We realized a few months back that it didn't make sense anymore for our nine year old, Brennan, to have a bedtime at 8:30 along with his younger siblings. As he gets older he should get to stay up later and, Brennan especially, seems to need less sleep than some of our other children.
As big believers in consistency and predictability in our parenting, we glanced at the calendar and found that we were nearer to the halfway point between Brennan's birthdays than anything else, so we made our call. Starting with Brennan, when the kids reach 9 and a half years old they can stay up until 10pm*. Brennan is now three weeks into his new late night independence.
Tanner is already counting down the days until June 18, 2011, just as Elijah is eying October 28, 2013. Graham's emancipation isn't until September of 2015 and Anneliese won't see anything past 8:30 until September 12, 2018, when Brennan is nearly 18 years old.
I also heard of a rule from another family whereby a child can obtain an extra 30 minutes before bed, as long as they are reading. Hmmm…
*We always reserve the right to tell the kids to go to bed as early as necessary depending on the next day's schedule.
3 comments:
Don't tell Corban. He goes to bed at 8 and can read until 8:30. I'm sure it's a little different if you don't have to get up and out of the house by 8am each morning.
Definitely; although the kids go through phases of getting up at 6 or 6:30, they have the option of sleeping til 8 or later.
We're big believers in well-rested kids.
Brennan feels so grown up. This was the first thing he told me the other day when I came over. He was very pleased with being 9 1/2!!
Good job!!
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