I’ve had several queries to the blog asking, “What time should teenagers go to bed?” My previous post must not have given enough of an answer because readers are evidently looking for a specific hour. Well, if that’s what parents need, there is a way to come up with definite bedtimes. We’ll just apply common sense.
Assuming that 8 hours is the recommended number for slumber, decide what time your teenagers need to be up, and work backwards. If they have to be up at 6:30 AM to get ready to catch the school bus, they need to be in bed by 10:30 PM. If it’s summer and you don’t care if they sleep until 10:00 AM, they need to be in bed by 2:00 AM (although I would make the be-back-home curfew much earlier than that!). I don’t think it’s a good idea to let them totally flip their schedules so that they are up all night and sleeping all day. That would remove them too far from the mainstream of life. Others may not agree, but that’s my take on it and I’m sticking to it.
I’m sticking to it because that’s what I saw with juveniles who were adopting a delinquent lifestyle. They tended to shed any schedules they saw as “confining.” Unfortunately, over time, that limited their chances of success in the mainstream world. By rejecting the more typical schedules they forfeited a lot of the self discipline they should have been learning from them.
No, I’m not saying that allowing a child to stay up late will make him or her a delinquent, particularly during the summer months, if they are not employed outside the home. I am saying you need to apply reason. If the child is turning into a sloth, the freedom isn’t working and he or she probably needs more activities/chores/responsibilities that require a tighter timetable.
In all, I believe there are three things to consider when deciding bedtime for teenagers. Those are: the amount sleep they need for good health; potential disruption of normal household routines; and instilling good habits so they will be able to function in the larger society.
