15 year old bedtime

[Felic23]

I'm so tired! I've just increased my Son's bedtime from 9.30pm to 10pm on school nights..All his friends are in a habit of having a group call at this time and my Son was according to him only one who had to get off call to go to bed.

Even with this later bedtime I can hear he is still having to leave the call whilst they continue till I don't know what time. He is arguing the point that he gets up for school every day so hassle, is on time and doing well in school. So wants to extend again to 10.30pm to join in call longer.

The problem is 1. I don't think he will be getting enough sleep 2. I used to go to bed at 9.30pm. Now I'm staying awake in order to take phone off him at 10pm and say goodnight
I'm exhausted, what do other parents do when they want to go to sleep before teen on school nights?

At 15 I just left DD to it, she usually has her light out by 11ish by her own choice.

I think by that age it's a bit OTT to be taking their phone off them every night. He's nearly an adult, he needs to learn to self regulate his sleep and screen time.

Where does phone go overnight? As you are awake first you would soon know if he didn't put it outside of room. I would let him have 10pm bedtime and if forgets to take phone wherever it should go then back to 9pm. Obviously if he stops managing to get up easily then have to rethink.

My 15 year old son puts his phone downstairs on charge by 9/9:30 on a weekday and 10/10:30 on a weekend (if he’s home - if he’s at a friends house then it with him all night). It’s a habit he got into a couple of years ago. He is in bed within half an hour to an hour after. He has an Alexa for music and alarm. He doesn’t have the opportunity to lie in often with hobbies and work so a good nights sleep is essential. He’s never asked to change this and no-one teases him for it, but his friend groups don’t seem to have group talks late either. I go to bed at a similar time 10/10:30 to be up around 6/6:30. When I was 15 bedtime was 9pm and there were no mobile phones 🤣

He is 15. He will be an adult in 3 years time.

It's time for him to learn to self regulate. At 15, he should be capable of getting himself to bed at a sensible time, and he needs to develop the skills to regulate his own phone usage. He isn't a baby any more.

This

I literally just go to sleep and leave her to it. I mean i tell her to get off the phone but half the time i can hear her giggle away later on while im in bed, I wake her up for school when I get up for work and if she's tired,it's her own fault 🤷‍♀️

To be honest i would be letting him learn some independence .. he has to learn to regulate his own bedtime and waking up on time and not shattered throughout the day, i would talk to him about that. I would say that i was giving him some independence to make his own decision to help him learn when he is an adult. give him 2 weeks. 2 weeks to go to bed WHENEVER he wants BUT he has to be up on time and not a zombie. Keep an eye on it and do like a review, and have a conversation with him if it fails. but either way when hes an adult and living by himself he will HAVE to do this by himself. so help him learn.

I go to bed when I'm tired and tell them I'm off to bed and to come off their phones around 10pmish please. They usually do, sometimes much earlier because they've learned to self regulate. If they stay up later one night and are tired the next day then they make the decision to have an early night.

Also at 15 id be expecting you to go to sleep whenever you want to not waiting for him to sleep, my internet provider has a child system thing where we can turn the internet off and turn it back on at any time for example turn off between 11pm-6am

At 15 our kids set their own bed time, the only rule was we'd impose one if they didn't get up for school - they did so we never set one.

No, it wasn't a disaster for us at all. Yes, dd probably stayed up too late a few times chatting to her friends when she should have gone to sleep... she quickly learned that she then felt knackered the next day and she learned to self regulate. We sailed through the teen years without any difficulties at all really.

I can't say the same for those families in which the parents infantilised their children and failed to recognise that they were growing up. Relationships suffered and the kids inevitably pushed back...

Parenting teens is all about striking the right balance. It's more about influence than control at that stage. Giving them a bit of freedom to make mistakes and learn from them while knowing that you've given them a good foundation to start with, offering guidance when appropriate and letting them know that you're still there for them if they need you.

@Illbebythesea I agree with @MrsBennetsPoorNerves that things do tend to work out when you give your teen responsibility for themselves. Maybe I'm lucky but my DS16 has been no problem at all, whereas I was a panicky bag of nerves when he was little as to whether I was doing the right or wrong things for him. I learned to relax and everything was so much easier than I'd imagined. You'll find the same, I guarantee!

Hes 15 not 12 - its up to him what time he goes to bed & gets off his phone.

If he wants to stay up until 1am he can so long as he is quiet. The natural consequences of him being tired the next day should get through to him soon enough.

I think you are setting you and him up to fail if you continue to try and control him and his bedtimes and I say that a a parent of two DC older than him as he will eventually rebel against you and your rules.

Arguments?
If they stay up too late, they will learn they are tired the next day.
Even without phones, they could stay up reading or doing literally anything

I definitely did not have a bedtime at 15, much less a 9/10pm one. I regularly stayed up until 1 or 2am.
Sure, I was tired, but I would still be up for school and had decent grades.
And we didnt even have smartphones then!

This infantilisation of kids is why 20 year olds are taking their PARENTS to job interviews...

not for us, both kids are now in their 20s, and at Uni - it's all about trust and growing up both have very good GCSEs, and A-levels and are at Russell Group unis.

I have a 15 yo dd. She was allowed her phone overnight for lockdown 1, many of her friends were. She’s very sociable and it was a lifeline for her. She used to have virtual sleepovers with friends and would do the work for the most part in silence on FaceTime with friends. She learned to self regulate from there and she has had her phone in her room ever since. She’s pretty sensible and not prone to arguing with friends, wasn’t interested in Omegle as was etc.

@Illbebythesea The only time there was an almighty argument was when she tried to stop a child (who’d actually been very vocal and rather unkind about another child for no reason) from being en masse bullied. I told dd in this circumstance, she should have woken me up. At 15, I’d expect them to sort it out amongst themselves but that’s because dd’s friends don’t really argue with her and as I say, dd doesn’t fight normally. She is stubborn as hell but refuses to budge disconnects from actual arguments.

As for going to sleep, dd is out with activities some evenings quite late and tends to go to go to sleep at 9.30 some nights, others it’s approaching 11.30 by the time she’s showered, hair dried and in bed. She gets up in the morning.

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves has it spot on. By that age it's less about control and more about letting them figure things out for themselves, otherwise when are they going to? I remember a friend of dds who had her phone taken off her every night by 10pm when she was 17. She used her allowance to buy a cheap mobile and hid it under her mattress...

@Illbebythesea Nope it raises adults who can self regulate. This generation have grown up learning about self care and well being since early years.

My 15 year old has his phone for audio books, hitt and pilates exercises usually from 9-10. He may listen to a podcast and be asleep by 11 up at 645 for a run or work out most mornings. He is a health conscious young man who I am very proud of. He is light years ahead in emotional intelligence than most adults I know.

Boundaries work best when we apply them ourselves. Parenting as children get older is about giving them the tools to make good choices. To stand back and let them have small learning bumps that will inform their next choice.

I've found this to build and maintain a healthy respectful relationship. I did a lot of reading on teen neuro development, physical development, societal impacts on young men etc when my eldest was about 9 to level up!

My DS is 15 and there's most definitely a bedtime expectation here. Phones out out of the room by 9/9.30pm. He reads in bed and then we ask for lights out around 10/10.15pm on a school night, about half an hour later at the weekend. A couple of times a week he goes to running club and will want to go to bed even earlier than normal, so he self regulates anyway. He's never retaliated and knows that he's tired and needs his sleep. He wakes up at 6.45am on a school night and just a bit later at the weekend. He does not need to lie in at the weekend like many teenagers do as he has no sleep deficit from the week. My DD is 13 and bed time is half an hour earlier, again she is happy to go to sleep and does not enjoy staying up later.
A large proportion of school children are not getting enough sleep (I read somewhere) so giving them free reign to stay up as much as they want clearly does not benefit them in general.

My dd had a friend whose parents were very strict about bedtimes and phone use. What they didn't realise is that he had a secret second phone.

My 15 ds goes to bed at 10pm, his phone is put on charge in my room. I now think that I'm being a bit strict..! That's said, he does have to have medication and ideally be asleep within 30 mins of taking it so perhaps I am reasonable..it's good to see other parents views on it.

My dd had a friend whose parents were very strict about bedtimes and phone use. What they didn't realise is that he had a secret second phone.

Exactly what I just said about my dds friend. It's more common than parents think.

haha kids can be crafty.

I'd know immediately if my kids have stayed up too late as their behaviour is markedly different in the morning due to lack of sleep, it's very obvious.....so far!

how does the second phone thing work out of interest? have they bought another sim card?

Sorry, I missed your comment above... and yes, clearly more common than many parents might think.