Is being a teenager THAT exhausting?!?!

[littlegreenlight1]

DD (16) is in the middle of her GCSEs.
I do understand that they are stressful etc and she is working hard (ish - def not as hard as she thinks she is) but having had one exam today, shes laid in the sun all afternoon (absolutely fair enough) then come in and gone to sleep on the sofa for the past 2 hours. Done no revision and no housework.
I am trying to go easy on her but find it very hard!! I will have to bite my lip for a few more weeks I think. Then she can clean her bloody room

[midnight100]

When I was at high school I lived in the country side so got the school bus so left house at 7.15 am and and if you're doing gcse you come home then study to 7 pm , so yes I would say it pretty exhausting. And if you need to get get up for 6, you need to go to bed at 9, so once homework is finished at 7 not a lot of time for dinner, bath, housework, etcertera.

[Sneezecakesmum]

Actually there is a serious scientific, neurological reason young teenagers are constantly exhausted.

Throughout childhood the brain makes millions of neurological connections as the process of learning everything.

When they get to 12-13 the brain prunes (as in plants!) millions of neural connections as they are just not needed and hinder future development.

This process causes lots of 'brain tiredness' to occur and explains the tiredness and why, when they get to 18 they can stay out on the razzle all night

[FixItUpChappie]

Teenagers are not mini adults. Physically and neurologically they are still growing. Teens need more sleep than adults do. So get her to clean her room when she wakes up is my suggestion.

[MrsBigD]

ephpa95 only saw your post... Aussie kids allowed having a life? In which suburb? LOL most kids at my dc's schools are over organised with activities (soccer, rugby, ballet, dance, musical training, drama etc.). I personally don't subscribe to that as a) I'm not willing to be constant chauffeur and b) they need to learn to be bored and entertain themselves . Though I do let dd go to the 'mall' for a little bit on the way home from school (inwardly screaming at her 'we're not in the US, it's called a shopping centre!")

[MrsBigD]

omg dd is only 12 and already displaying full blown teen behaviour (minus the eyeliner & hair but + 'can I go to the mall'). Is this what we'll have for the next 6 years??? [shudder]

Though she recently told me she doesn't sleep well (probably due to 'drama'). I hardly see her, she comes home from school, and disappears into her room, re-emerges for dinner and back to her room because she's tired. Her bedtime only got extended from 19:00 to 20:00 when she started high school as she's Evil reincarnate if she doesn't get enough sleep (read mega-tude), and I offered her to stay up even till 21:00 so she might sleep through, but she doesn't want to!

At least ds is only 9 so a couple of years respite there.

[Bogeyface]

I read an article some years ago now that said that the teens brain v body is a total car crash.

The brain is saying "You are now a grown up, so you dont need to go to bed until midnight" but the body is saying "I am knackered!!!! I need sleep at 8pm" Thanks to the brain they wont sleep until midnight no matter what time their body tells them to go to bed. And they still need to be up a 7am and get through a day.

When I realised that (especially thinking back to my own teen years) it made it a lot easier for all of us.

THey are very much like toddlers in that they can think about what they want and how to get it, but their bodies are not able to do what they want them to do.

[ephpa95]

Just watch Harry Enfield's "Kevin washes the car" sketch. It explains all... You know that they've done this research and found Australians to be the happiest teenagers? Something about being allowed to have a life.

[birdmomma]

I do think it is worth getting teenage girls tested for iron count. My gp said that most that get tested are anaemic to some degree.

[minimalisthoarder]

Isn't it amazing how they turn 18 and suddenly seem to be able to get by on 4 hours' sleep a night at university?

Or maybe not... that was when the afternoon sleepies first started to hit me, and I've been a nodding donkey between 2 and 4pm ever since. My A-level physics teacher used to throw chalk at me (it wasn't that boring, honest) and I used to sleep in the library, head down on the desk, a uni. Wish I could do that now! 15 minutes' power nap beats mainlining caffeine any day.

[comingintomyown]

DD is 15 and has a few days around her period where she comes in from school and goes straight to bed maybe emerging for a couple of hours then off to bed for the night. It does worry me a bit but I think it is hormones in her case and she's fine the rest of the month

[jessieferguson]

My two have just crossed over to their twenties and one was prone, in the teen years before college, to anxiety which continued into college with several panic attacks. I feel the quality of sleep and the nutrition, or lack thereof, in their food is key to their brain health and ability to do their work.It is really hard to get them to see any cause and effect, however!

[UptoapointLordCopper]

I vividly remember falling asleep on my history books while revising. I can almost remember the pages I fell asleep on too, and that's a few decades back.

[Panzee]

I slept through most of my GCSE year. Turned out I had leukocytosis.

[birdmomma]

I thought all the sleeping was just normal and teenage, but then I got my daughter tested for iron levels, and it turned out she was severely anaemic. She's back to her usual energetic self now. Worth getting all teenage girls tested for i think.

[Bedsheets4knickers]

I remember 16-18 having a daily sleep. I'm 33 now but I remember it clearly .

[JuliaScurr]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7932950.stm

we all know toddlers have different needs to adults; so do teenagers

[Charlotteamanda1]

Teens need a lot of sleep something like 10/12 hours a day. Also their body clocks change and their brains aren't ready for sleep till late at night and natural waking is later than us. Add stress of exams and they are totally exhausted.
Their brains are still developing. Let her sleep she must need it.
Mine started to come out of it at 18 but they are all different.

[Littleen]

I think all teenagers are like this to some degree, perhaps it's the hormones racing around that does it!

[alreadytaken]

I recommend this book www.amazon.co.uk/Blame-My-Brain-Amazing-Revealed/dp/1406346934/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1401520397&sr=1-1&keywords=teenage%20brain&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

Teenagers need to sleep and during exams I'd cut them a lot of slack. Just try to ensure they sleep. Getting some sun, when there is any, is good for them. Vitamin D is important for more thn just bone development.

[nooka]

We use a white board for chores as otherwise ds (15) will always forget them. Works pretty well, he's much less grumbly about a chore of the board to do before we get home than if we hover over him.

ds doesn't seem particularly tired, in fact he is quite perky at the moment (end of school exams count for max 20% of year grade so not very much stress). dd is the one who gets over tired mostly because she has problems getting to sleep and also because she is a perfectionist. Last semester she got 'honours plus distinction' meaning that her average mark was over 80% in every course and she is currently stressing out because she'd probably only going to get ordinary 'honours' average B grade across the board. I love that she works hard but wish she wouldn't put herself under such pressure. I do worry about her health (she gets migraines when she is tired) and her mental health. I am very very glad that the school system where we are now is very very much more laid back than in the UK. I'm not sure how she would cope with full on exams,

[Spiritedwolf]

Yes to the other people who said to watch out for signs of depression - I guess the lines blur between 'typical teenage behaviour' and 'actually he/she seems to be having a problem coping'.

My mum wishes she'd taken me to the GP at the time for depression (any time she mentioned it, I took the "If you are THAT bad then you ought to see the doctor" as a threat and criticism to chivy me along, not a serious 'Do you think you need some extra support?' (which was what she meant!)

[Spiritedwolf]

Everhopeful The example she gave me was that whereas she would ask me to do something while she was headed out of the door when she didn't have my full attention and then be angry at me on their return when I hadn't done it (I very often genuinely forgot or hadn't really registered what it was they wanted me to do or ran out of time to do it or did it wrong) - with my brother, she makes sure he has her full attention and generally asks him to do the things straight away while she is around to check its done. I don't think they take it as personally if he is distracted/forgetful etc.

I'm sure there's more stuff. But I think that I probably had/have undiagnosed Aspie traits which means I had particular difficulty in organising myself and remembering. Plus I was pretty stressed because my dad would usually pick fault in what I'd done no matter how hard I tried, so as a teen you get to the point where you just tend to just think, what's the point - he may as well be angry at me for not doing it as doing it wrong.

I think her point about the teenager brains is she now understands that when I said "ok mum" I genuinely meant to do the thing, but it was so easy to lose track of time or be distracted, my brain wasn't keeping track of the 'to do' list in my head the way an adult would - maybe?

[deakymom]

wow my daughter is odd she is 14 next week does her chores and revises she does tend to sleep a lot but she is got out of bed by her brother at 7/7.30 every morning so she can't really!! perhaps its all the walking and her 8.30 bedtime?

[MistressDeeCee]

Haven't really met a teen who doesn't sleep a lot. I used to idly study mine and wonder if they were incubating. Apparently there's a scientific reason why teens sleep a lot. So DD tells me, anyway

[Abra1d]

A word of caution--we thought our teenager was just tired with exam pressure. She has severe tonsillitis, possibly glandular fever and has had big problems sitting AS levels.