<p>My DS is an 11th grader. He has terrible sleep/study habits. He has fallen into this cycle of staying awake til after midnight then getting up at at 6:30 am. He often falls asleep for an hour or so in the late afternoon. Then he says he can't fall asleep until very late at night.<br>
Also, he does this multi-tasking routine of wearing headphones and singing (rapping) along while doing his homework AND using his social networking sites.
My final rant is that he eats a large snack (second lunch really) after school, then picks through dinner OR pleads for an early dinner when the rest of us aren't quite ready.
He says this all works for him- he is getting high grades in tough classes, and participates in EC's.<br>
But he uses fatigue and homework as reasons to be excused from chores. Also, this week he really botched a couple of his English assignments and will have to dig his way out. Any ideas on how to get him to adjust his habits a bit without being a raging nag?</p>
<p>Minnie - If he’s getting high grades in tough classes then his study habits seem to be working for him. As for the English assignments, let him deal with it.</p>
<p>I can identify with your frustration, but as the mom of a S the same age as yours, what you have described is typical. My S gets home from school at 5 and is ready to eat immediately ( difficult in a household where both parents work).</p>
<p>Really, I would let it go. He’ll be in college in less than 2 years.</p>
<p>I became a raging nag a few times. Didn’t help. Your kid sounds like mine, maybe a bit ADD and so am I, and he aced high school and college admissions and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. Hug the kid and, if you have time, make sure he has nourishing food.</p>
<p>I think it’s mostly biology. Teens like to stay awake later. For the most part I would let it go except for:
Chores are part of the family obligation. I have to work to bring $ home, someone has to cook for dinner, someone has to put out the garbage, etc. Don’t let him get out of this one.</p>
<p>Lol, as a student, that’s me. It’s interesting to see it from a parents perspective, so I’ll try and change!</p>
<p>Both of my kids love taking naps. His schedule is very similar to D2’s schedule. She is in college now and she still likes to take a nap in the afternoon.</p>
<p>Teenagers will use any excuse to get out of chores. To be fair, junior years is the toughest year - standarized tests, tougher courses. It is also the most important year for them. I am not surprised he is tired.</p>
<p>Yup. I stopped nagging the kids about bedtime when they started getting themselves up in the morning and I stopped commenting on where and how they studied as long as their grades were good. I do require them to sit with us at dinner, but I don’t “make them eat” if they aren’t hungry…they can just sit there and participate in the conversation and they still need to do this things around the house that are their responsible… these are my only absolutes. It’s OK, they need to self manage when they get to college in terms of when and how they sleep, eat and study. I heard my son cleaning the hall bathroom last night sometime around midnight. He had all weekend to do it, but no…midnight on a school night. OP… They will survive. You will survive. Digging themselves out of academic holes due to poor choices is also a good lesson to learn BEFORE they go to college.</p>
<p>Does the food part of this situation need to be an issue?</p>
<p>Can’t you just have food available in the house that he can prepare himself if the times when he is hungry don’t coincide with when the rest of the family is eating? Sometimes, this food might be reheatable leftovers from the previous night’s meal that he didn’t share with the family. Or you could maintain a stock of canned soup, yogurt, sandwich makings, frozen entrees, fresh fruit, or other nutritious things that he likes and that don’t require a lot of effort to prepare.</p>
<p>Insisting that he eat at the same times and places as the rest of the family doesn’t seem worth the trouble.</p>
<p>A few things we have done successfully:
- Insist that the “second lunch” be fairly healthy. We keep turkey sandwich fixings in the fridge and the kind of apples she likes. So when (not “if”) D2 is very hungry when she comes in the door and dinner is more than 20 minutes away, she can make those things. She often has to skip lunch due to choir lessons, writing club, programming club, finishing tests, etc. So I am somewhat sympathetic. Usually dinner leftovers are no big deal, they will get eaten. As long as she joins me for dinner and eats some of what was cooked, I am okay with it.
- When she gets too far behind in chores, I lay down an ultimatum. All clothes put away/bathroom cleaned/dishes done/or whatever before she can go out the door to wherever… even school. Or can take the car to wherever, etc. I don’t think it is nagging… I don’t yell, and I try to not wait until the last minute to spring the reminder and consequence on her. But I stick to it.
- We have some limits on caffeine. Trying to keep her from getting too hooked… she can have fancy coffee drinks two mornings a week. In no situation is she to have any caffeine after 1:00 pm. Lights out when I go to bed (usually around 11), and she puts her laptop in the hall to charge so it isn’t in her room to tempt her.
- Because she can’t always juggle everything (and has no study halls this year), we have instituted a “one EC a day” rule for her. She can do ONE after school or evening activity a day Mon-Thursday. Quiz Bowl practice, Robotics, fencing, food bank volunteer – all take a couple of hours. So she can do ONE on a given day, but not more except in super special circumstances. That way she has time to study and get to bed at a decent hour. That is working pretty well. Fridays and weekends are pretty unlimited for ECs/friends/etc.</p>
<p>Regarding the multitasking, I leave her alone unless she has a significant grade problem. Really can’t complain about that. Although if she was telling me she had to stay up until midnight to finish homework and was using social network sites during that time, I would probably be irked.</p>
<p>I’m on my third boy in his Jr year. We’ve all heard ‘choose your battles’, and your battles will be different with each. </p>
<p>I agree that food/eating times should not be one of them. Make healthy food available. If he’s starving when he’s coming through the door and eating means he’s not going to be hungry for dinner, leftovers from last nights dinner would be perfect. If yogurt and some fruit might get him by until a family meal on some days, that works too. Try to make this as seamless as possible without it turning into either an argument or pop tarts and cheetos washed down with a Mt. Dew. There’s a happy medium. If family meal time is important to you either ask that he join you at that time even if he’s not going to eat, or plan for the weekends.</p>
<p>As for the late nights, S3 would study in his room where we’d find him asleep, head down on his desk with a textbook on his lap. When we’d wake him he’d swear he wasn’t sleeping…boodshot eyes, big crease on his forehead and all. Finally we moved him from his room to my office. It’s on the first floor off the family room with glass/french doors. When he’s in there it’s a different vibe and his body naturally knows it’s time to study, not hang out, goof off, or sleep. It has actually worked very well. Jr. year is very demanding. He’s still up much later then we’d like…well past midnight half the time with the alarm going off just after 5:15am. With AP classes, ECs, and SATs he’s simply got a lot going on, like every other kid his age. Now that he’s down here we can see when he’s wasting time and ‘refocus’ him. The goal is to be done and up to bed by 11pm. He does wear the headphones, the celphone and fb are not allowed. We casually spot check to make sure. He’s pretty good about it.</p>
<p>We also don’t budge on the chores. Daily he helps with dishes and smaller things. Weekends it’s mowing, laundry, and his bathroom. It’s all part of being a family. If he’s really swamped on something he’ll get a reprieve for a day or two, but I won’t do it for him…it’s there waiting.</p>
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<p>This was my schedule all through high school. I’ve found I usually work best on ~6 hours of sleep since that’s the length of my sleep cycles. I’m now considerably older and have to wake up at 5 AM every morning for work. I can only wish I could go back to setting my own schedule since I’m a much more effective worker from the hours of 4 PM through midnight. Before noon it’s nearly impossible for me to focus, even though I’m getting considerably more sleep nowadays.</p>
<p>Teenagers need a lot of fuel, especially when they are working hard in school. My own kids, boys and a girl, came/come home from school and essentially eat a meal for a “snack”. School lunches don’t fill them up and depending on when they eat, they are just ready for another meal. They will have a frozen pizza each, for example, for an after school snack. We eat dinner around 6:00 PM, so about 3 hours after their snack. </p>
<p>The sleep thing, if it works for him it works for him, BUT it’s NOT working if he is trying to get out of chores, that seem to be a high priority at your house. Don’t back down on that. If he doesn’t like it, he needs to adjust.</p>
<p>Thanks for the tips and hints. I know that all this is really common for teenagers. He is a really great kid and junior year is a tough one. His older brother was much the same when he was in HS, but didn’t complain about the chores or try to get excused from them. I do agree that this is the process in which teens learn about time management and academic/social/family balance.</p>
<p>Having had 3 boys–I can sympathize with you!</p>
<p>Realize that teenage boys sometimes just need more fuel, more often for their growth-spurting bodies. Combine that with a lunch that might be skimpy, skipped or ridiculously early–and that boy will be ravenous walking through the door. </p>
<p>Our sons had lunch at 10:50–ridiculously early, but at least a chance to eat, because our small high school had a 20 minute period when there were NO classes so the kids had a chance to eat. A lot of larger schools have students taking classes every period during the day and the kids do not have a period for lunch.</p>
<p>I used to try to have some portions of dinner ready early so they could help themselves, and I also used to keep healthy choices at the ready–my guys didn’t really like junk food all that much.</p>
<p>Am I the only one who reads all the sleep studies? Teenagers are not able to fall asleep earlier than 11 or 12 at night. In our area the little kids go to school early; high school starts at 9:00. Many school districts have considered doing the same thing. I don’t get why more don’t.</p>
<p>I was told the problem was after school sports that had to happen in daylight. I drove my kid to high school every day so he could get more sleep. If he’d taken the bus he’d have had to leave at least an hour earlier.</p>
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<p>So it’s not working entirely. What if you put him in charge by “challenging” him to experiment for one week, studying downstairs without multi-tasking on screen, etc.
Ask him to give it an honest try, and see if HE finds it easier to keep up. </p>
<p>He doesn’t have to report the results to you. You don’t nag. It won’t change otherwise, and maybe if he runs the experiment, he might decide to change it himself.</p>
<p>Chores? No excuses. That;s just junk he’s giving you there.</p>
<p>Family dinner? I agree with others to supply food and take that issue away. But here we’d have said we still need his personal company at dinner, even if just with a glass of water. The conversations are important, and I’d be concerned about totally losing the family feeling without that gathering point. It’s disorienting to never sit together all day, and you have the right to insist on that (I feel) if you are providing EVErythING ELSE under the sun for him.</p>
<p>We made a separate “3-kids’ study” downstairs with computer, 3 desks, bookbag drop and school books (the "hard stuff), and kept their rooms all soft (bedding, clothing and personal reading). No TV’s in any bedrooms except ours, because we’re hypocrites. Zzzzzz.</p>
<p>I was much the same during my junior year. My parents tried all sorts of things - taking away the car, phone, grounding me, etc. until I got to bed earlier. Honestly, it just was not possible unless I dropped my courseload or quit my ECs, which I did not want to do. Their punishments stressed me out to the extreme and made the year much harder than it needed to be. I understand being concerned, and I think a few points here were good:
-Studying in a separate room from his bedroom really helps.
-We are STARVING after school, so try not to be harsh about not eating at dinner time. My friends and I pretty much all do the same. Having healthy snacks around would be great.
-Lay down your expectations clearly and make sure he has sufficient time to complete tasks. This probably works best if you give him at least a weekend when there is anything you want him to do (i.e. chores).
-Relax, calm down, realize that there will be an end to it.</p>
<p>I just remembered something: we’d swap challenges, to get change in the family. So you could offer, “For one week, I’ll stay silent on the topic of study habits if you run this experiment for yourself by studying downstairs…” It shows some willingness to change in both directions. Make a deal. And agree on a penalty if either of you breaks the terms during the week (for example, $5 in a kitty from him, $10 from you) so if someone slips up, the whole experiment can continue.</p>
<p>I haven’t read the rest of the replies. But here is mine.
Don’t let him nap.
Multi-tasking does not work. Studies prove it.
The snack/picking/early dinner thing is probably just being a teenaged boy. The solution is to insist upon eating a full dinner with the family or pay for what is not eaten.
High grades are great. Imagine what he could do in school and life if he didn’t nap, multi-task, or do other bad habits.
Fatigue, by its very definition, is not good. Stop it.</p>