Help - getting 14yo more independent at getting up for school

[bathsh3ba]

I'm really keen to get some ideas of the best way to resolve this issue - or whether it's even an issue at all!

My 14yo DD cannot seem to get up independently for school. No matter how many alarms I set for her or make her set for herself, she sleeps through them, or she wakes up and goes straight back to sleep.

Currently, to get her up, I wake her with a hot drink and then have to go back in and chivvy her 2-3 times to get her up in time for the bus to school. Once she is up, she is independent and gets herself ready and presentable, packs her bag, gets her own breakfast etc. It's literally the getting out of bed.

This is complicated by the fact that we live rurally. There is a designated school bus but if she misses it, there's no public transport. So the only way for her to get to school if she misses the bus is for me to drive her. I currently work from home so I don't want to have to make the 50 minute round trip to drive her when there is a bus.

We have a lights out at 9.30pm on a schoolnight rule but I know she doesn't go to sleep for a while after that. I do insist on no phones/electronics in the bedroom after that time but I can't force her to sleep!

Generally she is no trouble (a bit of eye-rolling/backchat) but can be lazy and I have to prod her for help with the housework etc.

I know comparing siblings is A Bad Thing but it doesn't help that her 12yo sister gets herself up with her own alarm and no difficulty!

My 14yo now has a Saturday job but it doesn't start till 11.30am, I still have trouble getting her up for that!

I'm not sure what to do to get her being more independent about this. I would normally follow 'discipline' based on natural consequences, so if she sleeps through, she would be late for school and face the consequences. But this has a knock on effect on me as well so I haven't been doing that but don't know if I should.

She is Y9 now and I'd really like to have this sorted before she starts her GCSE courses next year! Any advice welcome.

I don't understand the hot drink thing.
Surely if you've got a drink, you need to stay in bed till it's finished!
So I'd ditch the hot drink, go in, curtains open, duvet off the bed, door open, and put your phone (or other device) on the landing playing loud 80s pop (or whatever music she hates).

OP says phones not allowed in bedroom after that time.

She isn't going to sleep at 9:30. She could be awake in her room for several hours. If she is, I'd send her to bed at 10:30 when she is properly tired and will be able to fall asleep quickly. Rather than going at 930 and staying awake another 2 hours.

I think I'd struggle to get up if my mum bought me a hot drink and if I missed the bus I got a lift!

I think you need to find the nearest public transport into school. If she misses the school bus drop her at the nearest public transport bus rather than the full 50minute trip. If you continue to give her lifts she will continue to not get up, because a lift is a lot better than the bus.

Is she actually drinking the hot drink?

if so then she doesn’t have any issues waking up, you have to wake up and sit up somewhat to drink a hot drink. She’s being a CF and choosing to snuggle back down afterwards.

If she’s not drinking the drink and it’s left to go cold then she probably does have real difficulties waking up.

This could be due to staying awake late - try creeping up at 10.30/11 and looking for a light.

But it could just be the age - some teens need a lot of sleep. In which case I’d go with the gently helping her wake up option. It will add 5/10 min to your morning but hopefully only for a while and then she will be in the habit.

Very unpopular opinion here but I was the same as a teenager and can remember physically being so tired that I just couldn't get up. I was so nutrient deficient that I was exhausted.
Does she have a healthy diet? Maybe introduce a multivitamin see if that helps at all.

I was the same at that age. My dad would waltz into my room singing at the top of his lungs "Good morning! Good mooorninggg!!", rip open the curtains and pull my blanket off. He wouldn't stop singing till I crawled out of bed. At the time I thought he was so annoying but now when I remember I have to smile.

Treating her to a drink in the morning. Why? Just tell her to get up. Don't move until she is up.

My 15yo DS is like this, isn't keen to get up but I have three other children to look after, I don't have time of inclination to be providing room service. I shout til he gets up.

I think the problem here is that she can't wake up in the morning, not that she's lazy, because once she's awake she does get up and get going. I also really struggled with waking up in the morning as a teen, so I set alarms every 5min, some across the room, some that vibrate etc.

Teenagers IMO are set up to fail by the current school system - their body clocks are programmed to stay up late and wake up late, they need lots of sleep over a different part of the day, and so it's hard for them to wake up at 6am every morning.

The majority of people grow out of this, as their body clocks mature and change. So I think you need to wait this out. Keep helping her with alarms etc, but keep supporting her to wake up in the morning because this isn't something she's doing to be a PITA, it's a biological thing. Give your 12yr old a few years and she'll be like this too!

Trying to respond to everyone's comments...

To be fair, the hot drink usually goes cold so I think she is struggling to wake (and I don't know why I bother really, it is just habit ingrained from my own childhood!).

She has nothing in her room with which to access the Internet after 9.30pm. To be honest I go to bed at 10pm usually and I don't particularly want her going to bed later than me as it means I can't keep an eye on her. I could move lights out to 10pm.

I can't drop her at a closer bus stop as the nearest bus stop is literally 3 minutes from school.

There is one alternative which is making her get up even earlier to get the one public bus of the day (really!) which leaves at 6.57am. Currently she is woken up at 6.45am to leave the house at 7.50am.

She has a reasonably healthy diet and is not a fussy eater. I would say she does have a tendency to be lazy because she is forever trying to find excuses not to do her chores and avoids any physical activity that isn't shopping with her friends. However she may not be lazy in not waking up.

Get an old style alarm - the type that you can't sleep through because it sounds like a car alarm. Set it and put it on the other side of the room so she has to physically get out of bed to turn it off

I really struggle getting to sleep at night and getting up in the mornings, even now as an adult. Is it that much of a bad thing to chivvy her along in the mornings? I understand you wanting her to take responsibility and on a weekend I would leave her to it completely, if she's late for work then so be it.

Does she need to get up at 6.45 or could she get out of bed at 7.15? I'm very much a fan of getting everything ready the night before and staying in bed as long as possible in the morning.

Honestly she sounds like a dream compared to my 15 year old DS.

Whatever you do please don’t make her resent you.

some of the advice on here is way OTT and you could easily end up with a battle on your hands with her retaliating.

the Fitbit is a great idea.

she sounds like a good kid 😊

Manual old fashioned bell alarm clock on other side of the room, timed to go of after other ones.

My brother was a complete mare at waking (and still is) and it's the only reliable way to get him out of bed.

They're so awful you can't ignore/sleep through

This is easy enough

Buy her an alarm

Tell her she needs to get herself up, no hot drinks no waking her

She will miss the bus... but wait, you are not there to take her ! (As you are going to be working in an office/cafe for a month), she now has to get and pay an Uber or be late/miss school and face the consequences of that.

Basically, let her fail and feel the natural consequences

Did this with my teens. I work from home too but engineered it do I often was out walking the dogs or working in a cafe so was not always there to back up (or if I was at home I'd say I have a conference call so could not take them)

Basically what your daughter has done is to make YOU responsible for her getting up. And it suits her. So why would she change?!

You need her to experience the worry of missing bud/school etc

My youngest DS had to have the panic/being in trouble and the time after taking an Uber (with his own money) to be able to learn to get himself up

I thought it was genius when someone told me that they woke their teens with tea in mugs in hands, so teens had to sit up immediately.

It's nothing you're doing wrong, OP: your self-sufficient 12 yr old proves that.

I strongly recommend you don't set her up to fail & miss school by missing bus. That would send wrong message that school wasn't a priority.

Friend tells story how he had to (emotionally) drag his reluctant protesting daughter to school for years, she couldn't wake herself up... same daughter was a flight attendant 2 years later & had to get herself out of bed at 2-3am many mornings: no issues doing that. When she found something she fully wanted to do. Same daughter is now married to a farmer : you know how early they get up(!)

I don't think you can change her in this environment, with these activities & transport options. She will surprise you I predict by finding ability to get out of bed early soon enough.

Some of this advice is ridiculous. Unless it's massively putting you out or causing you real problems, just march in there with her drink, open curtains and windows and get her up / wake her up.

This is par for the course with teenagers. You say she's otherwise a good girl and doing fine. Don't make some huge issue where there isn't one to be made. I doubt you'll be doing this when she's 32.

I started early morning gardening. I just potter.

I wake them, make lunches. Get dressed myself, pop my head in and re-wake them and open curtains.

Then I take my cup of tea into the garden and potter.

It took a few days of missed school to get the point over. They now manage to get themselves up and out on time.

Nothing makes a teenager crosser than shouting requests because they haven't got up in time and there being no one to 'jump to it'.

You need to start removing yourself a bit and she will miss the odd day at school. That's part of the learning. Even going in mid lesson is enough of a motivation to do better next time....,

My DS is a nightmare to get up in the morning and MIL tells me DH was the same. They are just not morning people. DS has lumie sunrise alarm then me and DH taking turns going in and opening curtains, turning on super bright overhead light. We drive DS to school but if we’ve had to rush him and he’s been to slow/made us wait he doesn’t get his phone to play with in the car AND he has to listen to bbc radio 4 the whole journey.