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

[Anonymous]

She’s an addict

[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.

Surely you can solve this yourself without workshopping it right? Surely?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That’s a pretty intense interest in the weather! Does she have time during the day when she’s allowed to look up things about the weather? I’d make sure to nuture that interest during the day, and also take the devises away at night.

+1. I'd definitely make sure that you both take away her ability to wake herself up in the middle of the night to do this with allowing her to do it during designated times of the day. My eight year old loves to look at places on Google Maps, so we have a time every day, after her bath but before bed when that's one of the options for what she can do.

[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?

Not cute nor clever.

WiFi off
Unplug appliances
Loss of screen privileges
No screens Mon-Thursday. Focus on schools, friend visits and ECs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She’s smart. I’d be impressed with her initiative. Fwiw smart kids can get around all of the controls we adults put on. A time restriction? My kids broke in and changed the clocks.

My kids are older now and doing great btw. Relax and don’t listen to the hysterics on here

Are you kidding? An 8 year old isn't sleeping. Initiative is fine and all, but the intense lack of self-control isn't great.

No parent should be rolling over and letting their kid walk all over them. There are always stronger parental controls you can enforce - I work in computing, I would know.

Sure, she can address this but my point is no one should be getting hysterical over this or taking away screens for a month. Context is important.

You work in ‘computing’. Huh? I work in tech myself and my kids were able to get around every single mesh, etc control my dh and I (he’s also in tech) set up. Fast forward, my dc are both at top 20 colleges and life is fine. An 8 year old losing some sleep to look at the weather channel is not something to get hysterical over.

You consider an 8 year old roaming the house at 2am "losing some sleep"? And doing so because she clearly knows its againt household rules? What exactly would you get hysterical over I have to wonder?

[Anonymous]

Buttt why is this an issue

[Anonymous]

We have the same child. I think his first sentence was "look at weather on Mama phone?"
I had to put passwords on everything and kept it next to my bed at night. I also got him encyclopedias and things like that. I said he could read at night if he wanted but as we all know, reading makes you sleepy and screens don't.

[Anonymous]

We have parental controls such that devices can not be used at certain times coupled with time limits.
We have also told kids if we find their devices on a different time zone or any other hack to get around the controls we put on, they lose the device until we are confident that they can live within the rules established.
We also have controls on the TV so that it goes off at mid-night. It stinks on New Year's Eve - but we now have that fixed.

[Anonymous]

As everyone else said, just set the WiFi to turn off on that device at a certain time each night.

[Anonymous]

I absolutely love this. That she is looking up weather in various locales.

But yeah, you need to teach her about sleep hygiene and why waking up in the middle of the night is bad for health.

Then work on ways you can incorporate looking up what is happening with the weather and various times, to help her get her fix on that.

She’s a future genius meteorologist lol. So cute.

[Anonymous]

I think removing the alarms is the best thing. I'd be nervous that the next step would be walking outside and looking at the stars or clouds.

[Anonymous]

Does she know how to clear the history and then get on the weather channel as the last stop? How’d you catch her?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does she know how to clear the history and then get on the weather channel as the last stop? How’d you catch her?

I wondered about this too. Seems like the weather just wouldn't be that compelling, but maybe I'm misunderstanding a future meterologist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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

She has a Fitbit watch with a vibrating alarm. We do have a home desktop that she could use, but I do like the idea of turning off wifi.

This shouldn't be difficult. Her fitbit goes in your room at night, and turn off wifi when you go to bed. Either get her an alarm clock to wake her up in the morning, or you get her up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does she know how to clear the history and then get on the weather channel as the last stop? How’d you catch her?

I wondered about this too. Seems like the weather just wouldn't be that compelling, but maybe I'm misunderstanding a future meterologist.

I had a stomach ache in the middle of the night and couldn't fall back asleep and went downstairs and found her. No time to delete the history on the device so that's how I found out it was the Weather Channel.

Yes she gets time during the day to look at weather but evidently wants more.