My teens need to be gainfully occupied during the summer because i believe that some downtime is important for teens but too much downtime is detrimental. In my house, "gainfully occupied" means a part-time job or volunteer gig, or taking a class, or some combination of these. |
| Mine have to wake up by 10:30am/11am. I don’t feel any guilt about this. This is true on school year weekends too. They are so used to it they just do it on their own. The later they sleep in, the less tired they are the next evening and the cycle just perpetuates. It’s bad enough with an 11am wake up. |
What do they have to get up for? |
| Of all the things to be ticked off about... |
| Let them sleep. This is the only time in their life when they can do this guilt-free. College will start soon enough and then the career, marriage, kids. Let them enjoy it. |
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My 15 yr old son is literally growing. He needs all that sleep. And copious amounts of food. He wakes midday happy and hungry on days where he has no school or work. I’m happy he gets rest.
I was much more rigid with my older child. I regret that. I’m much more chill this time around. |
| Because we don't have sticks up our a$$ and know that a summer of sleeping in is not doing them any harm. I |
Really? College and 20s are peak sleeping in years. Why limit oneself. |
DP. College was when my internal alarm clock started moving earlier. I was waking up at 7:30 freshman year, but generally I agree. You're not going to sleep in your whole life because you did it at 17. |
It's not the sleeping in that I have an issue with, it's the staying up all night. When are DH and I supposed to have sex if DC never goes to sleep? Our house is not that big. |
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God, my mother was like this. Would sing loudly and bang pots and pans around 10am to wake me up in the summer. Made me have a job every single summer starting when I was 15, including summers when I was in college, and winter breaks too once I started college and had 3 week long winter breaks (she’d tell neighbors I was available to babysit, she’d make me pick up hours at the coffee shop I used to work at, etc). To her, downtime was evil apparently.
I eventually graduated college and was going to grad school for my field. I came home for the 3 months before grad school started. She started at me again trying to make me pick up shifts at the coffee shop so I “wasn’t sitting around doing nothing in the prime of my life.” I just moved out and in with a friend who was starting her job right after graduation. I WAS in the prime of my life and what I wanted to do was sleep, see my friends, paint, train for a marathon, and read novels by the pool. This is what I did and it was the best, most life changing 3 months of my life because I had a few months to just BE, and think about my goals and what I wanted out of life. I still resent her for making me wait until I was 22 to have any free time. |
| I worked a job from 3pm till midnight. I often went out after. My parents were off at work. Nobody woke me up. I had an alarm clock. |
Some parents don’t care about their child’s sleep routine, or lack there of. They probably are unaware of the negative impact this will have in the long run. As caring parents, it’s our responsibility to do the best we can. Your child is fortunate to have a parent who sees the value in promoting healthy sleep routines, on a regular basis. |
The only one of those tasks that should fall on the teenager is emptying the dishwasher and there's no reason that has to happen at 7. |
Yes, you two peaches win the mommy olympics. Congrats. Your kids hate you. But you won. |