need your opinion and views on age of responsibility with regards to tiredness and behaviour..........

[toccatanfudge]

please........

I need to know if I've over reacted a little (again).

So - when children are still very young, when they get tired a certain degree of bad behaviour is quite common - yes? (please mostly agree with me on this point otherwise the rest of my post is pointless ).

Obviously by the time they are adults they are expected to be able to control their behaviour no matter how tired they are.

At what age (roughly) should they be expected to exert a reasonable degree of control over how they act/react to things when extremely tired???

i dunno, i still get grumpy when very tired!
it's a hard thing to control

mine are only small still, so i don't know really, but def by secondary school age i would think?

yes that's true I still get more grumpy when tired, but I do have to exert some control over how I behave (otherwise SS may well get called on me ).

Badly behaved children are badly behaved children regardless of whether they are 'tired' or not.
The 'but, he's tired' excuse is the child equivilant of the 'but I was drunk' excuse.

I agree once they get older purepurple (although I'm not sure at what age it changes - hence the thread).

But when they're still very young tired children DO behave/react differently because they haven't let learned how to "control" the grumpyness - they just act out how they feel.

tiredness is no excuse for bad behaviour at any time

so bad behaviour has sanctions like going to bed early - sorts out the tiredness doesn't it?

so no - beyond the toddler years there is no free pass

I once spent a wretched few days on holiday with another family whose six year old behaved hideously all of the time and was excused re: 'tiredness' by her mother throughout. This mother then bought the child cakes in the museum cafe etc in what i saw as a 'reward for the bad behaviour.' I thought that was out of order. So I would say, maybe three or four? Or, if they can't control it after that, then they shoud be encouraged to 'cry it out elsewhere' or something. Tiredness may explain poor behaviour but it doesn't excuse it.

I also remember dd2 being vile on a day out at the seaside once, aged four-ish. She was tired after an almost seven hour train journey the day before. She still got told off and taken away from everybody else until she'd calmed down and was ready to be pleasant.

ok - to put it slightly more into context the child in question has just come back from a 2 night residential trip with school - where he's already said they stayed up most of both nights talking (I can believe that knowing who he shared a room with ) , and they did activities virtually non-stop from arrival on Monday morning until just after lunch today when they left . Actually this is the first time I think I've ever (even as a baby/toddler!) him look so tired.

Thing is - like thisisyesterday says if I'm knackered then I'm usually grumpier than normal......

Mine has just come back from one of those too. At the moment she's v happy because apparently the food was horrible, so she missed us!

I would say hot chocolate, bath and a v early night is in order. Like 7.30 mayhap?

ds is 11

he is a pain in the arse if he doesnt get enough sleep. you can guarantee that if he even has half an hour less sleep than he needs we will all pay

he has just gone to bed now, his light is going off at 8

early? hell yes

but he stayed up til 10 sun night to watch the footy and has been a total mare ever since. he knows exactly why he has gone to bed early. does he like it? nope.

but, as someone else said far more succintly - they are tired, they act up, they go to bed early as punishment, sorted.

phew.

lol janeite - he says the food was fabulous at his. I'm just giving his younger brothers a bath and then he'll jump in and then it'll be straight off to bed..........he claims he did shower while there, but given that he said he fell in the "swamp" yesterday and has just said his hands still smell of it............well I'm not convinced.

I suppose it's been extreme grumpynes, sniping at his brothers, arguing back, (threw a tantrum and burst into tears).........(nothing that unusla for him - but it's been a bit more "extreme" earlier this evening) that sort of stuff rather than actually misbehaving.

he's probably knackered - just seen 2 FB status updates from parents of his peers saying their DC (3 of them as 1 of them has twins) fell asleep within an hour of getting home earlier this afternoon .

my problem was I couldn't really send him to bed with no dinner - we don't eat until around 6.30.........and I was still cooking the dinner when he was at his worst (he's now sat on the sofa quietly in a daze)

I've just cleaned the bath after dd came out of it. I think she brought half of the swamp back with her and left it in the tub!

but no-one is saying that bad behaviouir shouldn't be punished. OP just wants to know if she shouold expect her son to be able to control this or not?

I think in a similar situation I'd have done the "you're very tired and grumpy, if you can't be in this room without winding your brothers up then please go and play upstairs until dinner, or come and help me prepare it"

just remove them from the situation, feed, bed. sorted

unfortunately you still have to punish them if they are naughty whilst tired, as you normally would. punching siblings etc can't become ok ecause 'they're tired' as they are not going to make a distinction, are they?

really really making an effort not to let them get that way in the first place is important.

oh don't janeite - there was a small amount of "lost property" on the table when we arrived at the school to collect them............in among them an extremely wet and soggy, and covered in little green bits, pair of black trousers with a brown (previously) white stripe on them.........I asked DS1 if they were his........they were..........and then he pointed out his socks - virtually unrecognisable - also on the table LOL.

Thissisyesterday - that's exactly what I'm asking - of course I punished him, but I'm wondering if I over-reacted with how hard I came down on him

EAP - how exactly was I supposed to make an effort to stop him getting that way - he's not been at home since 8.40 on Monday morning until 2.45pm this afternoon.

Do you still punish them the same way as if there was no extenuating circumstances, or punish but maybe not quite so harshly? and at what age do you stop tolerating it at all.

hadn't read thread, just OP so was making statement of general principle....

ahh ok

I think 'punishment' and 'dealing with' aren't necessarily the same. He was being a brat because he was tired, so you remove him from the situation making him brattish, feed him, bath, bed if needed. That's not a punishment - it's dealing with the behaviour and the tiredness.

A punishment would be 'you horrible little boy; I'm taking away your DS and you are going to bed with no supper and you can't go to friend's birthday party on saturday and you can't watch Dr Who' - or whatever!

Nobody is suggesting that punishment would be appropriate at all; just saying that there comes an age when the 'there, there, he's tired' approach isn't the best way.

hmmm - ok based on that last post -then yes I was ott..........as I dealt with it (took him out of the situation) and punished him too

No, I didn't mean that! Sorry - am tired and ill and obviously not coming across clearly.

Just trying to differentiate between not excusing the behaviour and not issuing OTT punishments for it! I am a super-strict mother, according to my dds - so I don't believe for one second you over-reacted. It sounds like you've done just what was needed.

I don't like the idea of whether there's an excuse or not.
The bottom line is that children are learning (actually we are all continually learning, but that's another discussion!) -- so children make mistakes and should be expected to make mistakes. Ditto for their parents. But hopefully parents and their DC both keep striving to do better next time.

You can't do better if you feel like you should have had it perfect, there has to be room for letting people make mistakes ("behave badly"), then make amends and then move on without damning judgement being applied.

no - no need to apologise - you don't know how I punished (or said I was going to ) as well as dealing with the situation

Anyhow, he's just gone to bed (actually the water wasn't as mucky as I expected - maybe he really did shower yesterday ) and as I went out of his room he looked at me and said "fresh start tomorrow mum?".

on reflection I can now see I have been OTT with the sanctions I've imposed and so will (once again - I was here in this position only a few weeks ago ) have to talk to him in the morning and soften the blow and apologise for over reacting...........

Think that general self awareness re:tiredness etc is something that develops over time but when this happens is variable.

My Ds age 12 can identify when he is tired and will take a herd of elephants to keep him from his bed : he is tired he goes to bed !!!