Are home ed children easier to get up in the morning?

[LazycowLyinginaManger]

I know this may sound like an odd question but I've often heard that when kids start school they start to be hard to get up in the morning. This is often held out as hope for those of us with very early rising pre-schoolers.

I am wondering if this is an age thing or is actually because school age childen resist getting out of bed beacuse they don't want to go to school or are not getting quite enough sleep because of homework etc in the evenings.

So a question for those of you who home educate

Are your school-age children (pre-teenage obviously)significantly

harder
easier
no different

to get up in the morning than they were pre-school.

[LieselVonGiftwrapp]

Why home-educate? Sorry just intrigued.

[maryhadaharpsichordyeahlord]

I don't have home edd'ed children (mine too young) but my home edding friends say that they have no difficulty getting their primary age children out of bed but they appear to have some difficulty getting them out of their pyjamas. though, tbh, who cares about that?
I suspect it all goes to pot in the teenage years, but I don't know anyone who is home educating at that stage, as most children have chosen to go to school by then

[LieselVonGiftwrapp]

What are their reasons for home ed?

[maryhadaharpsichordyeahlord]

every family has their own reasons for home educating.
among home educators of my acquaintance, the reasons are mainly to do with dissatisfaction with the school system and a belief that a better education (in the braodest sense) can be provided at home.

[SueBaroo]

My HE kids are fairly easy to rouse. My niece is struggling with the school week, and they've stopped eating together because she has a school meal, which is a shame. She's quite hard to coax out of bed because she's a tired bunny.

Liesel, were you asking generally?

[LieselVonGiftwrapp]

Yes

[LazycowLyinginaManger]

Interesting. Obviously this is far too small a sample to draw any conclusions but most of my friends assume the difficulty in getting children up as they get older is an age thing (which is obviously true for teenagers ) but I've always suspected it is more about being unable to fit everything in for a child and still get them the sleep they need once they start school.

Just more fuel to my argument for hom ed.

[CranberryJelley]

Mine aren't home ed, but I have never had to wake them up. They are 6 &7 and get me up between 7 &8 daily (no different at weekends).
I thought all children got up early until they hit the teenage stage.

[Runnerbean]

I HE and I've just asked my dd (7) what she thinks.
She is a night owl so doesn't fall off to sleep until 10pm, this was the same when she was at school last year.
Now however, because she doesn't have to get up, and neither do I we tend to get up at about the same time (between 7.30-8) but without all the shouting, yelling and stress!!
My younger dd is a lark and is early to bed and early up like my dh.

To be honest when you HE life is no longer ruled by clocks!
HE 'rs I'm told are notoriously late for everything!!

[SueBaroo]

Liesel - probably a sensible idea to start a new thread on that topic - you'll get as many different answers as there are posters, I would think.

[LazycowLyinginaManger]

Interesting runnerbean

My family tend to be night owls and I remember it was very difficult to get my niece and nephew out of bed for school from when they were about 6 years old as he really needed to sleep until 8am or so but as he was in Italy and schools start at 8.00am, he had to be up by 6.45am. I

[LazycowLyinginaManger]

Sorry - replace 'he' with 'they' in that last sentence !!

[Saturn74]

They're supposed to get up in the morning?

[Runnerbean]

LOL

It's not unusual to see children at HE groups still in their slippers and pyjamas!

[Mehetabel]

We live autonomously (as far as possible, when not possible we live in a benevolent matriarchal autocracy ), which means my children direct their own lives as much as is compatible with the actual mechanics of living (so they have a great deal of free choice but they sometimes have to come to the supermarket, like it or not) so from a young age they have been responsible for getting themselves up when they feel they want to. I found that they both got up at around 8am for years (I was not available before that time, if they wanted to wake up before then they did not receive any attention!), then it got later as time went on, until as a teenager my ds would stay in bed until 2pm or later, unless he had some reason to get up which he did using an alarm clock. It has always been his own business, I have never taken responsibility for getting him up. Now he is 21 he has to get up early to go to work, so it has gone in a full circle - he lives away from home, so I assume he gets himself up with the aid of an alarm clock, just as he did at home if there was something he needed to get to.

My 11 year old usually emerges around 10-11am, unless there is something we need to get to, when I usually go and wake her up. I don't find her difficult to wake up as it is most often something she wants to go to, and she is grateful for me waking her in time. Someimes if she is especially tired she will decide she would rather stay asleep than do the activity. If it is something where not turning up is ok then I will leave her be, but if we are committed to go then I will insist on her getting up. This is rare though. She has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and so sometimes she really is too tired to do something, even if she wants to do it.

She goes to bed at around 10pm, and reads late, and also has a lot of joint pain so often is still awake at 1am, so the late mornings help catch up.

[Lintie]

DD is twelve and known to me as Queen of the Night because she keeps such late hours. Left to her own devices, she will remain in bed rising only to wander around in her pajamas for hours upon hours. But she will get up if called and, at times when we are doing structured lessons, she is very good at getting up, showered and dressed and presenting herself ready to work within an acceptable degree of lateness.

Her late hours don't worry me as she is a creative spirit and spends her nights working on her guitar, art projects (she spends anywhere between 2 and 8 hours a day drawing, etc), or writing. As someone who enjoys writing as well, I appreciate that the Muse does not keep 9-to-5 hours, so perhaps I am more lenient in this respect.

When we first started HE-ing, I was much more strict about getting her up in the mornings and off to bed at night, but my views have changed as I've realised that our lives do not have to be dictated by a clock. This is partly as a result of our first HE research project - on clocks and time. We studied the history of time-keeping and discussed issues relating to the perception of time, both in the past and in the present. Obviously, this had a great impact on us and we now regard time in much less rigid terms.

[poinsettydog]

It must make for a more relaxed life, not being governed by the clock all the time.

Although I suppose there are very very few jobs that would fit into this lifestyle.

[Saturn74]

Hmm... I spent 12 years in school, and was late very rarely.
I then spent three years at university, and was late very often. I think I should have majored in vodka and sleep perhaps!
I started work after university, and had to be there at 8am. I was never, ever late in over four years.
I also managed to stay there longer than 9am - 3:30pm too.
I don't think that making the decision to home educate a child makes them incapable of adapting - in fact I have found just the opposite to be true.

[sorkycake]

I wanted to see if my kids would have a natural rhythmn, and they both rise full of beans and no longer crabby anywhere between 8-8.30am. They are going to bed at 9pm atm which is later than the 7.30 we stuck to to get them up for the school run and everyone seems happier with this. Dh gets to be with them for about 3 hours every evening which he's thrilled about and then we have 1-2 hours on our own. Pj's are in place until we go out .

[Heartmum2Jamie]

We have fallen into a more natural rythm now that we HE. Ds1 goes to bed anywhere between 8-30 & 9 but is allowed to play his leapster with drawing or spelling/reading cartridges and I often tell him it is time for sleep at 10pm. He gets up between 7.30 & 9 depending on the time he fell asleep. I try and make sure he is dressed before dh comes home from work