Staying up All Night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Still make her get up and do her usual chores and routine.
Even if she has no chores, or routine, make her get up anyway, and FIND something for her to do.
The best way to teach teenagers NOT to stay up all night is to NOT let them sleep all day.
If it continues, take the device away, or simply change the password to the internet.

In my house, that would make for a very grumpy child. No sleep=impossible to live with. Soooo, taking all of the electronics away for a week would be my choice.

An appropriate consequence maybe to get her up at a normal time the next day. She will be so tired and understand the value of sleep.

FYI... My kids have done this but I didn't punish them for it. I also remember staying up all night to read a good book as a teenager.

First of all for the parents responding please state if you have teens or older. Believe me, we can all think we know what we will do with a teen, but until you are raising a teen or have actually raised one.. You will not understand this.

You could take the electronics, or you could see how she functions the next day with extra chores, running errands etc. Why is is upsetting for her to stay awake all night? Is she doing this every night? Did you all have big plans today?

How did she behave?

You are not a failure as a parent as another person suggested. You are just dealing with the teen years. With reality.

We made a deal with our daughter in about 4th or 5th grade. She could stay up as late as she wanted, but she had to be able to function the next day. This meant smile, do what we asked, stay awake and make good grades in school.. etc..

If she did not, I would set a bedtime for her. We had very few problems with this. She very quickly learned how much sleep she needed to function.

Heck send kids to a sleepover and sometimes they stay up all night. Same at summer camp.. It is just a part of being a teen and learning what you can handle and what you cannot. If they never try this, in College they go wild and miss classes, trying to stay up and attend classes.

Better they try this at home. .

If she doesn't have to get up and perform brain surgery in the morning, fine with me. Kids do this...I do this...we still have to get up and live our lives. At 13 she should be able to make decisions and figure out she needs to sleep.

** my daughter is 19 and starting her third year of college. She has always been very responsible but I gave her the opportunity to make decisions.

Well, she just proved to you that she is not ready for that smart phone, didn't she?

At 13 I don't know this would bother me too much. Seems like a normal teen thing to do. Does she even have a bed time? Did she break a house rule? Did you tell her to go to sleep and she stayed up playing instead? Did it interfere with plans for the day?

I think I would go with a natural consequence if she deliberately disobeyed you. Waking up early and doing some chore or running errands is NO FUN any time, but especially when you are exhausted. If she wasn't supposed to use the electronics, take them away.

Well, take away the laptop, DS and music playing things. They aren't technically hers. They are yours. You bought them.

Yup. Take everything away. Maybe, because is is her first offense, only take them for a week. (Oh, NOT first offense... Maybe a longer "grounding" from her items, or limit the daily time she gets for several months.)

Even when she gets them back, at night they get put in YOUR room, where she can't get them.

(Except the books... Let her keep reading... Just not at night.)

ETA: and wow, just because your teen daughter is sneaking music and entertainment at night, does not mean she is a delinquent or at risk for pregnancy... SHEESH! (Judgmental much?) It means that she is acting like a normal teenager, and needs her boundaries to be reaffirmed. I did the EXACT same thing at that age, and remained a virgin until I was 22 years old... And was a responsible, well-behaved teen. When I was caught, I lost my computer privileges and it never happened again.

The appropriate consequences for staying up all night is having to get up and go through the next day tired. Don't let her sleep late in the morning to make up for lost sleep, or it will become a habit.

If she is truly having trouble sleeping you can make sure that she does not go to bed until she is actually tired. You can make sure she doesn't have any electronic distractions in her room at night. You can offer her some chamomile tea.

Unplug her. Very simple.

You're kidding, right? You don't have any idea what an appropriate consequence is?

Come on, mom. What did you do when she was little? If she hit someone with a toy, you took away the toy. If she threw her food, you removed her from the table. If she tried to put something in her mouth that would hurt her, you'd remove whatever it was she was trying to put in her mouth.

NOW what you do is the same thing. You take away the laptop, her DS and what plays music and you tell her she has lost these things for an entire week. THEN you only allow her to have them during the day. She has to surrender them to you when it's time to do her homework. Only when her homework is done do you let her have them back. AND she has to give them back to you when you tell her it's time to go to bed.

YOU set the bed time. YOU control her access to these devices. You do NOT allow her to have a laptop in her bedroom. She is too young. You need her to be using the computer where the family is, in the kitchen or family room.

This is not that hard to figure out. BE the parent and stop allowing her unfettered access to this stuff. And DON'T allow her to sleep til noon. Make her get up by 9:00 am on the weekends and get her chores done before she gets to have "fun". Time to step up and have expectations of your daughter...

ETA based on her SWH: If the "insomnia" is a new symptom of a med she has taken for a while then that may be an excuse for the natural teen behavior of wanting to stay up late. But if it's a fairly new medication, or she's had this problem for a while and never mentioned it before, try melatonin and/or valerian. Valerian capsules are huge and taste nasty so I would try melatonin first. My oldest son has ADHD and has long had trouble falling asleep even when not on stimulant medication so he takes 9 mg of melatonin at night when he has to get up early for school, work or hockey and it helps him fall asleep within 30-60 minutes. If sleeping is a legitimate issue, it's extra important for her to disconnect a while before bedtime and not have the electronics in her room at night so I think the turn in an hour before bedtime is a great thing to implement permanently. But do try the melatonin - check with the dr or pharmacist first to make sure there are no contraindications with the medication she takes but for most people, even young children, it is safe, effective, and inexpensive.

My two oldest are 15. The only times that they have pulled all nighters are when sleeping over friends' houses. They paid dearly for it the next day as I allowed them no rest whatsover. Great day to mow the lawn! And weed! And wash the kitchen floor!

You need to introduce yourself to the world of parental controls and setting limits. Because she can't use electronics responsibly, you will control their use. You should be the administrator if her computer and she has a user account that you control. Set it so that she can only go on at certain hours and set a reasonable cut off time, and have her only use it in a public space anyway unless she's doing schoolwork and needs someplace quiet to work for a while. Our times were from 6-7:30 AM on a school day to allow for last-minute printing of reports and then from 3 PM to 9 PM. The laptops are stored in our family room and that's where they are used 90% of the time. Have her turn in her DS at bedtime or before. Again, at 13, 9 PM is reasonable. What else is she listening to music on? If she has a phone, have her turn in that at bedtime too.

The tips above aren't punishments, they are parental best practices that should have been in place from the beginning and should stay in place pretty much until there is a legitimate need to extend the times in high school. But as a general rule, personal electronics don't belong in bedrooms and shouldn't be used at all hours. If you can't monitor her use, you shouldn't let her have them at all.

So, take them away for a week or so. I think this would be a fantastic consequence. After that, have her turn them in to you every single night at a specified time. Lock them up if you need to. You're the mom-- it is not her 'right' to have these items, and if she isn't being responsible on her own then she faces the consequences of having to be monitored. Simple as that.

Just my two cents, but there is no way my son would have internet access in private. Just sayin'.... The laptop should always be out where you can see what she's looking at.
ETA: for those mentioning melatonin (and I used to be one of them) check out the new research on this supplement as it actually interferes with gonad hormone development/sexual development. Something serious to consider.

Take them away. Put them in your nightstand at night and don't let her have them.

Take them away and don't give them back for a looong time.

If she needs a computer for school she can use the family computer or her laptop in a community space, where you can make sure she is doing what she is supposed to.

My kids (13 & 11) don't have a tv or computer in their room. The handheld devices live on a shelf in the living room. Screens have been proven to mess with natural sleep patterns, so using them when one has insomnia isn't a good choice.

Removal of devices should be a permanent thing in your home, not a 3-month punishment pending behavior review. Make sure she knows that it isn't a punishment. This was a parental mistake that needs correction.

If your daughter takes medication with the side effect of sleeplessness, then you need to adjust how you're approaching this issue. You can't punish side effects away.

Talk to her doctor about possible solutions, and consider that your expectations may not be what is actually best for her. If she is really laying there for up to 4 hours unable to sleep, then how is allowing her 10 minutes of reading going to help?

My son also has a hard time sleeping. He reads in bed with a flashlight and I pretend to not notice. He still wakes up on time, gets enough rest for his body's needs, and doesn't have a problem in school, so why should I care?

I agree with Laurie. Teens these days stay up all night if allowed to do so. Don't let her sleep late, and take away the electronics at night.

With school starting, you will have good reason to do so. But maybe you can lighten up a little one night on the weekend.

If a body is not sleepy how do you propose to "make" it go to sleep?

If you lay down at 5 pm in the evening and everything is perfect for sleep, can you fall asleep? If you got 8-9 hours of sleep the night before and have done nothing that used up all your energy? Can you sit down and fall asleep?

I can't, and I don't get more that 4-6 hours of sleep per night. I can fall asleep at the doc's office in the waiting room but if I lay down to go to sleep I can't fall asleep.

You are punishing her for insomnia...that's wrong in my book.

It's time to take her to the doc and ask for a sleep aid. Give her a pill around 8pm-9pm every night for a week or less. See what happens. If she goes to sleep then her cycle gets turned around. If she still isn't sleeping it's time to talk to the doc again.

It sounds like she's telling you she lays down, tries to go to sleep, it doesn't happen so she gets on the computer or other electronic device. That'a not sitting up all night playing a game and forgetting to go to sleep. This appears to be a different issue.

Take away access to ALL electronics...... put them in YOUR room, under your pillow, behind your headboard, etc... Take them away during the day for a while, also.

Be sure to take her cell phone, also.

If she has access to a desktop computer, put parental controls on that limiting the hours, or just take the power cord with you.

so 10 hours prior to this question, you asked about giving your 13yo a smartphone.

Hmmm, new profile + 2 questions which contradict each other =

we all know. :)

The screens of laptops and smartphones and hand-held games transmit a blue light, which actually zaps our brains of a sleep-inducing hormone - I can't remember exactly which one - melatonin, I think it is. So to have these electronics in her room is counter productive. You might try taking them away each night, say, an hour before bedtime. Get her to read for an hour instead. Then have her turn out all the lights.

If she's still complaining of not being able to sleep, ask her doctor about the medication keeping her up. I wouldn't worry about any more consequences.

Wake her up at a normal time, for a month. No later than 8:00 am. It will take care of its self. Don't let her go back to sleep till night.

You bought them. You're the parent. Keep the out of her room at night,

Talk to your doctor. If it's taking your daughter 4 hours to fall asleep, ask about the possibility of giving her the medication at a different time of day, or in split doses, changing meds, or adding in melatonin or another sleep aid.

If your daughter has a sleep problem, and it's truly a side effect of her meds, then punishing her for staying quiet and amusing herself while she was unable to sleep might not be the best solution.

However, if she does have trouble falling asleep, she needs to learn about what they call "sleep hygiene". That means: no lights from a lamp or an electronic screen, perhaps a soothing warm bath before bed, no snacks before bed, stopping all electronic entertainment at least an hour before bed, making sure the room is comfortable, etc. Sometimes "white noise" from a fan or sound machine is helpful. These are all discussed in great detail when one has a sleep disorder or when sleep is disturbed due to medication.

The only thing that is usually allowed is listening to audio books, or soothing music (there are cds that are intended to help the brain and body relax) on something that does not have a lit screen.

I encourage you to follow up with her doctor about the medication interfering with sleep.

You bought them. You're the parent. Keep the out of her room at night.
Have her leave them in the family room turned off. If you can't trust her,
keep them in your room.
She gets them the next day when you say she can.
Just limit her time.
You say this isn't the first time. If she doesn't comply, tell her ahead of time they get confiscated.

if it's still summer, mellow out and let it go to a degree, unless she has to go somewhere in the morning it's really not that big of a deal to stay up all night, well, as long as you aren't hearing it all and not getting your sleep because of it.

I think a good rule to put in place is that the electronics have a bedtime, in a place the kids can't get to them like the kitchen or your bedroom. An early bedtime like 7:30 pm. I don't care if my kid spends all night reading, but being on electronics bothers me! I am also known to be really mean and gee, the day after they do an all nighter I just might have tons that they have to do the next day, places to go and errands I have to go on with them... logical consequences are easy sometimes.

Glad to know that my 13 year old is not the only one doing this. Since it is summer, I am allowing it until school starts. He is learning the hard way that staying up all night isn't the greatest thing, because he is realizing when it's time to pay the piper, there are consequences to his actions.

Obviously at 13 she knows it all and doesn't need you for anything other than to give her her latest technology fix so she can over dose on it.
Way to parent.
Looks like you're done.
Wait a few years and no doubt you'll have a grandchild to raise the exact same way.

Ask her doctor about taking some melatonin to help fall asleep.

I would take away all electronics. She does not need them, but she does need sleep. It's very important!!!

As a kid I had NO electronic devices like they have today. The worst I did was read with a flashlight under the covers. :)

I will not let my kids have the electronic devices either. They just don't need them.