A Bedtime Free House

Last night the kids watched a movie after their dad and I went to bed. This is not unusual. The kids have been setting their own bedtimes since they were wee little. We've only had one rule from the beginning. If you are going to stay up late -- or at least past the point that other people in the house have begun to go to bed -- you just have to be respectful that others are sleeping. Staying up is fine. Keeping up people who would prefer to be sleeping is not.

I can barely recall maybe a handful of times when they were younger that I had to get up and say something to them about being too loud. Occasionally things would get rowdy when they had friends over, but even then, it seems like the kids were as likely to get things quieted down on their own as need my help.

The girls still share a room and it has only been since the oldest started college that I've heard grumbles between them about when the lights were turned out. The last time it came up, the oldest agreed that if she still had studying she wanted to do once her sister wanted to go to bed, she'd bring her stuff down to the kitchen table to work.

The only times I have made suggestions about bedtimes were when something was going on the next day that required us to be up and out of the house earlier than usual. And even then I always offered it as a suggestion. We have never had arguments about bedtime in our house. I have three teens that go to bed, most often, at what seems like fairly reasonable hours to me. They get up on their own. And they are pretty good at recognizing when they are sleep deprived and they take responsibility for fixing it.

Throughout this past summer, and it seems much of last winter, as well, the kids (often all 3 of them) joined my husband and I for our early morning walks, 3 days a week. This meant they were rolling out of bed at 5 am most mornings. Now I must admit here, that I had strongly encouraged each of them to find some physical activity that they enjoyed doing. As they'd gotten older, we were spending far less time at the park and playing outside. The recreation classes that they had once enjoyed participating in were no longer quite so plentiful for their age group. I admit, I was concerned that they were becoming couch slugs.

So we had given them a parental speech about maintaining an active lifestyle, and had told them that they could join us on morning walks until they figured out what they preferred to do. I was surprised, quite frankly, that it stuck. They, in fact, were quite often better about getting up and around in the morning than I was. Our morning walks became even more regular. For a long stretch while the weather was nice, we were walking 5 days a week!

This past week we've had morning temperatures in the single digits and head colds running through the ranks. The coordinated morning rise time has been disrupted. I'm starting my day with a few minutes of alone time. It feels like it has been many years since that has happened.

Last night, the kids stayed up and watched a movie. As I drifted off to sleep, I heard them talking and laughing. It must have been a scary movie. I woke up later to a shriek, followed by much louder talking and laughing. My husband set up in bed and called the kids in. They quieted immediately, and it was kind of funny to see them sheepishly gather in the doorway. Or maybe that was just a memory of days gone by. I am pretty adept at closing my eyes and drifting off again, but I heard the oldest one say, "I know. You're sleeping. We'll be quiet."