Marty & Mary Alterman

I have an eleven year old son who is a major night owl. I have been
waking at three in the morning to find that his light is still on and
sometimes it's a struggle to get him up by noon the next day. Our
lives are pretty much adjusted to that schedule but sometimes I worry
that he's not getting enough daylight and social time. I wanted to
hear from others who have had that experience with their teens, if it
worked, if it was a problem, what if anything they did to change it or
accept it, etc.., etc... I should add that this is the son that was
labeled "dyslexic" and for awhile we were using an Orton-Gillingham
tutor (about nine months) who was also a therapist...and she started
getting kind of nosy, and decided that because he slept in he must be
depressed...and started asking probing questions at which point we
discontinued the tutoring...my son was pretty sick of the dull, drill
and kill approach by then anyway...and now we read paintball magazines
together which is way more exciting for him. and P.S. my sister who
knows my son very well and is a psychiatrist has told me numerous
times that he is definitely not a depressed personality. Though, I
must say, he is a very complex guy. thanks for any comments!

Marty & Mary Alterman

I have an eleven year old son who is a major night owl. I have been
waking at three in the morning to find that his light is still on and
sometimes it's a struggle to get him up by noon the next day. Our
lives are pretty much adjusted to that schedule but sometimes I worry
that he's not getting enough daylight and social time. I wanted to
hear from others who have had that experience with their teens, if it
worked, if it was a problem, what if anything they did to change it or
accept it, etc.., etc... I should add that this is the son that was
labeled "dyslexic" and for awhile we were using an Orton-Gillingham
tutor (about nine months) who was also a therapist...and she started
getting kind of nosy, and decided that because he slept in he must be
depressed...and started asking probing questions at which point we
discontinued the tutoring...my son was pretty sick of the dull, drill
and kill approach by then anyway...and now we read paintball magazines
together which is way more exciting for him. and P.S. my sister who
knows my son very well and is a psychiatrist has told me numerous
times that he is definitely not a depressed personality. Though, I
must say, he is a very complex guy. thanks for any comments!

Cindy Fox

Why does he have to get up by noon??

Is he complaining about not getting enough friends time? Can his
friends come over in the afternoon or evening or can you go there?
Can't you all get together at 2 in the afternoon or some such?

Is he happy?

Haha, daylight time - we try to hide from it now in AZ! :) My 14
year old wants to paint his room black and turn it into a recording
studio (which btw, if anyone knows a good source for used recording
equipt, do send offline to me! :)

We're all night owls! Except my husband. :) And that's only
because he chose to take a job - when he was the stay at home
person, he was on the same timezone we were. Since I have my own
business and it's database/computer related, I can do most of it at
anytime, just need a little overlap with client 9-5 time. For a
while, my husband thought we should all get up earlier and still
makes the occasional comment about 'sleeping in' as do some of our
friends, which gets old at times. I don't make fun of them for being
in bed by 10 (which I can't even imagine). Okay, I did make fun of
my husband when he went to bed at 8 or 9, but I've stopped!

I have yet to hear any argument that holds water about when someone
should go to bed or get up as long as they are happy and getting
enough sleep. :)

I went to traditional school and continually had a hard time getting
up so early. It didn't 'train' me in any way. In fact, I got a job
right out of high school working at the airport which is a 24/7
operation and I was never happier. 3pm-11pm shift or 11pm-7am shift
work find for me! :) I like coming home when the world is waking
up. I love that early morning time, but as the last thing in the
day, not the first! :)

I'd be happy doing that, but that would definately put us out of the
social loop, so we're just a little off. My 6 year old usually goes
to bed about midnight or 1am and gets up about 10 or 11 and my 14
year old maybe goes to bed about 2 or 3 and gets up about noon or
1. I go to bed anywhere from midnight to three (just after the 6
year old) and get up about 8 or 9 or sometimes 10. :) Works for
us. :) Breakfast at noon, dinner with daddy and snacks late at
night. :)

We are mostly homebodies, so no problem most of the time, but when
we do schedule something, we try to schedule it in the afternoon. We
have a weekly playgroup at 1pm on Tuesdays and otherwise, just
whatever we arrange or comes up - we always suggest afternoon! :)

If it's something that's ONLY in the morning, like tomorrow we have
a play to go to (Sword in the Stone) we'll make it down there by
9:30am, but our day will be a little off. As long as it's only once
in a while, we can handle it and just make up for the sleep lost
another day.

Growing up, my parents always told me what what the right and wrong
way to do everything, but I never got a copy of the manual! :)

c.

--- In [email protected], "Marty & Mary Alterman"
<malterman@...> wrote:
>
> I have an eleven year old son who is a major night owl. I have
been
> waking at three in the morning to find that his light is still on
and
> sometimes it's a struggle to get him up by noon the next day. Our
> lives are pretty much adjusted to that schedule but sometimes I
worry
> that he's not getting enough daylight and social time. I wanted to
> hear from others who have had that experience with their teens, if
it
> worked, if it was a problem, what if anything they did to change
it or
> accept it, etc.., etc... I should add that this is the son that was
> labeled "dyslexic" and for awhile we were using an Orton-Gillingham
> tutor (about nine months) who was also a therapist...and she
started
> getting kind of nosy, and decided that because he slept in he must
be
> depressed...and started asking probing questions at which point we
> discontinued the tutoring...my son was pretty sick of the dull,
drill
> and kill approach by then anyway...and now we read paintball
magazines
> together which is way more exciting for him. and P.S. my sister
who
> knows my son very well and is a psychiatrist has told me numerous
> times that he is definitely not a depressed personality. Though, I
> must say, he is a very complex guy. thanks for any comments!
>

Sandra Dodd

On May 3, 2006, at 10:11 AM, Marty & Mary Alterman wrote:

> I have been
> waking at three in the morning to find that his light is still on and
> sometimes it's a struggle to get him up by noon the next day.

Is there a reason he needs to be up by noon?

I used to say I wanted my kids to get up by noon. Then we moved to
others in the house only needing to be quiet until noon, and now
sometimes we're quiet longer if someone's still asleep.

I used to tell them it was fine for them to stay up late as long as
they were in bed by 5:00, because I was embarrassed to think their
dad would find them awake still. Then I found out he though it was
interesting, and would go in and see what Kirby was doing (it was
always Kirby) and get to say bye to him.

It was arbitrary, and designed to protect my potentially-embarrassed
feelings, so I let it drop years ago.

To say "it's a struggle" gives the struggle not only power but makes
it an entity. That's not correct.
Someone is struggling. Are you struggling to wake him up? Is he
struggling to stay asleep? Why struggle?

Marty used to stay up late, but once he had a job, he would go to
sleep nine or ten hours before he wanted to wake up. Lately, that is
9:30. He added an hour; he used to go to sleep at 8:30. He's 17
years old and decides and executes his own unnaturally early bedtime
so he can get up at 5:30, so he can have a leisurely breakfast and
watch the weather before he goes outside to work.

That's what can happen if you let a kid choose his own hours.

-=-Though, I must say, he is a very complex guy. -=-

Unschooling works the same way for complex guys as simple and plain
guys.
His complexity is him!

Sandra

[email protected]

:

>>>> I have been
> waking at three in the morning to find that his light is still on and
> sometimes it's a struggle to get him up by noon the next day.<<<<<

>>Is there a reason he needs to be up by noon?

I used to say I wanted my kids to get up by noon. Then we moved to
others in the house only needing to be quiet until noon, and now
sometimes we're quiet longer if someone's still asleep.<<

After working years on 3rd shift, 4 days per week, (5:00 pm to 2:30 am) I
have completely let go of wanting everyone up by a certain time. And I worked
with a lot of people who worked 1st shift, 10:00 pm to 8:00. If someone can
work those hours, more power to them!! They will make more money (night
differential) and it frees up your daytime or afternoon to do whatever you want
to do! You're not at work while everything is open (banks, library, etc), and
usually the senior workers aren't there so the work atmosphere is much more
laid back.

So, I kind of look at it as a plus. After working 3rd shift for so long, I
easily switched back to being a "daytime" person, though we are all late
risers. My philosophy has been, if someone's body is telling them, "keep
sleeping" there's a reason, and I let them sleep. I have one daughter that doesn't
get up till close to noon each day, and at midnight she's completely awake.
If we absolutely HAVE to be someplace early, she can make herself get up, and
she just takes a nap in the afternoon.

Nancy B.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

> Growing up, my parents always told me what what the right and wrong
> way to do everything, but I never got a copy of the manual! :)


It was The Bible, in the tradition I grew up in. But only the parts
the parents felt like quoting, then augmented by a few quotes they
THOUGHT were in there but were actually Shakespeare (and not always
the best characters to be emulating), or Samuel Butler (that 'spare
the rod' thing, which is kind of a HOOT in context and there's info
here: http://sandradodd.com/s/rod )

The main thing binding my parents was the "honor thy father and thy
mother," which they took to mean to do what they said and make your
kids do the same things. They seemed to think that "the rules" went
back in an unbroken chain to vaguely Jesus or Adam, and that that's
just the way it was supposed to be.

And then there's that charming but hypocritical Benjamin Franklin and
his alleged penning (maybe just publication of what others had been
saying) of
Early to bed and early to rise
Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

First, Franklin was an infamous partier. And second, in those days,
those who got up first and went to bed first were servants, and they
weren't likely to be getting any wealthier.

Sandra

Cris Kenski

my 11 yr old and I are in night owl mode atm.

just one of the things we did yesterday was go to the park (after stopping
at McD for breakfast- well our dinner). it was raining when we left then
stopped when we got to the park - very beautiful after a early morning
shower, just before the sunrise. Near the riverbed we found a couple of
fossils, got a wee muddy, skipped stones and joked around - dh was with us
and we had the park to ourselves. loved it!
When we were ready to go we stopped to look for 4-leaf clovers (I remember a
Bill Nye show where he could not find any, was a long time ago, I think he
said they did not exist - if I remember correctly, it was the episode where
he was talking about the paranormal) we found about 10, lol
ds rolled around the wet grass for a bit (very glad it was pretty warm out,
it was about 9am by then)
dh and ds watched a couple of DS9 shows then ds read a strategy guide for
one of his games before nodding off.

it was a good day ;)

Cris

Melanie Hendershot

Just wanted to reply and let you know you're not alone. My ds is 15 and loves to stay up all night and sleep during the day. I work four days a week so I try to get him to sleep at night and be up during the day so I can spend more time with him on my days off but he gradually starts staying up later and later until he's back up all night. He plays Guild Wars on the computer and talks to his friends with his headset. That's his social outlet. Otherwise he's pretty much a homebody. It'll be interesting to see what happens when he turns 16 and wants a job. He'll have to be up during the day then. Minors can't work past 10 pm here on the weeknights, and midnight on the weekends. If you'd like to chat more you can e-mail me privately anytime. :-)

Blessings,
Melanie

Marty & Mary Alterman <malterman@...> wrote: I have an eleven year old son who is a major night owl. I have been
waking at three in the morning to find that his light is still on and
sometimes it's a struggle to get him up by noon the next day. Our
lives are pretty much adjusted to that schedule but sometimes I worry
that he's not getting enough daylight and social time. I wanted to
hear from others who have had that experience with their teens, if it
worked, if it was a problem, what if anything they did to change it or
accept it, etc.., etc... I should add that this is the son that was
labeled "dyslexic" and for awhile we were using an Orton-Gillingham
tutor (about nine months) who was also a therapist...and she started
getting kind of nosy, and decided that because he slept in he must be
depressed...and started asking probing questions at which point we
discontinued the tutoring...my son was pretty sick of the dull, drill
and kill approach by then anyway...and now we read paintball magazines
together which is way more exciting for him. and P.S. my sister who
knows my son very well and is a psychiatrist has told me numerous
times that he is definitely not a depressed personality. Though, I
must say, he is a very complex guy. thanks for any comments!






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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Pamela Sorooshian

On May 6, 2006, at 9:11 AM, Melanie Hendershot wrote:

> Just wanted to reply and let you know you're not alone. My ds is 15
> and loves to stay up all night and sleep during the day.

This is what almost all teenagers would do, if they had the flexible
and free lives that our unschooled kids have. It is built into their
body development. Maybe it comes from putting young adults on all-
night guard duty or something? <G>

> I work four days a week so I try to get him to sleep at night and
> be up during the day so I can spend more time with him on my days
> off but he gradually starts staying up later and later until he's
> back up all night.

Can you manage something different? Can you switch YOUR schedule to
suit his? Can you take a long nap one day so that you can be up
during the night with him?

It might also be that you have to face a fact of life that he might
prefer his time online with his friends than additional time with
you. That isn't so much a reflection of his relationship with you as
the reality that he's emotionally getting ready to be more
independent. Be sure that you don't take it personally.

> He plays Guild Wars on the computer and talks to his friends with
> his headset. That's his social outlet.

My now-18 year old did the same thing - not Guild Wars, but online
role-playing games - all her friends were online ones. She did
theater activities (in real life) but didn't develop a social life
through that. In the past year, she's made an effort to meet some of
her online friends, in person - and that has been very cool. She's
also made a large group of really good in-person friends (it has to
do with her getting old enough to be able to hang out with the
college-age kids) and she's turned into a social butterfly - stays
out late, spends the night at friends' houses, has dates, goes to
clubs and goes dancing.

> Otherwise he's pretty much a homebody. It'll be interesting to see
> what happens when he turns 16 and wants a job.

This is a non-issue --- my three stay-up-all-night kids have had no
problem at all getting up for jobs or other activities that they've
chosen to do in the mornings. I've known dozens of teen unschoolers
who spent their nights online or out socializing - they've all been
able to adjust, easily, to early morning schedules, when they wanted
to do so.

> He'll have to be up during the day then. Minors can't work past 10
> pm here on the weeknights, and midnight on the weekends.

Even if he got a full-time job, he might get one where he works at
from 1 pm to 10 pm on weekdays. He could still sleep until noon. And
he's probably NOT going to want to work full time, right? So he
might work more like 6 pm to 10 pm - most jobs for teenagers are
things like video stores or fast food or other retail jobs - those
are more likely to be in the evenings, anyway.

There is some good scientific information about teens and sleep on
the National Home Education Network website - look in the
"Homeschooling Help" menu at the top and select "High School and
Beyond." Page way down to the sleep information.

-pam

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Gold Standard

>>My ds is 15 and loves to stay up all night and sleep during the day.<<

12 yo ds has been a 3am to bed and noontime or so riser for the past year.
I've done my best to adjust my schedule to meet his needs, though I have to
say that dh and I have worked together on this one. Of late I have been
doing some work outside our home and am gone for a part of the afternoon. So
dh has been meeting his needs in the afternoon and I do night time things
with him, since I can stay up later than dh is able to. The other night, a
Tuesday night I believe, ds and I went to see a 10:30 showing of RV. It was
a blast! Only a few curious looks :o)

17 yo ds has been a night time guy his whole life. 16 yo ds varies. 14 yo dd
is to bed by 10 and up by 7:30 like clockwork. She appears to be the anomaly
in our family! And lately, she has been up in the middle of the night, so
maybe that is changing.

Two of them have had jobs, and they performed responsibilities just
fine...no problems with that. The jobs were sought by them and they wanted
to do them well. I can remember one time for each of them when they were
sleep-deprived on the job...they learned they didn't like it...a true
inspiration for figuring out how to not let it happen. It only took once.

On my own I would probably be in bed around 11 and up around 7...but not so
much in this time of our lives. I want to adjust my schedule to theirs...I
am enjoying them while they are here.

Jacki

Sandra Dodd

On May 6, 2006, at 1:36 PM, Gold Standard wrote:

> The other night, a
> Tuesday night I believe, ds and I went to see a 10:30 showing of
> RV. It was
> a blast! Only a few curious looks :o)


Grocery shopping just before the store closes can be really
comfortable too!
We've been to some late-night movies, and out to restaurants.

Holly wanted to go and practice driving the other night. At 10:00
Sunday night we found a big empty parking lot and I let her drive as
much as she wanted to. We had nice talks, and I noticed that, just
as with her unicycle, she seemed much to prefer to turn left.

Sandra

Angela S.

Many of you may remember me posting about getting our first horse a year and
a half ago after attending the Live and Learn Conference in MA and
participating in Barbara Sher's workshop. It seemed like such an impossible
dream at the time but I was able to look at the reality of what stood
between us and our dream of horse ownership, then I was able to address
those issues and make it happen. It was the beginning of a wonderful
journey for us~ an incredible learning/loving experience.



I am not sure if I wrote about the purchase or our second horse last summer,
but Leigh, my 11 yo dd, took ownership of Sugar, our first horse, and we
purchased a second horse for Lilly (8 at the time) named Snickers.
Unfortunately, over the next few months we came to the realization that
Snickers just wasn't going to work out. (she bucked and spooked and spun
and was just too much horse for Lilly once she got in shape) We ended up
putting her up for sale last fall.



In January, someone came to look at her. We explained the problems we were
having with her. She asked us if we had found an appropriate mount for Lilly
yet. We told her no we hadn't. She offered us a trade.our mare for her
older gelding. We went to meet Skippy and try him out and even though we
weren't positive that he would work out, we felt good about the trade
because he was at least a safe horse that we felt we could work with and if
not, we knew we could sell him more easily because he didn't buck or take
off on you, he was only a bit on the quick side and a little nervous. And
we knew that Snickers was going to a good knowledgeable home where they
could handle her issues. It was almost too good to be true.



Anyway, Skippy is working out working out really well and we love him a lot!
A couple months ago we tossed around the idea of building a small barn and
riding arena at home and in the end we decided to do it. (it's always scary
going further into debt but in this case, it's a win-win situation for us.
Our barn loan payment will about equal our board payments and it'll increase
the value of our property to boot.) I finally feel like I know enough about
horses to care for them ourselves (it's amazing what hands on experience
will do for you) and I feel very comfortable with handling both of our
horses and their quirks.



The wonderful and latest news is that our barn is almost finished! Our
fencing is all up and in about a week our horses will be coming to live at
home. Because we won't be working at the boarding barn anymore (we shovel
stalls and water 16+- horses 7 days a week most weeks in exchange for part
of our board) we will have a lot more time to enjoy our own horses. We'll
be able to look out our windows and see our favorite furry friends at any
time of the day or night. We'll have a lot more time to just enjoy them and
hang out with them and we are really excited!



Our last name begins with an S and our horses' names both begin with an S
and so we decided to name our farm "Big S Farm." Say that three times fast!
LOL!



I made a blog to show some pictures of our new barn if you want to check it
out. www.bigsfarm.blogspot.com <http://www.bigsfarm.blogspot.com/>





Angela

game-enthusiast@...

_____



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Nancy Wooton

The subject header, "unschooling horses," made me think. Horses have
to be schooled frequently; in fact, every time they are ridden, they
are being schooled, for better or worse. Most people know horses will
walk off and graze if an inexperienced rider lets them, for instance.
The term "unschooled" is a bad thing when applied to horses. We human
unschoolers make it mean something new. Ah, the beauty of an evolving
language!

On May 6, 2006, at 6:03 PM, Angela S. wrote:

> Many of you may remember me posting about getting our first horse

(FYI, Angela, I looked at your blog, then looked for your location
after seeing that steeply pitched barn roof! I knew you must have snow
;-) You might want to rethink jumping the horse with the sore knees...

Nancy in year-round riding San Diego <g>

Angela S.

<<(FYI, Angela, I looked at your blog, then looked for your location
after seeing that steeply pitched barn roof! I knew you must have snow
;-) You might want to rethink jumping the horse with the sore knees...>>



Thanks Nancy,

I actually finally got a hold of the vet that does acupuncture and
chiropractic and she said to wait till she gets a chance to see him. Good
advice. I don't actually think he has 'sore' knees but I do think that
maybe something in his shoulder is out of whack and it does need to be
addressed. It's sometimes hard to make these judgment calls when you see
the horse going and he seems so sound. His stumbles sometimes kind of out
of the blue and I wasn't sure at first if it was just him or if he had
something going on. I finally wrote in to a horse list, after talking in
person about it to everyone I know and I think I figured it out. A couple
months ago he fell on some ice and now that I think back, that was about the
time he started stumbling. I am so anxious for the vet to come and work on
him. She has done wonders with other horses that I know personally,
including our mare when her pelvis was out last year.



I do think language is a funny thing and I thought about that when I wrote
Unschooling horses as the title...







Angela ~ very excited to see the barn coming along

game-enthusiast@...

_____



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

s.waynforth

>
>
>
>
> Our last name begins with an S and our horses' names both begin with an S
> and so we decided to name our farm "Big S Farm." Say that three times
> fast!
> LOL!
>

Hee Hee! That was fun.

Schuyler

[email protected]

Hello Angela,
I'm fairly new here and not even sure if I ever intro. myself. I just wanted
to respond to you about your adventures with horses. (I'm Nancy, Mom to 21 yo
ds, living out on his own and unschooling Mom to 2 dd's, 11 & 12)

Congrats on your horses, barn, pasture AND arena! Your barn looks awesome!
Love your horses too! Lots of work, eh? (Been there done that! :o) But oh SO
worth it! There is nothing like looking out your window and seeing your own
horses in your own back yard. I was raised with horses until I moved out of the
house and always missed them in my life. (I lived and breathed horses, animals
and art as a kid and still do <g>) We just moved to a small farm (about 3 yrs.
ago) to do the same thing you are and I'm here to say, it never goes out of
your system! We were fortunate enough to have 2 barns already here when we moved
in. One is a huge 3 story, beautiful, 100 yr. old hay barn and it's attached
to our home! (part of the house is actually in the barn and we plan on adding
more "some day") Sort of different but, we like it. When we first moved in, my
neighbor told me that she just knew someone "a little different" would move
into it! (I took that as a compliment <g>) She is an UNschooler too! What are
the odds! Our animals stay out back in the pole barn though. :o) We had to build
stalls, a "run in" and put up a pasture too our first year here. This summer
we are going to put up another pasture so we can graze them. The work is never
ending but it's a fun work!

Thanks for sharing!
Nancy


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

KB

--- In [email protected], "Marty & Mary Alterman"
<malterman@...> wrote:
>
> I have an eleven year old son who is a major night owl. I have been
> waking at three in the morning to find that his light is still on and
> sometimes it's a struggle to get him up by noon the next day. Our
>and decided that because he slept in he must be
> depressed...
>
I'm so relieved to hear other teens are staying up late and connecting
on line. Social life is limited for my 15 yr. old son but he does
communicate with others on Halo2 on line, and of course, AIM. When I
realised that this was his major social outlet, my ideas about video
games changed drastically. Does anyone know of a way for home school
late night gamers could IM or something without me worrying who he's
talking to?
Anyway, I've thought about depression (DS was dx'd w/depression, GAD
and all sorts of anxiety stuff), too, but if he is maybe staying up
late and sleeping late will help him out, help him heal, rather than
trying to force "life" on him. In the meantime, although staying up
late is a good option for him. DH and I go to bed at the normal "50
year olds" time. No other kids at home. I figure it's DS alone time
since we hang together from the time he gets up at around noon until
10 or 11 pm. Lucky for me, most days I work from home in the a.m. and
can adjust other commitment.

Sandra Dodd

On May 9, 2006, at 7:15 PM, KB wrote:

> Does anyone know of a way for home school
> late night gamers could IM or something without me worrying who he's
> talking to?


Rephrase, please.

Some words were left out.