to expect my teenagers to get up before 11am

[ShirlOckholmes]

Since my teenage twins finished their exams at the end of June and they don't have to be back in school until September, AIBU in expecting them to get up at a reasonable time.
They seem to have become nocturnal, staying up til 3 or 4 am then sleepig until 1 or 2 pm. When they are awake they spend most of their time on X-box. Its driving me nuts!!
Is this normal? Do teenagers need so much sleep?

I confiscate the xbox controllers- At work one of my colleagues said "Oh they will have looked round the house found them by now" I replied that they wouldnt !

They were in the boot of my car!

Don't you think that "I was never allowed X" is the worst reason in the world not to let your own kids have/do X?

It's also a pretty bad reason to allow them X.

What your parents allowed you is irrelevant, if you don't make the decision for yourself then all sorts of entirely arbitrary rules will get passed down (or mindlessly rebelled against) for generations.

I think it depends what the sentiment /reason behind "not allowing" was Trillian .
My Mother loved waking us up and was vindictive and nasty ,controlling and abusive(long story) -I realise that most parents arent like this though.

I think that in the 70s there were some pretty strange "rules" that seemed to have no rhyme or reason behind them. I think parenting is more honest/reasonable now.

Oh I'm not saying that you necessarily shouldn't (or should) do what your parents did.

I'm saying that you need to have your own reason beyong "this is what my mum did".

I stopped confiscating when I realised that I preferred ds in his room with his grunts and sighs as opposed to next to me on the sofa looking over my shoulder at MN and 'commenting' on threads !Ds is in bed now PEACE!

Perfectly normal, and not harming anyone. Some of my kids do this - 3am watching films or on xbox and sleeping till 1pm. They have all of their adult lives to work like dogs and have the least sleep in Europe and the worst working hours etc. So long as they do some chores once they are up and about, keep an eye out for any part-time summer jobs, and switch off appliances when they go to bed (and put stuff back in the fridge).

I could never get why grown ups (ie my parents) were so horrified by us sleeping in, my Dad would wake us up just to annoy us I think! They still do it now! (although with a baby it's a lot less likely!!)

IntheNight I know about the spares I took them too and I take the electrical lead as well just to be sure. When they were revising before their exams, I told them I'd posted the wire and controllers to their Granny so they wouldn't go searching for them. They believed me and all the time they were in the car boot!!
Jan my Dad was the same and now I think I am turning in to him!

I've come to the conclusion that teens are a lot like babies. They mainly need food and sleep and make a lot of mess. And it is virtually impossible to wake them up!

Glad you are feeling better.

My mum used to wake me up at 9am so I could do something productive...

I have no idea what she expected me to be doing (I did a huge amount of chores without complaining anyway, so it's not like the house was a tip on saturday mornings) and I was bloody knackered!

This is good to read tbh. Since I have given up being the sleep gestapo the mood in teh house is much improved.

I have been looking at all these threads and feel better about my son-16 who sleeps all day- I have grounded him for not getting out of bed before 1pm. Now he is sulking... but as a teenager i could never have stayed in bed !- _(my mother would never allow this.)and i worked all the holidays.So i feel a bit resentful that it has now become a battleground I guess - but do i want this battle ? many different takes on this -here and probably everywhere
But maybe parenting has changed and he does - with nagging! help a bit at home and works a bit also comes home - on time(mostly) I will try talking about it more.it doesnt get easier...does it.

My DDs are back at school now, which soon cured the nocturnal behaviour. Only once have I had to remove laptops and phones from their rooms this week so they would go to sleep.

Yabu 11am is early .

I don't think it has much to do with being a 'morning' person as an adult. I could sleep until lunchtime as a teenager (and would have without my mother's nagging), now in my 30s I wake up naturally about 6.30 or earlier (more like 5am on bright summer mornings!)

When I stay at my parents house, I'm always up and awake earlier than them. It's tempting to go and bang on their door and tell them they should be up doing something useful :)

Let them sleep, they're not doing any harm. Although I would definitely be stamping out the bad manners of leaving things a mess.

Mine are pretty good...usually up by 10.

However.....I do not adjust mealtimes for them.
They get their own lunch at whatever time, but evening meal is never later than 7.30

We have dinner at 8 and one has to help me cook. I've given up on family breakfast these hols as it would just be a war.

I wonder what age or stage it is that you go from being in favour of a lie in to the "you must get up early in the holidays" parent type thing. My parents still have to wake us up if we're staying at theirs so obviously I'm still at the in favour of a lie in stage (I'm 32).. is it just when you have older kids?

Watching with interest. My 13yo is just starting to sleep late and stay up later and I really don't mind the sleeping in bit. He has also started to do more jobs around the house - emptying the dishwasher and a bit of cooking. I do want him not to become completely nocturnal/addicted to the X-box in the summer though - how to get other things on the agenda as he gets older? This summer he has carried on doing the football weeks with his younger brother but he'll be too old next year. He also goes off to play squash with a mate sometimes. Do you old hands with teenagers try getting them doing something in the holidays?

they sound hilarious thought it was 7pm, got up had breakfast and went back to.bed

What do you want them to do when they get up? Theyll just be moping around.

Ds 13 joined the golf club in April, which luckily is practically next door, and he can access via the gate at the bottom of the garden.
He has loved it...there virtually everyday, sometines 9 am till 8pm.

Great value .... £150 for the year.
Best present we have ever given him.

In between times he plays football with mates and hangs around in park and Costa Coffee with girls

X box virtually redundant.

Dd 15 has done 3 weeks of theatre workshops.

We haven't been away this summer.

I can't wait until my two or teenagers and want to sleep all day. Means I can lay in my pit without fear of being woken.