess because I'm not that much older, we have fun together too, which is cool. We actually probably have more in common with eachother than I do with his dad. I mean don't get me wrong, his dad is the love of my life, obviously, or I wouldn't be with him, but his son and I like most of the same music and movies and we like to play Wii together and do stuff like that.

So about bedtime, his dad agrees that he needs to be told when to go to bed, but he's left it to me to decide when.
And then his statement to his son will probably be, "just go to bed whenever she tells you" LOL.
So I think I will see how his dad feels about taking the tv out of his bedroom. If my husband agrees with removing the tv, then my husband is going to be the one to actually remove it- I'm not going to take the fall for that one, because it won't be pretty lol.
But we'll start with the tv probably and see if that works, we can tell him that he can have it back later on.

I thought about your idea of having him read in bed till he's sleepy, but he hates to read and it's a struggle for him to read anyway. He gets frustrated with reading.
He has an IEP because of his reading and the school gives him the audio books (books on CD) for his school assignments, but he likes to be read to better. Which is something he would never tell anyone, but I think it's sweet that he likes when he's read to.
This is something he would NEVER admit to anyone, but he's asked me to read aloud to him sometimes, like if he has a book he has to read for English Literature, he and I will sit on the couch and I'll read out loud. He actually remembers a LOT when he HEARS the story, but he has way more trouble following a book if he's reading it himself.
I understand that because when I was in college, the Disability Services gave me audio books for all my course textbooks, (I didn't need them, my problems were in math, not reading) but even though I didn't really need them, I did find them helpful because I retained more information if I listened to the book while I read the book. So I understand the audio books being helpful for him.
Anyway I'm getting totally off subject but I guess what I'm thinking is taking the tv out and put in a book on CD for him to listen to as he goes to sleep.

In terms of the classics published before the 1930s, you can get many of them free as MP3s off the internet. Go to librivox.org