what makes teenagers get up ???

[womanofdulwich]

I am getting so mad on this. has lots to do but will not get up- keeps saying I AM getting up- goes straight back to bed. I have cut off allowance, but he could get up and earn money doing chores, talked it all through last night agreed that it was importatnt to do all this this morning and we would go out later. He leaves home next month for uni- I despair. What motivates a teeange boy to get up? :X

[candj]

Sorry WOD I can't provide any advice as my mine are still very young, but I wanted to say that THIS is what all of us mums and dads with sleepless, night owl babies/toddlers have to look forward to!

Hope you get it sorted, is he too young for coffee???

[ratty]

They usually eventually move when they have run out of weed!

[Belle]

my mum would just keep barging into my room which drove me nuts so I'd get up to pre-empt it - you know how much they like their privacy/don't like people in their rooms.

[snowboarder]

This made me smile sorry WoD - as candj says - it's hard to empathise when yours are up early!! In fact I nearly started a 'Why oh why do they wake at 5.20am' thread this morning!(Incidentally - when does the change from early to not get up take place?!?).

Umm - how about actual appointments at a reasonable hour - for all the stuff he needs to sort out for uni? Like tomorrow - dentists/opticians etc at 10.30. Or a promise of a lift to Bluewater to shop for uni clothes? I suppose it has to be truely something worth getting up for! Is there a girlfriend? Get her to come over early?!?

Or...I could lend you my toddler to room with him?

[womanofdulwich]

all you with young ones I can tell you now that he was always hard to wake up from school age - and hard to put to bed.

So you may never have this problem.

In the meantime I have barged into his room several times- he just wrapped the duvet over his head. GGGRGRGGRGRGRGGR

[sian]

saying friend on landline does trick but you cant get away with this very often.

[GSJ57]

I sympathise, womanofdulwich - I have a 15 year old, and we're going through the same thing. I finally resort to 'GetupgetupgetupgetupNOW' which drives him mad (an added bonus)!!

[SteveT]

WOD as he is going to uni' soon I would leave him to sort himself out,

once there he will do what all the others do which is going to bed too late and sleep in until he wakes from noise out in the corridor (assume he is in halls for the first year).

If he is not willing to get up and earn money he is getting it too easily from some source,

either you or manofdulwich,

if it stopped he might be more willing to work to fund his dope habit independently.

My eldest couldn't get to bed or get up, now she works full-time she is sooo knackered she flops into bed without hesitation.

[berryberry]

Its actually a developmental thing. Teenage boys need lots of extra sleep like babys do when having a growth spurt. Its puberty, be nice.

[SteveT]

It certainly is berryberry he hasn't developed the habit of getting to bed at a reasonable hour:)

[The Nappy Lady]

Ha - I too have heard it is necessary for teenagers to have extra sleep.

If he really does HAVE to get up I'd try 3 warnings, then a wet flannel, and if that doesn't work.....a bucket of water over his head, bed and all. Doubt you'd need to do it more than once!

Snowboarder, I can see your 5.20am, and rise you to 5am this morning....and we went out last night so I didn't go to bed until 12.10am.....ouch, ouch, ouch. I went in and told her firmly, "This is NOT morning, it is the middle of the night, go back to sleep" and after some very cross crying she did thankfully go to sleep again. PHEW. No way I'd have coped with getting up properly at 5am!

[felt-tip]

my dad would just shout BING BONG BING BONG BING BONG over and over again. but only when we needed to get up. if we didnt because it was the weekend or school holidays then he left us alone

[womanofdulwich]

nappy lady I hate to say I have tried this method and yes it does work but when you have a 6 ft 2 " lad to deal with it can get violent and I am trying to think of carrots- not sticks. 4 more weeks to go....

[The Nappy Lady]

Gulp, WOD you make that sound very scary, you can tell none of us have a clue about teenagers can't you.

I think your idea about the allowance etc. is good, and maybe also offer an amount in recognition of each day he is up before an agreed time in addition to what he earns? I imagine having money is the biggest carrot you can use really. It is a tricky one. I think SteveT is right though, University will sort it all out, or if not at least you wont have to deal with it.

Hang in there....kids eh, nothing but trouble!

[womanofdulwich]

yes I am afraid you are absolutely right. money does not seem to work, bed is more attractive- but time will tell. today was particularly bad as man of dulwich and I thought we had it sussed last night - talked it through with him about getting up early- driving lesson- then meal out tonight etc etc. but at the end of the day you can take a horse to water etc etc.

kids are a challenge sometimes!!

[dulwichmum]

Womanofdulwich,

Send me your progeny...

A year employed in my home, on a gap year you understand, as an aupair, and I will find the child a work ethic (cackles)...

[beababies]

oh dear woman of dulwich, i'm thirty and my brother is twenty-seven and we were like this as teenagers and still are exactly the same! my Dad used to get us up by pulling off the duvet covers and singing morning songs while we shivered exposed in our beds, such a terrible way to wake up! like your son, we resist bed at all costs at night and then nothing is nicer than bed in the morning, impossible to get out! it's a real problem, it's made us late to school, late to Uni, late to work. . .the only time I can manage it is when I will absolutely be fired if I don't get out of bed, so for 6am job starts or something! i'd say, go with SteveT's advice and leave him to it, he'll soon be dragging himself out of bed when school's telling him he's not going to graduate if he's absent/late again! i suppose that'll just come back to you though until he's out on his own at Uni! good luck!

Bea

xzzzzzzzz

[Narnia]

No need to despair WOD. My son is the same and he's off to Uni in two weeks. He has had a gap year which allowed him sleep as much as he wanted most of the time. This often meant him going to bed when I was getting up. He's not cured but the fact is he will sleep when he needs to and if he has had to get up he usually did. Having a computer in his room probably did him no favours in respect of his body clock behaving like a 'normal' person's but you just have to accept that he has a mind of his own and give him the benefit of not being (too) stupid. You can't win this battle and certainly not now when time is of the essence. He will adapt I'm sure.

[womanofdulwich]

Practically Narnia- if you have to leave them in bed and go to work and tell them to be up by 10am for a tesco delivery and they dont wake up , dont answer the phone or hear their alarm or hear the door bell. They are sometimes so zoned out. I dont seem to have a fail proof method if I am not physically there. Do you have any tricks or am I in your opinion being unrealistic?

[woofmarkthedog]

Stop (S)mothering him

Agree a getting up time together

Give him an alarm clock

Call him once with a cup of tea ( if you are feeling generous )

Let him f**k up if he stays in bed

It's his life, let him get on with it

It's him that's going to Uni, not you

W**F

[cate]

Go on strike and don't do anything for him.....meals, washing, shopping etc. He sounds like my brothers

[EDmummy]

My mother would vacuum outside our bedroom door. Always worked.

[Narnia]

You can't realistically expect him to be up at 10 if he went to bed at 5. Have you any idea what time he goes to bed at? If so add about 10 hours and lo and behold he will be up fully refreshed. I bet he has the internet in his room. Am I right?

[womanofdulwich]

in his room at 11pm, - no computer but i phone . I think you know where I am on this.I do occasionally get it off him and return it the next day but it is almost part of his anatomy and hard to find it. But when he did not have an i phone and had been playing sport it was the same problem. 4 weeks to go................