What's a reasonable bedtime for a teen?

So, we've got this house rule that net goes off at 10pm so that the gfs son can get a decent sleep before school. When the internet was left on he had a habit of gaming/facebooking till the early hours and then feining sickness to get out of school .... so net off at 10pm was agreed upon. Last night after I saw him at 9.30pm and showed him the LeNight's sons rapping, he became pretty enraged at 10pm when the net was switched off ... this is usually done by me as the gf goes to bed earlier ... lots of huffing and puffing, but he eventually went to bed.

Now, in an ideal world he would want to stay up till 12 and not have smeone (ie: me) rip the net cord out at 10pm. I don't want to stay up till 12 to enforce this and our main concern is that if he we don't regulate the net he'll be more likely to call sick in the mornings.

Having a family meeting tonight which the gf is gonna lead as she's obviously got the relationship built with him. We've talked about giving him the responsibility to get to bed and get up on his own schedule, and maybe trialing it for a few weeks to see if he can stick with the school routine.

12 seems late to me for a 14 year old to get to bed when he has school the next day ... but I'm open to the idea of him taking a bit more responsibility with this and showing that he can still be up and ready for school.

What's a reasonable bedtime for young teens? And does negotiation or dictation usually have the better outcomes with this?

14 years old and he's walking all over you. HIs stupid fucking brain is still developing, he needs more sleep not less

I was in bed well before 10 when I was 14. Sounds to me like he's the boss.

14 year olds are too stupid to know what's good for them. They think they know, but they don't. That's pretty much a simple rule. Sounds like he's going to turn into a prime douche to me.

http://www.sleepfoundation.org/article/sleep-topics/teens-and-sleep

get the kid off the nerd and doing something physical... tucker the little chap out

I suggest coal mining

9:30 - with half an hour to do what he/she likes in their room before sleep. It's not so bad if they are in their room as the bed time mindset is there, and even if they dont sleep for a bit, at least they are on the wind down. Im pretty strict on this. There is only room for one grumpy person in my house in the morning.

Is he gaming? I know whenever I've been gaming I find it hard to wind down before bed. I can't really just leave the comp and sleep.

LeKnight knows what is what.

hrmmm 12 is far too late you'll just end up with a tired shitty teenager around the house.... if you are going to negotiate.. I'd give him another half an hour after he proves he can be responsible .. not before. He should earn the extra time allowance on the net.. doing the dishes...maybe another 15 mins or something? Seriously dont' give in cos he throws a tantrum..just pull the plug out and walk away. It's nice you care but it is up to your girlfriend if she doesn't mind him being up till 12 then so be it.. ..and imo she should be telling him whats up not leaving you to deal with it..

Unless there are older siblings in the house from which an example of discipline can be seen (as in the younger watching the older get in to trouble) you have to carefully herd a stubborn teen. If anyone comes in and sets up a hard line from no lines at all then all you will get is opposition. Their brains just see "thats not fair, Im not doing it".
Use every trick in your book, and dont be afraid to fall back on bribery. You may feel your losing the battle, but you will win the war.

Tell him if if ain't in bed at 10:01, then he best be fetching you a switch.

Solid.. this. My son is 10 and hw has a weekend bedtime of 8.30 or 9 with reading time of up to 1 hour. All Internet/gaming stops around 6.30-7 tho

Internet/gaming = pokerstars??

Fuck no.

A sexist, chauvinist pig gets his just desserts when his angry ex-girlfriends murder him and he is reincarnated as a woman.

OK, some good advise here. It's a bit of learning for me as I've never been in this situation before. Bit of learning for the gf too as this is her only child and he's probably moving into an age where he's pushing more boundaries. I remember what I was like as an only child at 14 and lifes was not pretty for mum and dad .... by comparison he's a walk in the park.

The gf has brought him up with the whole family meeting concept being embraced and his feelings being acknowledged ... and I guess it's a balance between that and setting reasonable expectations ... I guess I'm most likely to just support her with what she wants ... but I'm of the opinion that 10pm is reasonable ... bedtime at 12 means a maxiumum of 7.5 hours sleep .... as it is no boundaries on compuetr usage/sleep times on the weekends ...

Good parenting advice ITT.

Each kid is different man, mine needs tons of sleep.
What you said about a trial with him operating on his own schedule is a good idea. Incorporate it with his pocket money, along with chores etc i.e. he needs to function without being a dick in order to get his money. I find money is a good one with teens - even things like paying for his cell top up etc..

I think 10 for a 14yo is too late, but like I said every kid is different.

when i was a kid, we didn't have biggie.

when I was a parent we didn't have biggie

but we sure as shit hit our kids... and they learnt respect

simpler times

Hog-tie ftw!

He gets $10 a week no strings attached and does all his own clothing shopping on $140 a month .... seems a lot I guess but that covers every single thing he needs. Mum occasionally tops up undies and socks when she shops. Routines around chores are a good idea though ... hmmmm, that does seem like a lot. What's an average spend to cloth and entertain kids?

I think parents need to cough up for most of the clothing imo - anything special they could work extra for.
No fucking way should any kid get money for doing nothing however man. Make the kid work for it - it teaches them a lot, and they learn to appreciate stuff (not saying the boy in question doesnt appreciate stuff).
Mine gets $20 a week, and thats for all his chores and it also inclusive of his behavior for that week. If he wants something extra, he does extra stuff for it. You can add bonus' like pre pay top ups etc for being extra awesome, and compliments go a long way too (not at first if they are having a bit of trouble adjusting)

Try giving him an area of the house that he will be responsible for - like cleaning the lounge and the bathroom (on top of his room - but dont be too staunch on his room - as it's his space, so long as there are no wild animals living in there or he not going to contract ebola - their space is there space - mates coming over and telling him he's a messy fuck normally is enough to embarrass them in to keeping it kinda tidy)

But make sure if he's getting money, then he's contributing to the everyday functionality of the household - dishes, vacuuming etc.

I dunno, all this seemed to have worked out for me, it took me a while to arrive here, and like I keep saying every kid is different. But you need to make sure your gf is on the same page (otherwise forget about it all) and not going to change it two days later after thinking he's miserable - but thats something you need to sort between you.

Good luck

I don't have kids, so I can only go on what my parents did, which I think was good, because I'm awesome and I think they had something to do with it.

My parents used to say to me that a tee shirt would cost them $X, so if I wanted some stupid labelled branded one, then I can cough up the difference. Not only did I learn how much shit costs, but it also taught me to look after the nice things I had.

I also had to cook dinner one night a week. It was usually nachos, or pasta or something, but I was doing that from about 11 with the old lady watching over my shoulder to make sure I didn't burn the house down or poison everyone.

Chores kept me busy as well, though most of mine were done in shit holes like Waiouru where there's naff all to do but chop firewood in the snow or ride your bike around the golf course to the river. My parents rarely with held my pocket money unless I was a real shit, which didn't happen to often. Can't get away with fucking anything when your old man is a soldier and you live in the army housing area.

My old man would wake me up every Saturday morning and make me run with him as well. Fuck I hated him waking me up so fucking much, but always felt amazing halfway round. Plus it gave us a chance to talk, or just jog in silence which was equally as good.

Yup, good call here. Life skills and all that.

i spent most of my teen years of my life hoping to find the raincoats lp
god knows what I'd have done if I'd found it

Pocket money? Sounds like rich whitey bullshit to me, if we wanted something we had to steal it ourselves.

Little shit should be going to bed straight after Te Karere

Encourage him to masturbate more often after he's done his homework, housework etc. Not only it relieves his urges and stress from school. It will make him fall asleep like a baby afterwards.

I didn't have a 'bed time' past about 10 years old. Always crashed out before midnight by my own accord.

Some great advise. Thanks everyone! I know it's probably not that interesting but here's an update. So, I talked to him last night and said hey man I'm going to bed early tonight and I'm not gonna enforce the net off at 10pm thing .... but this means we both expect you to be up and ready for school tomorrow. After a slightly sullen look he agreed this was going to happen. Then I said make sure you chuck your dishes in the dish washer. Then when he came out he actually asked me what I was doing (I was uploading house photos) and we had a short chat about selling my house. Then moved onto a dead cat which I carried off the road yesterday and burried. It was all up probably the longest conversation I've had with him in the last 8 months, so thought that all went well. Proof will be whether he gets up this morning or not I guess.

Talked at some length with the gf about chores/money and we're both on the same page about it. Thinking each time he mows the lawns (every 2 weeks) that's a $50 transfer into his bank and then the other $50 is discretional upon attending school. We've also decided it'll be his job to bring the bins back in (and I'll put them out).

I'm hopeful this is all moving in the right direction

discretional upon attending school? he's skipping school?

Not really skipping ... just feeling "sick" quite a lot

a reasonable bed time is when they are fucking told.

Edit: signed one very tired mummy.

Agreed, but you cant just fucking tell teens anything. Unless you have a drone.

You buy that? I 'felt sick' everyday between the ages of 9 and 15.

I still feel sick everyday of the working week

grownups are weird

Man, getting your olds to pay you to go to school is a sweet fkn deal.

cue trustafarian talk

heh I pay my nearly 10 year old when she does well at school. she gets a mid year and end of school year bonus ... I've been doing that since she was 7.... seems to be working out pretty well. I dont pay her to go to school *yet*

man in my day earning my parents approval for hard work was all the rewards one sought and expected

that and the expectations I had of myself and the marks I earnt

you lot are weird

Parenting is hard

cue parents should be licensed.... debate

Negotiating and challenging the dynamics of a mother/son relationship when you're the new boyfriend on the scene isn't that easy either.

Just had coffee with a friend and she was like wtf - why would you even suggest to a 14 year old that he has $x to spend per month on clothes. Give him $10 a week for mowing the lawns and tell him to find apart time job if he wants anything else.

Yeah well $50 a week sounded pretty generous.

$10 for mowing the lawn sounds pretty cheap though.. depends how long it takes I guess

It takes as long as it takes and he gets paid what he gets paid.

But yeah $50/wk does sound high for walking around money. That's way more tinnies than I could afford at 14.

yeah thats a fuckton of money for a 14 yo. I used to get 5 bucks a week for hosing down the cow shed each day (evening - not morning)

Sounds like a shitty job.

ahhhh ha ha ha haaaaa

and I had heaps of other stupid jobs - like chipping fucking thistles!! I hated that soooo much, or spraying ragwort.

mmm thistle chips

It'd be $50 every 2 weeks for doing the lawns and bringing in the rubbish bins every week (you have to pull them up a bunch of stairs) ... other $50 would be a monthly top up if the school attendance was all good.

want to adopt me...

thats more disposable income than many families have after food and bills - to give you some context

Yeah, I know. I'm an only child and never wanted for food and education .... but mum was always tight as for clothes. Wore some pretty cheap arse stuff till I was maybe 18 and started working.

Ridiculous amount of money. He should be doing jobs around the house for free and not being bribed with cash of all things to attend school.

yeah sorry dude, but its a lot of money for a 14yo to have. I know what I would have done with that much money at that age. Does he come home glassy eyed each night? have heaps of mates calling him all the time? feels too sick to go to school cause he's hung over or still high?
Id recommend a very watchful eye.

Hell yeah dude must have a mint collection of war comics with all that cash

It's not like he's given the cash every month ... more that he finds the clotehs he wants and buys them. My girlfriend reckons he's gone up about 3 shoes sizes over the last year.

He got smoking pot a while back so as the school can drug test him it's certainly slowed himdown a bit about it. Me and the gf are both seasoned partiers, and I used to be a big smoker through my teens so booze and/or illicit use doesn't get by us much I think.

Simply because he has never been expected to do chores I'm doing the slowly slowly aproach rather than laying down heaps of expectations as the new boyfriend on the scene. To be fair I never ever did house work when I was a kid .. mum did it all ... still demands to do the dishes when we eat lunch together .... and I turned out OK and contribute to a decent chunk of housework without being asked. And, I never cooked much at all till I was 18, started working at IHC and had to budget and cook meals for 4 men 5 days a week.

But I agree, that does seem like a money

He's 15 in October .... does this make any difference?

He has this idea is his head that he wants beer at his birthday. The gf has pretty much said a straight no ... I'm a little pro the idea though as I'd rather having teens having a few drinks ina controllled environment than getting on the piss hardout at some local park where no one can watch them.

Yeah I agree with you there.

Ahh nah I suppose $25 a week isn't too much? Shit costs..

The $50 monthly bonus only works out to $12.50 extra a week..

so 37.50 a week is fairly generous I guess..

My Dad used to let me drink beer at 15, but never more than two

You need to give him a beating
Prove your alpha male status

We played a bit of chess Sunday night which was a bit of good time for male bonding I guess and I let him have 2 small glasses of beer ... seemed to work smoothly ... until he didn't want to go to school on Monday citing a sore stomach ... someone he knew comitted suicide a few weeks back so the sore stomach from stress/anxiety check out. We took him to the doctor who checked him out ... got him to school before lunch ...ther net off at 10pm is still an issue for him, butI'm thinking if we're just consistant and do it everyday he'll get used to that being the status quo. His major complaint with this is he can't sleep before 11-12am ... any suggestions? Would a OTC suppliment ike 5htp help with this?

dear god don't drug him

give him a book to read if he must stay awake
or some porn magazines

Dunno ... is giving him a suppliment drugging him? Might be a bit of a means to an end or at least get him into a routine of sleeping earlier

Tonight I might see if he wants to go for a jog after dinner ... problem is I can't do this on most week nights when I'm working till 10pm.

His mum reads consistently but it's not something that really seems to interest him too much ... he's all about writing the rap songs these days

I never sleep, cuz sleep is the cousin of death :>

supplement/drugs whatever- try to avoid as its not the solution

a book like this might excite/interest him -

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0609807153?ie=UTF8&tag=thstofhiho-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0609807153

I suggest reading as it is time consuming, good for him generally and will eat up those hours in a positive manner once the nets turned off (the 10pm thing is a good general rule I reckon) - or if thats not going to work get him a really nice book to write his raps in - maybe fork out for a basic mic so he can record them on his computer...

and let him go to sleep when he feels is good for him but underscore the expectations that he can't keep shirking school -its far too important for that

does he struggle in class or jsut wants top do his own thing?

He struggles a bit over all subjects. He's a bright kid, maybe some minor learning difficulty though. He has a habit of getting his full stops and capital letters in the wrong place - maybesome form of dyslexia? He's talked about ADD but I don't think this is really where he's at. I think he might get assessed though, kinda just to rule it out.

Reading thing might be a good plan ... or I guess I could get him something to write in. That's not a bad idea.

reading writing - its really about finding that which he digs - which off the bat is the hard bit, cause Teens are headstrong to say the least

possibly a in to reading is that being a word based medium the more he rads the more he comprehends how authors use language - which in turn will help him with his wordplay and rapping - trick is to find the right book - ie something that isn't too challenging and subject wise he digs

for some its lord of the rings type stuff... others that stupid broom boy (harry potter).... hunger games... easy to read and leads to more challenging reads - great for his education across the board

bright kids can be tough cause they're bright enough to get bored really easily.... and clever enough to be lazy whilst scraping by

Good tips right there!
Also if you find he has trouble keeping still when reading - get him a squidge ball that he can squeeze. It may sound stupid but it works.

just tie him up with a tie

amirite ladies?

The earlier you go to bed and the more your body gets used to going to bed/sleep earlier, the earlier you will get to sleep. Its all about patterns. It might be hard for a couple of weeks, but eventually your body will get used to the new routine. It's all about lying there with no stimulation.

thinking of england eh Just*

lulz

Haha Bob!




Not enough love for this. One of my all time favourite hip hop tracks. :>


Definitely one of Nas's and Dj Premier's finest moments.

Best hip-hop album of all time imo

Incorrect.

I thought it was The Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff?

number one...

bloody kids and their hip hoppity beats and sill pants

DNT

snigger.

No you!

Now now, they are BOTH excellent albums!

not half as good as thinking of sheep though ay bob?

Yup, I agree. We're thinking just sticking to the touines and being really consistent will pay dividends ina few weeks.

Even when the nets off he still has the ability to watch stuff/play games n his computer ... and how do you enforce a go to bed without actually removing everything. No complaints when I turned off the net last night, and he got to school on time today (all be it with me dropping him off) ... so I guess that's going well.