You know, I currently have a VERY different sleep schedule to my family, so I do sympathise with the fact that it messes with things - I’ve been naturally waking at about 5 in the morning for some godunknown reason (I never used to do this!) and everyone else surfaces some time between about 9 and 1pm. So I get that it’s annoying. But it’s just better to lay your needs out, and her needs out, and compromise. Starting the day at midday doesn’t necessarily mean being completely unproductive all day - you can work with it, and figure out how to get the things you really need. And to do that you really have to have a good solid reason why this that or the other thing really impacts you, rather than just ‘well, it’s not the way you SHOULD be’
This is all reminding me of the continual tussles I used to have with my mother about HER particular bugbear which was - People Study Effectively When They Sit At Desks! People Cannot Study Effectively In Places Other Than Desks! (god, this is triggering me just to type this) We had a whole ‘thing’ for years in high school where I’d have all my books and notes out in a huge spread all over my bed, all comfy and wrapped up, and then she’d come in and make me Sit At My Desk Because That’s Where You’ll Do Effective Study! Of course as soon as I left home to go to Uni I was back to bedspreading, and I was perfectly successful like that, it was all just her assuming that because she did things one way, that made it the right thing to do and *everyone *should do it that way.
And the last thing mid-teens ever want to do is spend time together as a family. I know I didn’t! It’s such a mid-teen thing … middle daughter is just the same at the moment. I just go in every so often and wave, say hi, make sure she did whatever she was meant to be doing today, make sure she’s feeling okay, then let her hibernate - she’ll be out in a couple of years.
Or anyone, really. During normal times, people don’t spend every waking minute together, like they’re being forced to do now. Maybe a different sleep schedule is her only reprieve!
(Right now I’m stuck at home because my workplace closed. My partner works from home. We get along great, but I think one of the only things keeping us sane right now is we have very different sleep schedules.)
It is a common cultural expectation. For a large minority of the population being awake just because the sun is up is literally unnatural. For them being up at that hour is weird.
Regular is one thing. You are demanding a specific kind of regular. That is not the same thing. 2am until noon is regular and fits with the 9-10 hours of sleep that teens generally require a day. Potentially she is an outlier that needs even more sleep at this point in her development. The summer between my junior and senior year of high school I was sleeping 12-14 hours a day. I needed every hour of it.* She is not yet an adult. Sleep deprivation is unhealthy and can impede her continuing development.
I would also remind you that the correlation between being a night owl and unhealthy outcomes is not necessarily causal. There is a strong genetic predisposition underlying our natural sleep cycles. There are also strong societal norms that make those of us born poorly adapted to the majority schedule suffer as we cope with that systemic discrimination against how we were born. Not all of those coping mechanisms are healthy. You may be contributing to the negative health effects those studies show.
For me, yes. Those are potentially unrealistic and harmful expectations. You can have expectations about things that must be done during the day. Right now you seem to be overly specifying when she does them. Two way communication where she has input into her chore schedule might be more useful. Maybe include some input into trading out tasks that really need to be done early for ones that have more flexibility. Two way communication about something that isn’t a chore, like piano practice, might be useful too. Maybe she just doesn’t like playing the piano anymore. You are getting to the time where she needs to start transitioning to making choices like that for herself. That means you transitioning how you parent.
My puberty fairy apparently went on a couple year drunken bender. It didn’t sober up and find me until fall of my junior year in high school. That summer I grew 1.5 inches. I spent a good chunk of my waking hours eating. You would have hated living with me.
WhyNot!!! How awesome that you are here. Welcome back!
As to the OP, many Dopers have already said what I would, so I won’t repeat their words. But I will offer my personal experience to reinforce what they say:
My late mother was a pretty miserable creature when it came to parenting, but one of her few good points was that she was an RN who respected the science she’d been taught and applied it to the medical aspects of parenting. So, for example, whenever I was sick I was never accused of malingering (although she never believed a word I said about most things). She knew, as a trained medical professional, that any illness I complained about jived with reality.
Which leads me to her remarkable behavior regarding my sleep habits as a teen. While in school, I had to get up before 6am every day, practice piano, then carpool to school about 40 minutes away. It was hell but I did it because that’s what life required. But when school was out and I was on vacation, I’d always sleep until 11am or noon. I still remember the feeling of groggily awakening at 10am or so, feeling like I needed more sleep, and turning over and slumbering longer.
To my amazement, then and now, my micro-manager mother who criticized almost everything I did never complained once about my vacation sleep habits. In fact, she affirmed that she had learned in nursing school that teens need a lot of sleep and are programmed to “sleep in.” I was surprised but very grateful.
bengangmo, if my exceedingly demanding and controlling mother could see her way to understanding the biologically innate sleep patterns of teenagers, surely you can too. Believe me, you DON’T want to be more of a jerk than she was.
BTW at 61 I’m a lark - I couldn’t sleep past 7am if my life depended on it, and most days I am up by 5 or 6 am at the latest.
lawns hadn’t been mown.
means that everything else got pushed back (I mowed lawns and brought in washing before running as she helped with dinner)
he complained tonight of sore hamstring…which jives with too much inactivity.
I worked shifts for almost 5 years in my younger days…so I do know about being asleep when others are awake and vice versa.
what bugs me the most in all of this…experience with her has shown that getting up at 11 / 12 just makes the day unproductive. everything gets pushed back later, appts end up being a hasty rush then suddenly you’re eating dinner at 8 or 9 and trying to prepare to get a healthy amount of sleep for school the next day.
you tell me you need 10 hours of sleep? fine…to get up at 9 that means lights out around 10 or 11 PM…I’m hardly forcing her into bed at 6:30.
See, there’s all sorts of stuff here that you have a legitimate reason to be on her case about (it’s just that I don’t think the actual wake time is one of them)
For instance, if you have to help her do her jobs after being at work all day because she reckons it’s “too late” to do them, that’s not fair to you.
She needs to work out a way to fulfil her responsibilities as a productive member of the family. That’s the real issue here.
You are fully entitled to expect your daughter to get up in time for school and do her chores.
However you should be careful not to impose your personal prejudices on her.
International chess tournaments are held in the afternoon and evenings.
This is because top chess players like to sleep in the mornings.
There’s nothing ‘unhealthy’ about that.
In these troubled times, there is a LOT of stress about. A certain amount of slothing is good for mental health.
My mother passed away in a hospice. (It was a dignified way to go.)
I assure you that having someone sleeping in is nothing like that.
Please examine your own thinking - why do you feel so strongly that your way is the only way?
I’m sensing that there may be some general grumpiness, whinginess and general being-a-teenager-ishness going on here. It’s easy to get fixated on one simple thing that *might *be the problem, and hope that just changing that will unravel all the other problems, IYKWIM.
I’ve seen that with a couple of people in the Current Unpleasantness who get fixated on finding the right brand of their groceries at the store when everything’s run out. It’s just something you think you can control. Not necessarily a rational thing, but people latch on to just anything they can find.
Well, bengangmo, I do understand how you feel. I’d lean that way myself. But if the smartest folks on the planet all agreed that I was in the wrong, I’d take it under serious advisement.
As for school, do you think she’s going back very soon? It may not be until next fall.
No dog in this fight, other than to comment that personal biocycles are that, personal.
Look, I went through several levels of hell most of my life. I have segmented sleep. I also have a form of insomnia that if my sleep is interrupted by an outside source, I simply am up and that is that, a full night of sleep [well for me, I sleep about 2 hours, then I am up for 2 or 3 hours, then back to sleep another 3 or 4 hours sleep] or 1 hour of sleep, doesn’t matter. I have to wake up at my own schedule to actually get a full sleep in. I also will note that left to myself, even without the pressure of work/school I tend to fall asleep at about 1 or 2 am, and get up around 11 or so. I HAVE [and I will emphasize have [SIZE=“2”]done all the sleep hygene tricks, rescheduled myself til the cows come home. My natural sleep hours are screwy for someone who needs to be out and about days like ‘normal’ people.
Some people may never have what you consider normal. Keep in mind, a lot of the US viewpoint of things is highly colored by our Puritan asshole ancestors and Victorian/Edwardian morons. Pleasure is evil, nonconformity is evil, sex is dirty [mustn’t whack off, it shows moral turpitude, next thing you know you will be doing drugs and becoming a sex addled monster molesting small kids and ducks]
Look, staying up late and sleeping a normal amount for a teen is not a slippery slope to drugs, sex and rock n roll - it simply is. THe kid may surprise you. I doubt that the poor teen is going to suddenly start hanging out doing drugs and killing kittens. Mellow out. As otehrs have pointed out, cutt hem some slack and let them get their assigned chores done at their schedule. UNless it is something like hauling out the trash for a 7 am pick up, let them get it done at noon.
I feel for the OP, my 21 yo college student thrives on schedules, schedules that are imposed on her by work or school she does pretty good. Being self motivated to get up and go for a walk or pick up the room not so good at. Right now i see her regressing to up all night sleep most of the day, and in between she work on homework. IT’s alittle worrying. But I’m not jumping on her case and trying to keep communication lines open.
BUt I don’t care if she’s sleeping at noon and I want to run the vacuum or do laundry or rake leaves outside her window, it’s getting done and I hope it wakes her up.
Pick your battles don’t get on her case about it though, keep checking in with her but don’t make it alweays about chores and her need to self sacrifice, don’t assume she’s morphing into trailer trash at 15. It’s a scary world keep her close.
didn’t read the whole thread, I’m sure this gets adequately covered. but just in case not - you, sir, are the problem. you need to find out some way to deal with your own problems without directing your militant nuttiness towards this poor teenager. you think this sleep bothers you? wonder how you’ll feel about her growing into an adult that resents you?
and here’s a different perspective for you - there’s a good chance she’d get up earlier if it wasn’t for the drill sergeant she had to be around after she did.