Found out my 8 year old is sneaking downstairs to go online at 2am

[Anonymous]

Last night I learned that my 8 year old has been setting an alarm to get up in the middle of the night so she can go downstairs and use the iPad or laptop to browse weather.com beyond her "screen time" limits that we enforce. She loves looking up weather in various cities and just reading about weather patterns and such, could read forever (and apparently does!)

How would you handle?

[Anonymous]

Turn off WiFi access to that device

[Anonymous]

Change the passwords on both devices.

[Anonymous]

Nip this in the bud. When I was working in the classroom (was a classroom monitor during the return to school after Covid) I had a 2nd grader who was stealing her sister's iPad at night to play Roblox and Minecraft.

She was a mess every day because her sleep was a disaster. She couldn't focus in class and got into social issues all the time.

I would put both devices away in a different place, preferably one where you'll wake up if she comes to get them.

[Anonymous]

Incorporate looking up the weather and talking about the weather into the bedtime routine.

Then make the devices inaccessible at night. Maybe charge them in your room?

[Anonymous]

While I think this is kind of sweet (the Weather Channel lol), the most important thing is her sleep!

My kid used to get up early just to have the house to herself. We had to nip this in the bud too.

[Anonymous]

install parental controls asap. or just change the passwords. that's pretty extreme behavior for an 8 yo.

[Anonymous]

One issue is that one of the devices she has used is the school Chromebook that goes back and forth between school/home so not sure if I can change passwords/install parental controls but I could just keep it in my room at night.

[Anonymous]

Honestly - i turn the WiFi off at 11 pm and back on at 6 am.
I had a kid (older) who did this, and I locked up portable devices after he was caught. The devices were turned in and went to “sleep” in a locked area at night.

[Anonymous]

Take away her alarm and the devices. Put them both somewhere in your room where she can’t find them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One issue is that one of the devices she has used is the school Chromebook that goes back and forth between school/home so not sure if I can change passwords/install parental controls but I could just keep it in my room at night.

The school Chromebook was locked up at night very close to my bed, to make sure no funny business.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Last night I learned that my 8 year old has been setting an alarm to get up in the middle of the night so she can go downstairs and use the iPad or laptop to browse weather.com beyond her "screen time" limits that we enforce. She loves looking up weather in various cities and just reading about weather patterns and such, could read forever (and apparently does!)

How would you handle?

She is an addict

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly - i turn the WiFi off at 11 pm and back on at 6 am.
I had a kid (older) who did this, and I locked up portable devices after he was caught. The devices were turned in and went to “sleep” in a locked area at night.

Yes I turned off the Wifi every school night. It's very easy to do using the app for your internet provider.

[Anonymous]

Agree to prevent access - physically is better than using passwords etc bc they will figure those out.

[Anonymous]

Take the device every night! Lock it up if you need to. What kind of alarm does she have? If it’s Alexa I would take that away too