I'm having this debate with my daughter this year. She is 12 now but will be 13 in September. She wants me to let her stay up later on school nights because she is going to be a teenager.

I am sticking with she is young and needs enough sleep on school nights.

Mom- most of friends can just go to bed whenever they want to. Well I'm not their moms now am I?

So what do you think? Bedtime still? I let her stay up until 9:30 (she has to be in her room then) and lights out at 10. She wants no set bedtime.

I agree with you. Even though she is going to be a teenager, she still needs proper rest.

My boys are 15 and 17. They are in bed by 10am on school nights if they aren't working. They both have tv's in their rooms, but they are usually asleep before 10:30 because they are beat from school and sports practice.

I really thought that lights out at 10 was pretty good. I don't see any reason that she needs to stay up later. She is also a pain in the butt to wake up in the morning.

I'm also a believer in if you give me a hard time getting up and around in the morning, you go to bed 30 minutes earlier. Once you show you can get up without drama or a struggle I will raise the bedtime again.

I do the same thing! If they don't get up when the alarm goes off, they go to bed earlier that night. I don't have the patience to be fighting with my kids to get up in the morning.
My oldest will get up by himself at 6 to go and workout at the Y before school. I love it because he usually drags his brother out of bed to go with him. This way they are beat by the end of the day and go to bed without any hassels.

Every teenager wants no set bedtime! On Friday and Saturdays, I see no problem with it, but on school nights I think there needs to be a set time for teenagers. Mine was always like 10:00. Though in my later teenage years it was like 11:00.

Honestly, I would say, (just for a while) let them stay up as late as they want and they'll quickly learn on their own that they're WAY too tired. My mom did that with me, and it made me go to bed early. Teenagers wanna rebel, so if you tell them 8pm, they'll try to stay up till midnight. Give em some space, explain your side, and they'll usually be able to figure what's best for them out on their own. I did

I'm not sure that she would go to a bed time if I told her no bed time. I'm sure she would try to stay up and then get bad grades from the lack of sleep.

If she pushes too much, I might give it a try and check in on her from week to week (grades online).

I agree with one of the previous posts that mentioned letting them stay up without setting a bed time. Kids learn from their mistakes, just like adults. And if they stay up too late, they will end up feeling exhausted the next day. When they realize they can't get much done while feeling dead tired, I believe it will teach them to go to bed at a reasonable hour.

Ya, I mean it will affect them negatively at first, but then they would become exhausted and start going to bed at an earlier time

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-Brittany Brydahl