Do children have regular "earlier than adult" bed-times anymore?
For about 20 years now, I have noticed children with parents in 24-hour grocery stores and other retail establishments well after eleven P.M. some of whom will be in school the next morning.
When I was a kid ( that was a few more than 20 years ago!), children in grade school typically had to go to bed around nine or ten o’clock. The conventional wisdom was that children needed between eight and ten hours of sleep per night. The older you got, you gradually got later bedtimes imposed—usually by the time you were a Senior in High School you were pretty much in synch with the adults as far as schedules were concerned,
I know, of course, that many adults work nights or have schedules vastly different from what they were 30 or more years ago, and whatever a family’s circumstances are, are certainly their own business. But school schedules haven’t changed much.
I’m just wondering if kids going to bed earlier than adults is some cultural norm that has faded into the past. It seems kids are up and even out in public whenever parents are up nowadays.
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All my grands definitely do.
Kids unless they’re called babies, seem to be wide awake anytime, even around midnight. It’s seems it’s been like that for many years now. I don’t know what it’s about.
My daughter before her teens never needed more than six hours of sleep or less. She ran me ragged. Yet, she considered chores to be child abuse and flat refused. That continued until she ran away from home at 16.
I never had her out late on school nights.
I don’t know the excuses for others.
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Many do.
Kids that are homeschooled might be up later. Kids who are on vacation might be up later. Many reasons some kids are up late at night.
I stayed up pretty late once I was in my teens. I’m nocturnal anyway, and I had TV shows at 10:00 I liked watching. It’s why I always wanted to live in central time. Now it doesn’t matter with DVR.
By the way, putting the kids to bed isn’t just about them getting enough sleep, and being able to wake up on time for school. Plenty of parents have early bed time for their kids even before they start attending school. They put the kids to bed so mom and dad have alone time.
My neighbor across the street told me her husband comes home around 4:30, relaxes and plays a little with the kids, maybe jump in the pool, they have dinner, and more time with the kids. Then by 8:30 the kids are asleep, and they break out a glass of wine and can be like a couple without kids for a couple of hours. Their kids were 1 and 3 when I first met them. Neither were in daycare or school. Probably the 1 year old was still waking in the middle of the night, but that’s a separate matter, I don’t know what age he stopped doing that.
My kids are in their early twenties, so this is recent:
Before first grade, tucked in and lights out at 7:30. Through 3rd grade, in bed and lights out at 8 p.m.
4th and 5th grade, 8:30. Junior high, 9 o’clock. High school, ten p.m. on a school night.
The hardest part was getting the daughter to bed when her older brother had a later bed time.
That looks like a good schedule, @zenvelo—kind of like what I had / grew up with.
I was comfortable with a schedule like this, even though I was nocturnal myself like @JLeslie suggests. I stayed up late in the mostly-dark bedroom playing or listening to the radio.
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