My 12 year old daughter is staying up past her bedtime. I make sure she knows when it is bedtime and if she is not in bed I tell her again. She gets in her pajamas and brushes her teeth andeverything else in her nightly routine. I go in her roomand make sure she is in bed and I wait for her to fall asleep. She normally falls asleep within 5 to 10 minutes. What i dont know is shes not asleep. Once I walk out of the roomshe gets out her ipod and computer. I have tried telling her that bedtime isnot just to be mean, it is so she does not get tired or cranky before school. I have asked her why she stays up past bedtimeand she just ignores me or says she would rather not tell me. She can text on her ipod and i dont know if there is a boy or what is going on. I check in on her every 10 to 20 minutes after she "fell asleep"to see what she is doing. I have cought her onher ipod and have taken it away for the night. It is not like bedtime is extremely early. She goes to bed at 9:30 every night. I do not know what to do. I have tried telling her that using her phone after 9:30 will get no phonethe nextnight but she still does it. I think theremight be a boy or the other kids stay up later and she wantsto fit in or something. I do not want her staying up much later because she is only 12 years old. I do not want to invade her privacy by reading her texts, but I need this to stop asap. I make sure her electronics are off before I leave the room. She shares a room with her sister and often wakes her up because of the light. If this has happend to your kid please help. I hold my punishments I dont just give her phone back the next day when I told her what the consequences would be. Please give me ideas on what she might be doing on her ipod and how to stop it. I do not want to take her ipod away for too long because I want her to have it when shes at school or on the bus because some of the kids are not thebest. ShouldI read her texts? shouldI take her phone away at nights? shoud she have to earn her electronics back by proving she learned her lesson? should I talk to parents of her friends to see if they let their kids up late on their phones? please help
If it is her Ipod she is using, take it away. Same with the computer if possible. I have actually disconnected the Wi-Fi when my kids did not get off. They cannot text on the Ipod without internet. You should have access to any texting she is doing. My kids know I am watching whatever texting they do as well as internet access.
If she has her own phone and is abusing it, take it away as soon as she gets home from school.
Easy... take her ipod, phone, or whatever electronics away when she goes to bed. If they have a computer in their bedroom, remove it.
Problem solved.
You're kidding, right?
I'm sorry, but what I'm looking at from your post is that you are acting like a big sister instead of a mother. This girl is NOT 17. She's 12. Why are you letting her have a phone and an iPod when she refuses to obey you? Not only should you take them away at night, she should lose them for a week for disobeying you.
You're talking about privacy for a 12 year old on a cell phone? How will you feel if she goes out joy-riding with a boy in the middle of the night and the police show up? The evidence that she was planning her rendevous was all over her phone but you're too worried about her privacy to prevent her from screwing up her life?
You are not her friend. You are her mother. Stop giving freedom to her that is supposed to be EARNED. She has NO right to privacy. She has to earn it. She is not even a teen. This is YOUR house. It is your JOB to know what's in her room, in her phone, who she sees, what she does. And if she's on the phone and the iPod, she's not sleeping, and the next day she's not going to be learning in school.
You need to decide what's more important. Her WANTS, or her NEEDS. BE the mother. Not the friend.
Turn off your wi-fi, take her ipod & cell & when she does earn them back, give her time limits. My oldest learned how to "pirate" the neighbor's wi-fi, so even when I turned it off, she was staying up half the night on her laptop. She started failing classes, due to lack of sleep & because instead of doing her homework, she was spending her time on her tumblr, facebook, etc. We took her laptop eventually, because although we were giving her reasonable time limits, she was sneaking & using her laptop. She can use her laptop ONLY at school, for a school project. I cancelled the data plan on her cell, so it is just a phone & she doesn't text much, but if she were to start, we'd take that, too.
All of our girls know that they have to turn off the screens--cell, ipods, tv, laptop 1 hr before bedtime. If their grades go down, they have a bad attitude regarding chores or a bad attitude about getting off of their devices, they lose them for the week. Yes, they need the internet for homework. I either supervise their internet use or they can go to the library & do their homework there.
Screens are addictive. The sneaking...not good at all. She's only 12, it WILL get worse, if you don't crack down & establish healthy internet habits with her. Good Luck
Our pediatrician says no electronics in the bedrooms except a radio or sound machine.
Take the computer out and put it in your family room.
Reclaim the iPod after she returns home.
You can probably set her phone to not operate during certain hours. My daughter's was set to only call 911, me, or her dad from 10 PM to 5 AM on school nights.
Just take every electronic device out of her room at bedtime (I'd do it before, but that's just me). Nothing with a screen stays in her room at night period, whether she faked sleep the night before or not. She's 12, you're in charge of what she has or doesn't have. Don't forget that. She'll likely cry and scream and through a fit. Let her, YOU are in charge. And there's no way I wouldn't be reading those texts, it's a device you bought, you're just allowing her to use it. Take it every evening and make sure you know who she is taking to, it's your responsibility as a parent to do your best to keep her safe while on the internet, giving her free reign to text all night without any supervision is just asking for trouble.
I think it is normal for parents to take away the wifi connection over night. And take away her ipod/laptop/phone/electronics every evening. Have a family rule - no electronics after 8pm. After that time you can read. If she cannot 1. use her electronics and 2. connect to wifi (say if she sneaks downstairs and gets her ipod or whatever). Tell her this is to promote good sleeping habits. And tell her it is for her own good...that she is still growing and needs her sleep. Be firm. This is the rule. Never give in. (And yes, I believe in snooping and reading texts for kids this young. Do it when she will never know you did it. It's a good way to make sure she is doing ok in life) And don't worry about what other parents do or do not do. AGAIN - it is important you disable wifi. If she is like my son she will sneak downstairs to get her electronics in the night. Once she learns there is no way to get online she will stop doing this.
ummmm....if she is still using her "toys' after you don't want her to, what are they still doing in her room?
Gazing at LCD screens inhibits the production of melatonin (the "sleepy" hormone), so tell her she's powering down now 30min before lights out. Keep the devices in a charging station downstairs in a common area.
Take electronics away at bedtime. I would be looking at her phone and texts. She is 12 not 18. God only knows what is being said.
Remove the electronics from her room.
Lock them up in a file cabinet till morning.
She's abused it so she loses all electronic access till you unlock the cabinet in the morning.
Oh good gosh.
YES read her texts.
YES monitor everything she does/says/posts online.
There is NO PRIVACY with electronic media. She needs to understand that and the best way to understand that is to know that YOU will be seeing everything. No need to be secretive about it.
TAKE the electronics AWAY from her. Not for an hour, not for a day. Just take them ALL until she can get on board with your house rules.
When she gets her phone and other devices back, all phones/tablets get handed over to you 30 minutes before bedtime and stay with you until you give them back the next day. Every. Day.
The computer? Get it out of her room completely. Put it in a central location so that you can monitor her usage.
If for some reason you really can't do that - and I can't imagine a scenario where that's really true - then put parental controls on the computer and using the controls, set times that she can use the computer and put limits on what web sites she can go to, etc.
I'm sorry for sounding so shrill about this but really, you seem way too naive and permissive. I have two teenagers (a boy and girl) and believe me, you need to be in their stuff when it comes to electronics. Why it hasn't occurred to you yet to simply take the devices away is unfathomable to me.
Parent her! do not be her friend.
All electronics are not to reside in rooms. She should be with you when on them at all times. There are chat rooms and preditors out there looking for your kids.
It does not matter what her friends parents are or are not doing. Your house your rules. Rules are meant to keep our kids safe.
YES, read her texts you should be saying at a moments notice that you can look at it all or she does not get it PEROID. I know several familys that in the middle of a TV show. they say give me your phone.. and the parents go through it.. with no notice. That is your job. ..
Or you could end up with a child pregnant at 15. You need to parent her not be her friend.
Good luck
Look for a Parenting with Love and Logic class in your area. You need information about boundaries, child development, and how to discipline correctly. It sounds like you are afraid of your daughter being upset and this is getting in the way of you parenting her.
She needs boundaries. She needs to understand how the world really works. She will be disappointed in life and needs to develop the tools to deal with disappointment. She needs to understand what consequences are and be allowed to fully experience them.
There is a big difference between trying to make sure our children never feel bad and supporting them in dealing with feeling bad. Feeling bad is a part of planet earth. It is unavoidable. Knowing how to feel their feelings appropriately is a skill children need to learn (this is Emotional Intelligence). You will actually do your children a disservice if you constantly try and rescue them from feeling bad.
no toys in the bedroom.. no problem... take it away at bedtime.. it needs to come into the living room to charge overnight..
This answer is so easy, I don't understand your question.
She hands you all electronics at 9PM. You put them in your room, and you give them back in the morning. Problem solved.
Repeating what others have said. Take the devices out of her room at night. This is not for punishment, this is simply how it should always have been. If you do this, then there won't be a need to punish for something because you've prevented it from happening entirely.
Besides the concern about the internet, lit screens interrupt the sleep cycle signals, so they are unhelpful with winding down before bed. My kids leave their devices in the living room. If you're concerned that she will try to sneak them back to her room at night, then put them in your bedroom.
My 13 year old sometimes reads with a flashlight at night. It doesn't bother me or disturb his brother, and it helps him wind down and get sleepy.
