Sleeping summer vacation away
You wouldn’t think sleeping would be so much trouble for
teenagers, but it is.
At least this is what I’m discovering this summer. Oh, they
sleep, all right. But not at the times I would have chosen for
them.
Sleeping summer vacation away
You wouldn’t think sleeping would be so much trouble for teenagers, but it is.
At least this is what I’m discovering this summer. Oh, they sleep, all right. But not at the times I would have chosen for them.
While I lead my typical 9-to-5 existence, theirs resembles that of the Vampire Lestat.
Now, I have no objection to them sleeping in. But sleeping in until 2:30 in the afternoon? That’s a little much.
What is happening is that I go to bed at a semi-decent hour, and they stay up most of the night, talking to friends or playing video games. Very quietly and sneakily, mind you. I discover the next morning – or the next afternoon – they have been up until 2, 3, 4 a.m.
“But Mom!” they whine when I put my foot down about the all-nighters. “We’re on vacation! We don’t have to get up in the morning! We’re having fun!”
Well, there’s fun. And there’s fun.
Staying up all night has never been my idea of fun, even when I was their age. So I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the concept of this being a “fun” activity.
Now mind you, I’m well aware of the research that has been done of late on teens and their sleeping habits. Teenagers tend to go to bed later and get up later as a natural course of things. They also need more sleep than adults – nine to 10 hours would be ideal – but with school, sports, band, friends, extracurricular activities, honors courses, work, computers and cell phones, most of them do not get enough sleep these days.
I try to do what I can to herd my boys into bed at a reasonable hour, and when school is in session, I have varying degrees of success. Unfortunately, they are descended from a long line of night owls on their dad’s side. So it’s like the old saw about leading a horse to water but not being able to make him drink.
I can tuck my sons in and kiss them good night, but I can’t make them sleep.
My younger son, especially, has trouble in this area. He is not a natural early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of guy. When school is in session, he suffers from a decided sleep deficit.
So I thought I was doing the right thing, the kind thing, by letting the two of them sleep in during summer vacation. After all, it’s vacation. They are catching up on the zzz’s, so to speak. Recharging their batteries.
But this has backfired on me. Sleeping in became their convenient excuse for staying up until all hours.
“But Mom, I wasn’t sleepy,” they would tell me.
So I set about making them tired. I started waking them up – in the morning.
What a concept.
I tortured them with happy talk and open curtains. “Rise and shine, sleepyhead,” I shouted. When they groaned and rolled over, I persisted. I also gave them chores which had to be done during the day.
Eventually, my tactics worked. They have started going to bed earlier, and (reluctantly) getting up earlier.
Just in time … to go back to school.
Oh well, no one said that vacation was going to last forever.
