Tired teen

[78joy]

First time using this 😰 I am lost my teenage boy will not wake up in the morning, he is diagnosed with hypermobility and that dose cause fatigue problems. He is still under the hospital having test ( this has been going on for nearly 12 months ) I am about to be taken to court 😩 as he is late everyday and can't manage a full week in. Has anyone else been through this ?

This thread might be better placed in the special needs forum board, or the teens one.

I assume you mean being taken to court by school? You do, indeed, have a legal obligation to get your child to school and 'I couldn't get him out of bed' is not going to be an acceptable reason for an authorised absence by most local authorities and schools.

So it absolutely is necessary to tackle this. It will be significantly impacting his education and long term prospects and as a minor, the responsibility is placed on the parent rather than the child to get him to school.

So what to do?

The main issue i would imagine you will have is that he is used to knowing he can stay in bed and nobody will make him get up and go to school. So while ever he knows it is optional, he may well just refuse. The key will be making going to school not optional.

Some obvious things would be:

• make bedtime earlier
• restrict phone/screen use for 1h before bed.
• No phones/screens in the bedroom overnight.
• get him an alarm clock so that gettibg up is his responsibility not yours

One thing my Mum used to do when I was a teenager was to bring me breakfast in bed every weekday. Sounds like an odd way to enforce a get-up time, but it taught me that (a) soggy cereal isn't nice, so eat it quickly (b) eating the moment I wake also isn't nice, so setting an alarm 10m before breakfast in bed arrived meant I had enough time to come round before eating (c) the 15 minutes I stayed in bed eating breakfast gave me enough anti-social alone time to wake up properly so I was more sociable when I actually got up

I have hypermobility. Never heard of it causing fatigue. Who said that? Interesting.
What's his bedtime routine like?
Don't you get him up?
Will school make any allowances for him? Reduce walking round the school etc.
Teens naturally do fall asleep later and want to wake later. It's hormonal apparently.

Bedtime is everything off at 10pm, I get up everyday at 7am and start to wake him then breakfast in bed I do regular as for an alarm his is next to him and wakes me in the other room, I've stood with my alarm over his head. Not going to school isn't an option this we both know, he sleeps most nights now ( dose have nights when he can't sleep ) he drags himself out of bed feeling dizzy with a migraine and struggles into school. He is this way on weekends and school holidays too misses going out because he is too tired and ill. I really have tried everything took all the advice given. The specialist at the hospital and the hypermobility website say it causes fatigue, I also have this as well as fibromyalgia, I have always worked and am not looking for any benefits I can get for him, this I have been accused of I really want him to get through his last year and do his exams and I don't know how to change this to the special needs section. Thanks for the reply

If he is going to sleep at 10pm and sleeping all night and still groggy in the morning, then surely he needs to go to bed earliearlier than 10pm.

It might be he needs a 9pm screens off, 9.30pm bed and wind down so that he is actually asleep by 10pm.

@Wolfiefan Hypermobile EDS (Ehlers-Danlos Sydrome) can cause fatigue

www.nhs.uk/conditions/ehlers-danlos-syndrome/Pages/Introduction.aspx

@heavenlypink I have heard of EDS. Used to teach a student with it. A complex condition that affected that student in lots of ways. Poor kid.
Yes maybe a wind down time before 10 could help.
I use an alarm that starts with a light coming on. Slowly brightens. Eases me into the day. Worth a try?
I'm absolutely NOT saying you're trying to get benefits or trying to bash you in any way. Sorry if I didn't quite get my words right! Can school allow him to take work to a ground floor space, let him avoid PE on bad days, allow him to go in slightly later? Anything that would enable to him to do as much as he can without making him feel worse?
Does he have any diagnosis other than the hypermobility?

Thank you for your replies, his sleep pattern is all over the place everything has to be off at 10pm but he's not always asleep by 10.
He no longer dose PE and the school say they have put things in place to help him in class got a meeting next week so I'll find out what that is. He's still having test as some of them came back with slight problem so needed doing again I'm looking into light therapy. I was hoping someone on here had been through the courts and could maybe give me some advice on that. I really have looked at every which way to help him sleep and help him wake up. But I'm being driven mad by the thought of going court

It does sound like his poor attendance is due to medical reasons rather than truancy, so perhaps this is something you need to get across to them. Can his GP or consultant write a letter?

Until they finish the test they can't say, they have put it in a letter that care needs taking when he feels tired in school but they advise him to go school as normal which means there's no reason to miss school. He has college some days and loves it and is totally gutted when he hasn't got up and missed half of it. He has shouted at me for not waking him even though I'd been trying for hours and even had a few conventions with him. His memory is terrible he will have the same convention with me over and over not remembering we have talked about it. I just don't know what else I can do I get so stressed and low over this, I've never put a foot wrong the idea of being in court and prosecuted for something I can't change and have begged for help with drives me mad

@heavenlypink thank you for telling me about EDS I hadn't heard about it, when I was diagnosed the doc said " you just have hypermobility (over bendy joints no big deal some physio and you will be fine". Bearing in mind I could hardly walk or care for myself at the time. Anyhow I've looked at EDS and yes we both have those symptoms so I'll mentioned this to his rheumatologist thank you so much.