Cindy Snyder

Hey Everyone
I am new here and have been just lurking for a few days. My son is 11 and we started unschooling just this year right before Christmas. So far so good. Our house is soooo much more relaxed now. I had to comment on the night owl thing. My son is a night owl. Always has been. When he went to PS, from Kindergarden on, it was a fight to get him to bed at night and a fight to get him up each morning. He has always been this way. Now, he goes to bed around 10:30-11:00 ....and later and gets up around 9:30-10:00 or so.

I had a hard time at first with just "letting him" do his own thing. But I am getting better at it. He plays a lot of video games and computer games, online and off, surfs the net, etc. (He says he wants to be a video game tester.) It is hard to interest him in much of anything else. He doesn't care to read for pleasure (like chapter books ) very much, but will read game cheats, dueling cards and that sort of thing. Some comic books too. At least he reads! He is very easily bored and frustrated though and jumps from one thing to another and that worries me some. I would love it if he could be as focused as the boy with the origami....I think I will see if I can't entice him into trying out origami. I think it might be fun for both of us.

Thanks to all of you who run this list and others like it. I notice a lot of the same names on other lists I am on. I appreciate your help.

Cindy
South Carolina






----- Original Message -----
From: trektheory
To: unschoolingbasics@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 5/14/2006 5:21:41 PM
Subject: [unschoolingbasics] Re: Gushing and a question


--- In unschoolingbasics@yahoogroups.com, "Ren Allen"
<starsuncloud@...> wrote:
>
> I've got teens that stay up all night lotsa times, so we definitely
> don't follow "normal" sleep patterns.
>
> Ren
> learninginfreedom.com
>


Something I've wondered about for ages -- this idea that teens all
turn into night owls and need to sleep all morning. I've heard (not
here, but haven't heard teen sleep discussion here, either) some
people more or less say that it is a teen thing. But I have my
suspicions otherwise -- I think it is an individual thing, that with
our modern society (electric lights, computers, etc.) to aid it,
makes it more obvious.

My son and I are both morning people. I can't remember not being
on -- even as a teen, and my son, at 14, still is, and has been
since more or less birth. (He used to cluster feed and then conk
out for his "long" (2.5 hours, vs 2...) sleep of the night at 8pm
from when he was a newborn. He used to deny that he was a morning
person, but a few months ago, finally realized that if he wants to
successfully figure out a problem in a game, he is far better off if
he does it in the morning than at 9 at night!

But I also realize that when they hit puberty (and my son hasn't
yet), bodies go through big changes, and the sleep need generally
increases. For those with teens, have you seen changes in sleep
patterns? Particularly if you have/had a morning person kid?

Thanks.

Linda






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freepsgal

> It is hard to interest him in much of anything else.
> Cindy
> South Carolina

I used to think like this, but putting myself in my children's shoes
made me realize that I had unreasonable expectations. For example,
my son is 9 years old. He loves video games and playing with his
toys. He also likes to read informational type books like Usborne
and encyclopedias because he loves tidbits of information. At
first, I was concerned that he would grow up never moving beyond
those interests, but when I think back to what I was interested in
at that age, I realize he's just a kid. I wasn't thinking about
love, marriage and careers when I was a kid. Those interests didn't
sparkle within me until late teens. Then I was so eager to get a
job and get a car, and my own apartment. Basically, I was ready for
adult responsibilities and had no interest in staying a dependent
child in my mom's house. I did what I had to do to satisfy my wants.

My oldest will soon be 14 and I'm amazed at her growth in the last
few years. She's literally a young lady! She sometimes gets
annoyed at her little sister, my dd8, but I just laugh because the
little one isn't acting any different from how the older one acted
at the same age. So I know that everything is going to be just
fine. In fact, my dd14 is already thinking about what kind of car
she's going to get when she turns 16 and gets her license. Ack!
*lol*

One thing I've discovered is if I begin to show an interest in
something, I just dive in and my children follow along most of the
time. But if I were to just hand them something and suggest they do
it, they'd likely think it was boring and stupid. They have to see
me having fun to realize that I don't always choose to do boring
things. (They think my love of baths and reading is pretty lame.
*laugh*)

My ds9 is calling me into his room to see his newest creation. He
set up a car dealership and named it Wheel Deals. *rofl* We
purchased a new used car this weekend and he had a blast running
around the car lot. :)

Beth M.