It happens even today. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Also, you know what is ? valium
We have lots more products to choose from to calm the kids down these days. I always figured discipline was the best medicine.
I never had to resort to drugging my kids to "bring them down". I think my success was due to my regimen of a tight schedule of events in the household. Wake up a 7, go to school at 8. Come home, do homework, have leisure time until dinner. Eat dinner at sixish, have an hour of family time then tea time at 7:30 with tea and dessert. 9pm feed the cats and go up for bed. Lights out at 10pm. Worked for me.
@jmpet: this worked for how long? even during puberty? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
High school classes start so early these days, it's criminal. They should let the little kids start first because they wake up earlier, and let the teenagers sleep an hour later. Instead, they do it just backwards, and then they wonder why the teenagers fall asleep in class. With AP classes, sports teams, music lessons and all the other things teenagers are expected to do these days, it's a wonder they don't drop dead of exhaustion. Then their parents get angry when they peek in their room at bedtime and find them texting or on the internet. That's the only time in the entire day that isn't already booked!
I agree. What's the point of kids going to school 7 to 2? Why not let them sleep in another hour or two and get out at 3 or 4 pm? The children would be better rested and the parents would have less of a need for after school care. A win-win.
What??? Are you being sarcastic? The world shouldn't bend around teenagers' poor time management choices. If they need a lot of sleep they should get to bed early. Of course they don't learn this until their senior year of college, but you live and you learn. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
The thing is, teenager's body clocks change so that it's a lot harder for them to go to sleep at night. My shift started occurring around fifth grade, and just kept getting worse, until I was maybe getting five hours a night during the week, then crashing and sleeping 16 hour nights on the weekends. And I tried. I'd lay in bed from 10 pm until 1 am trying to sleep, then nod off in class the next day even after chugging instant coffee. One time I actually fell asleep standing up, I was so tired. I wish melatonin had been available back then, it really would have helped-I use it now if I have to get up before the crack of noon the next day...otherwise I'm not likely to rest well. And you know what? now I prefer evening and night shift work...also evening classes, and evening/night activities. That's when I'm the most alert, focused, and creative. I'm the person who gets annoyed that more stuff isn't open at one in the morning, because gosh, I'm wide awake, what's the matter with the rest of you?
I was like that too, I slept all day and was up all hours of the night. But I had to change my sleeping habits. No sleeping during the day, no naps, no doing downing a bottle of soda and a candy bar 5 minutes before bed. My grandmother used to give us a little NyQuil to make us go to sleep when I was little. That couldn't have been good, but it obviously didn't kill us so it couldn't have been too bad either. I have mixed feelings about drugging kids.
Personally? it seems like it would be easier for parents if kids went to school from 8 am to 5 pm. I'm not a parent, but if any adjustment were to be made in the school day, it ought to be made so that more parents can get home from work at roughly the same time their kids do. This would make life a lot easier for a lot of parents and curb some teen delinquency, methinks. Maybe from 4-5 pm they could have an open "study hall" time in which the idea is to separate into groups with a teacher and work on what you're having the most trouble with...this is something they do in Chinese schools to great effect. Extracurricular activities could go on after that-maybe have student coolers for such so they can bring dinner and stay on campus.
I'm now over 50, and if I had my choice, my natural schedule is from around 10 AM to 3 AM. My mother (now almost 80) is the same.
I'm 67 and still working. I usually go to bed around 12:30 and get up at 5:45. When I don't have to get up and go to work I may shift that an hour or two later, but not much more. The older I get, the less I sleep.