to ask DD (13) to go to bed at 9pm?

[buttonmoon78]

Well, am I? I get 'evils' if I do but I think it's perfectly reasonable really.

After all, if she doesn't then I get even more evils in the morning.

But all I hear is 'but all my friends stay up til xxx o'clock'.

What time do your dcs go to bed, o wise ones?

Like cory, we do a lot of general conversation in the evenings - talking about things (holidays, memories, situations at school or in the news, church and hobbies), practising music together (going over piano scales, accompanying violin-playing on the piano), reading in the same room, and we watch a hell of a lot of films together.

do you sing too? like the Von Trapps?

have to agree with shineon here.
just cos kids are up in their rooms, does not mean they have been imprisoned in them!
Come evening time, get them off to their rooms I say - kids need to wind down, and after being round people all day, I think time on their own does them good.

Yes, we do, Vinegar. That's how I grew up, in a musical household. My brother and his son play duets together. Or go round grandma's to play trios. Weird, isn't it?

I don't, but my brother and nephew actually do write music together.

Yes, a couple of us do sing occasionally. What of it? One of my children is taking Grade 6 singing, I sing in a choir - it's fun for us to do singing.

Sorry, that's just what we do. Other people do different things. My kids love talking about what we did on a particular holiday in the past, or about a school friend that moved away, or about where we used to live before we came here. Two of my kids plays instruments. When the violinist is playing pieces, it needs accompaniment on the piano - I play piano: that isn't weird. I need to practice piano for responsibilities I have - sometimes one of my children and I will play show tunes and the other one will sing along because we love the same musicals and we have bought all the scores for various birthdays and Christmases. That's just us. It doesn't imply anything about anyone else's family. I'm teaching another one to do patchwork so we'll do that together.

Everybody doesn't have to be exactly the same as you, shiney. As it so happens, dd and I have a lot of shared interests: it is not because I have imposed those on her, but because she has developed them- as have several of her friends whom I have never even met. It is not uncommon for a whole family to share an interest in something, whether books or arts or ponies or just talking. It's how my extended family has always been- people talk a lot to each other. Doesn't mean you have failed- or that we are somehow ludicrous.

We also do the musicals and show tunes stuff, Dandy.

oh you are making me jealous with your family music making.

you know when you start to hear 'meep meep meep'? well im starting to see it!

i think i need to lie down

"Doesn't mean you have failed- or that we are somehow ludicrous."

exactly - and there's be no Mumsnet if we all did things the same way as each other

My DS is 13 and he is supposed to be in his room at 9, lights out 9.30. Sometimes he doesn't actually go up until 9.30, but mostly he's pretty good.
At weekends he can stay up later, but he goes to his room at 9.30/ 10 eventhough he might then read or play lego.
I try to make sure that his last 30mins before sleep is tv and computer free (there's no TV or computer in his room).

My 13 yo ds is in bed around 9pm on a school night, I never have to ask him to go to bed though and we haven't agreed a time, he just is tired and puts himself to bed, comes down to say 'goodnight' and then takes himself off.

My 9yo ds is in bed by 8pm, going to sleep.

around 9-9.30 for mine.
if he is 'not tired' then he can read in bed, and we pretend not to notice. if he gets a screen out somehow we always do.

DS1 is 13, and bedtime is between 9pm and 10pm (as in lights out), depending on whether he's been out at Scouts or whatever. It was 9pm last night, with lights out at 9.30. I don't think it's unreasonable at all.

Ignore the evils - you're meant to suck the joy out of her life, didn't you know that?!

ds1 is supposed to go to bed at 9p.m and in bed asleep or going to sleep by 9.30 on a school night, the problem we have is hte oys share a room and the younger one is only 8 so goes to bed at 8 and ias asleep by 8.15 as he likes his sleep, but then ds1 will go to bed and no matter what time he goes he will turn the lights on, turn the tv on, or listen to music, playing on/texting on his phone and wakes ds2 up.
ds1 because of his lack of sleep is a nightmare to get out of bed in the morning and literally will not get out of bed until he is dragged out, every morning his friends knocks for him at 8.10 and every morning ds1 is still getting dressed and never rushes.
i leave for work most mornings feeling exhausted and go to work for a rest!

God, you lot are seriously shattering my illusions of the future. I never sat in the lounge with my parents! God, what would I have spoken to them about? Politics? Religion? Nah, I loved sitting in my own room, with my own space, doing my own thing, learning the words to songs from Smash Hits!

I was hoping the dc would do the same. Jesus, are they going to want to sit up with me until 10pm?

DD is 12 and a half. Goes up at 8pm - lights out at 8.30pm during the week.

9 at weekends. She needs and enjoys her sleep.

i had this argument with my DS a while ago now and found a couple of good sites with info on how much sleep you need at different ages. I'm sure it was suggested that early teens need about 9 or 10 hours sleep a night.
Also that 'screen time' just before bed can affect sleep... of course I can't find that site now, but it was useful for showing DS that I wasn't being unreasonable, even though his friends X and Y's parents were less strict about bedtimes.
I also pointed out that he's always saying that X and Y are often running late in the mornings and that maybe if they went to bed earlier, they wouldn't!

DD (11) goes to boarding school and their rules are lights out by 9.30pm for his age group. The 13yos have a later bedtime of 10pm. At weekends DD can stay up until 10pm. She doesn't seem to need any more sleep than she's getting now. Obviously she doesn't need to be up very early though as she doesn't have any travel time to get to school.

She used to do a lot of after school activities at primary school - one was a swimming club which ended at 8pm (so she'd get home by 8.45) and one was guides which finished at 7.30pm.

Pinkjenny, I also did the song learning! I also used to do a lot of messing around with tapes, trying to tape songs from the radio so they were seamlessly joined with as little dj voice as possible - it used to take ages!
Then there was the cutting out of bands photos from smash hits and NME. Not to mention hour upon hour of ear piercing, hair dying/cutting.
There was no time for sitting with the parents, not that I wanted to.

Totally, Lovesdogsandcats, it's not until I got into my late teens that I started chatting to my parents

Rest assured, we have a great relationship now. I suppose things were different then, I used to walk to my friends' houses and we used to go for a wander etc, not as much time was spent at home, really.

DS, 13 goes to bed at 9:30, sometimes it's pushed until 10 if there's something suitable he really wants to watch on TV.
But when I say bed, I mean bed, there's no games, TV or computer in his room, only books.