Reasonable bedtime rules for a 16-year-old doing A levels and gaming?

[Itsjustmeagainhello]

I am really looking for advice from the MN hive mind on this as it's causing so much friction in our house.
DS 16 is studying A Levels at gramnar school. He spends most of his free time playing Minecraft (another bone of contention) and we have the same argument every single night.
I think he should be in bed by 11pm on school nights. He fights this every night and invariably isn't in bed before 11.30/12pm.
He doesn't have the same restrictions on Friday/Saturday nights but his Internet turns off at 1.30am on those nights.

Is this reasonable? Am I being unnecessarily controlling? I'm prepared to be told I am. I just think how can he focus on his A Levels unless he gets enough sleep.
He always needs poking in the mornings to get up so he must need more sleep!

What do you do with your teens and bedtime rules? Should I step back and let him make his own decisions and stop waking him up in the morning? Let him reap the consequences? I don't want him to blemish his attendance record....help! I am so tired of arguing and repeating myself.

I don't think you can make him go to bed, but you could put the router on a timer.

As he’s not getting up in the morning Yanbu. He should be able to see an alarm and get up himself.

In 18 months he’ll be at uni and expected to get up on his own.

This was us. Ds was younger and, admittedly, has adhd.

We gave up. He pretty kuch takes himself to bed.

Interestingly, he now goes well before 11 most nights.

All teenagers need prodding to get up. I would tell him if he wants to go to bed at midnight, fine, but you won't be drggujg him out of bed. Also, his marks cant suffer. If he is too busy gaming to sleep or study, then clearly thats a problem.

I told.ds eventually that if he wanted tl.be treated as responsible and independent, he had to act in a way that showed me he was both of those things.

What time does he have to get up? He should be aiming for a minimum of eight hours sleep, so in bed, lights out, devices off, at least 8 hr 20 min before his getting up time. And nothing requiring his brain to be too active for some time before that.

We never really had bedtimes and were even more lax when they were older than 11 , you can switch off the router I suppose , I never bothered , but you can’t make someone go to sleep

He's 16. As long as he's not disturbing you, he should go to bed when he wants. You are within your rights to tell him that if he doesn't go to college he has to get a job.

During term time we expect sixth form teen’s phone & laptop (/all tech) out their rooms by 10:30. They can stay up as late as they like but not on tech. Once they’ve left school it’s up to them.

My ds is also 6th form doing A Levels, he’s 17. He goes to bed when we do, between 10-10:30, he has to leave his phone downstairs. He doesn’t moan about it, he’s just used to it and he’s tired by then anyway, he’s a really busy boy!

my view is that 11 is fair enough in the week as it effects everyone in the household. Weekends sound like hell with 1.30am I would pull that back to 11 as well esp if he is not respecting it generally I would come down harder he is still only 16. set the boundaries and maybe indicate how he could have is loosened off at the weekend again ie 11pm shut down no moaning for 2 weeks then reverts at weekend but the first moan - at least two weekends of back to 11

He’s 16 not 12, stop treating like a little boy. He’s old enough to decide when he’s tired.

Don't try and make him go to bed, but turn the router off at a certain time every night. That will probably have the result of him going to bed earlier through his own choice. Most of them are addicted to online stuff and that's the real reason they don't want to sleep.

By 16 and doing A levels I don’t think you can enforce a time. 12pm isn’t that bad as long as he gets up in the morning.

I would give a trial run - no bedtime, no time limits, but you won’t be responsible for getting him up in the morning. If his marks start slipping and he gets in trouble at school you will be enforcing an 11pm screen time limit.

I think that is about the age where they need to start working it out for themselves. I would keep getting him up in the mornings but leave him to decide when he goes to bed. Hopefully he will soon work out that being exhausted all day isn’t fun. Mine did.

Same here but he is playing and chatting to friends online so it's social time.
Serious chats about expectations and goals couple of times a week, then I leave him to it. No need to stress. He will achieve jf he's at grammar school.
I give reward of kebxb on Fridays for example, ifyou get to school on time all week.