To discourage DD to drink coffee

[Howdoiparentteen]

DD15 said she is falling behind at school and thinking of started drinking coffee. I suggested to start with tea and get into a better routine, do more exercise, homework everyday, less screen time.

I don’t think she is sleeping enough hours for a teenager, between 7 and 8 on school days.

We have limited time on her phone at 9pm on school days, and wifi goes off at 10:30pm so she uses IPAD sometimes,

FYI. I didn’t grow up in the UK so only started drinking tea late in my adulthood, and coffee only this year (I am 52), one around lunch time, if I take it after 2 it does impact my sleep.

I think it's unlikely that coffee will improve her school performance. Your suggestions are much better for that.

However, I don't see any harm in letting her drink one coffee a day. She may not even like it, if she's never tried it before?

Erm our 15 and 16 are lights out at 10 sounds like she's staying up to late and no internet from 9...tbh half the time there asleep by 9:30 from reading and I put lamps off. Just a routine we've always had so all are used to it and no I wouldn't be encouraging coffee none of ours do tho by choice as it's there should they want it lol

My DD at that age has a few friends that drink a few coffees a day and tbh I dont think it improves their mental performance. I think the distraction of phones, especially things like tiktok, impact negatively on our DC attention spans and they struggle to complete a complex piece of school work or revise effectively. I've had to reduce my DDs consumption of this stuff drastically.

Thank you.

This is helpful. I did had lots of restrictions on her mobile phone re ticktock and snap chap but it was becoming unmanageable.

We need to start getting her into a better routine.

This is probably the case

I would rather kids had a coffee than cans of Monster

As a teacher she is not getting enough sleep. Very few teenagers do.
They actually need 8-10 hours to support the fact they are still developing their brains and in some cases still growing

Thank you. I think we need to start encouraging her into a better routine

What restrictions do you have?

seems like we may have to turn off the wifi earlier too.

DDs phone goes off 9.30pm to 7am. She sleeps a fairly solid 10-6.30 on school days, wakes later at weekends and unless at a sleepover or away somewhere bedtime is never later, it helps that she likes sleep and sees the benefit of an early night. She's 14, in year 10. She does have tiktok but no insta or snap and the app is restricted to a couple of hours a day. I don't want to over-restrict her though because she needs to learn self-restraint for herself eventually so we do gradually increase what she has access to as she gets older. She doesn't drink caffeine but if she wanted to I would encourage her to only have it in small amounts and because she enjoyed it, not because she "needed" it. I don't think dependence on caffeine is particularly good for adults or kids.

No they don’t. Sleep is individual and the vast majority of teens don’t need or get 10 hours of sleep a night.

Coffee won’t improve her school performance, although it may make her more focused and alert.

A number of studies have shown that people who drink coffee in moderation are healthier than those who don’t.

I would allow a coffee or two but encourage her to stop mid afternoon. She needs a bit more sleep.

I don't think coffee is a problem for a teen this age as long as it's in moderation, and probably not best to have it in the evenings.

Better to see it as a nice drink (I mean, a lot of people love it don't they? Not a huge fan myself) than focus on the medicating qualities.

So if she wants to try it because she might like it - fair enough. But I would discourage her from using it as a drug to help her focus, if that makes sense?