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There was no staying up late at our house on weekends. My dad said he can't sleep if we're up so we all went to bed about the same time. When dating, I, and my brother, had to be home by 11 PM for the same reason
He couldn't sleep if you were up. And how would he know you were up? If you turned out your lights when he did, then turned them on 20 minutes later, how would he know? That is so odd; similar situation to the OP. I guess that's how parents were, back in whatever era that was? I can't imagine not allowing a teen to read at night, if that's what they want to do. Though personally, I didn't see the attraction of staying up that late, but to each their own.
When I was a kid, I had a 9 p.m. bedtime up until maybe I was 12; it became 10 p.m. on school nights and by high school, 11 p.m. By high school I still respected the 11 p.m. bedtime rule (I'm talking about on school nights here) but on Friday nights I always liked to stay up later - albeit in my room reading a book, if not watching TV (I had a little rinky-dink hand-me-down 9" B&W in my room). I was and still am a night owl.
Anyway, I remember arguing with my dad over staying up late - it's Friday night, the weekend, not a school night and it wasn't like I had to get up early for anything (I still got up on Saturday - even if to just watch cartoons!) Some Fridays I'd stay up all night, watching TV until the last station went off the air (remember that?)
I guess I'm just more liberal (and I don't mean politically speaking) but would you have a problem with your kids staying up later than normal on the weekends?
I fought battles over this for the dumbest reasons. I'm also a night owl, but I don't really think I found that out until I was a teenager. I also had bedtimes like yours, I mean, pretty close. But even in high school I had a 10 p.m. bedtime on weeknights, though nobody cared how long I stayed up on weekends, that wasn't monitored or anything. The bedtime thing drove me insane though because that might make sense if you send your kid to public school and they're just doing the minimum, I don't know, I don't say that to be rude I just literally don't know from experience.
I was at a private high school, though, and while freshman year I was pretty much more or less able to go to bed by 10 p.m. each night, because I had somewhere around 2-3 hours of homework per night, very doable and no problem, in sophomore year I had the perfect storm of the toughest teachers in combination with my "elective" being C++ programming, because at the time I thought I wanted to be a special effects artist and starting with some sort of basic programming skills seemed smart. The teacher let me into the class despite me not having been in pre-calculus yet (I was in what most people were in sophomore year, geometry / trig), and said I'd be fine. Well, it turned out that he taught the class from a book that was only experimental, it hadn't been formally printed yet, it was just in its testing phases. It was some of the worst English I've ever seen, it made no sense, and it was obviously assuming that everyone reading it was a genius who already understood everything because to a neophyte it was completely incomprehensible. I would say I spent anywhere between 2-4 hours per night on JUST that class, trying in vain to understand the reading, to do the programming task assigned, or prepare for a test, or whatever else. My other teachers loved to assign the most idiotic busy work where a single worksheet packet would take an hour and a half to complete, really accomplishing nothing but wasting your time.
There were nights where when I came home from school, I was fully aware that I had 9 hours of homework and it was 3 p.m. and I was completely exhausted because last night I was also up late. So I had no choice but to take a nap until about 5 p.m. maybe even until dinner at 6. Then I'd eat dinner, help with the dishes and whatnot, and by the time I get started on my homework it's at least 6:45 or 7 and you can do the math from there. The reality is, though, I'm not a robot. The sheer crushing depression that set in and overwhelming feeling of hopelessness against this stack of homework meant that if I did have 9 hours of homework, it would take me 12 hours to do it. So the math on that one is that at 7 a.m. I was finishing my last homework and it was also time to go to school. I probably pulled around 15-20 all-nighters that year. A great night would be anything under 5 hours of homework, which again, especially when you're 16 and your entire life is just miserable because of this, you're not doing 5 hours of homework in 5 hours, you're going to do it in 7 or 8 because you still have to get snacks, go to the bathroom, you lose focus for a bit, you don't understand something, you have to redo the work, whatever.
So my dad was trying to enforce this 10 p.m. bed time off and on, early in the year, and at first I just lied. I literally had to put pillows in my bed and turn the lights out, then I'd go into my bathroom and do my math homework or whatever else on the floor of the bathroom with a small rug underneath me. I think maybe I got caught once doing that or something, because I remember absolutely going ballistic especially since I'm not a person, never have been, whether I was 5 or 35, who really puts up with anyone else's crap. I just said look I am going to stay up until whenever the heck I want to get my homework done. You should count yourself absolutely lucky that you have a kid who is so dedicated to school that I'll sacrifice my sleep and any enjoyment out of life just to get A's and I'm not going to put up with any more of this absolute nonsense of trying to pretend I'm asleep when I'm DOING HOMEWORK. You should be so lucky! Other kids are causing problems, I'm lying to get my homework done. This is ridiculous. I never heard about that again after that little blowup. I was left alone to do my thing.
If I had a kid, I'd monitor how they were spending their time clearly, but if they needed to stay up late to study like I did, obviously that'd be understandable. On weekends, I wouldn't care at all.
My mom wasn't strict on when we went to bed on Friday and Saturday nights, but no matter how late it was, we were expected to be up bright and early on Saturdays to get our chores done and on Sunday mornings to go to church. If the chores were done with our eyes closed or we were sitting in church like zombies, then that was on us.
As long as they can get up on time, function adequately and be a decent human being the next day, who cares when they go to bed as a teen, especially in the later teen years. JMO.
As long as they can get up on time, function adequately and be a decent human being the next day, who cares when they go to bed as a teen, especially in the later teen years. JMO.
I totally agree. But what I'm saying is to enforce bedtime at a particular time on the weekends is a bit overbearing. Wouldn't you think?
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