Not quite a full stop . . .
. . . but something has made me slow down. It may be to do with having a thirteen-year-old in the house who keeps strange hours. I’m a light sleeper and easily woken by noises in the night. I know which doors are opening and closing, which stairs creak, and while everyone else sleeps through them, I cannot.
The next couple of days will be devoted to retraining the lad’s adolescent brain to the more normal rhythm required for (whisper it) school, before he returns to London.
Teenagers experience many changes in their lives – the body developing in startling ways, the mind posing problems and not solving them, social hurdles, academic expectations, misconceptions, skewed perceptions, peer pressure, and the awful awareness of self as neither child nor adult, not fitting any group, perpetually on the outside looking in. The grass is not greener on the other side, but it seems like it.
Add to this the change in their circadian rhythm which means that melatonin is released around two hours later than for adults or young children. This results in them wanting to stay up later and sleep longer in the morning, often in direct opposition to a requirement to rise early and prepare for school.
It is recommended that teenagers have eight to ten hours sleep a night, while they are still growing and their brains are developing rapidly. Fewer than seven hours a night leads to exhaustion, irritability, and difficulty in coping with the demands of family and school.
I remember my early teenage years, but not with great pleasure, so I have sympathy for my adolescent and pre-adolescent grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
They will survive.
Your temporary visitor is quite a nice looking lad.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Middle daughter's son.
DeleteTeenagers' bodies are indeed developing all the time, in height, weight, hairiness, breast size etc. Everyone can see the changes.
ReplyDeleteBut I am not sure about how their mind develops, partially because it can't be seen. Sometimes what comes out of an 18 year old's mouth sounds so immature that I really do worry about their brains. And their social skills.
They are certainly unpredictable, sometimes so reasonable and mature, at other times like toddlers having tantrums.
DeleteI remember needing a short nap after I got off the school bus once I reached teen years. Mother always let me nod off, eat dinner then do homework. Lots of homework as I recall with pencil and paper and heavy books, lol.
ReplyDeleteI worked with a teacher who always had a nap when she got home, after a cup of tea and a piece of cake.
DeleteThat is a great photograph ...
ReplyDeleteYes, back to school for many this coming week, and usually time for all the family to get back into the rhythm of things.
My rain dance has finally paid off LOL as I sit typing we have some much needed rain.
Have a good weekend.
All the best Jan
Well done, Jan. I hope your feet aren't too sore. 😉☔
DeleteLOL Great Reply :)
DeleteAll the best Jan
We all went through it and most of us came out the other end okay, so I suspect he will, too.
ReplyDeleteYes, we all survived, one way or another.
DeleteSounds like our Will, he's only 9 years old.
ReplyDeleteThey seem to start earlier and earlier these years!
DeletePuberty wasn‘t kind to me, and I can fully understand why teenagers often behave the way they do, as long as it‘s not really nasty or downright criminal or dangerous.
ReplyDeleteYou have a very sensible approach to it all, Janice.
It's horrible, Meike. I remember it so well and how nasty I was to my ever-loving mother.
DeleteMost teenagers need more sleep than they get, I think. I think making sure they don't have devices in their rooms at night can really help a lot. Your grandson is a handsome young man! He's lucky to have such sensible guidance and understanding from his adults. I'm sure he'll be fine. :)
ReplyDeleteWe keep telling ourselves he'll be fine . . . why should he be the exception? 😷
DeleteIn the US school starts very early, around here teens are out for the school bus well before seven. I have never understood why we don't move the hours back to allow for their sleep needs. But every time it comes up, we get the "we lived through it, so can they" mentality which defeats a pretty sensible idea. I've literally seen kids sleeping on the sidewalk when the bus arrives!
ReplyDeleteIt's an ongoing discussion which is never resolved. School starts at too young an age in UK - the September following a child's fourth birthday! - and too early in the day.
DeleteVery understanding of you-Most folks beyond the age of twenty do not remember being thirteen and how difficult the changes are.
ReplyDeleteAs "Librarian" states , adolescence was not kind.
I was a hateful teenager, a real misery. I was a little better by the time I was seventeen. 😉
DeleteYou sound insightful, compassionate, and prepared...what a lucky guy.
ReplyDeleteWe all know what's best for other people . . . 😕
ReplyDeleteAnd . . . I don't know how it works there, but here high school begins fairly early in the day. This is largely, if not entirely, due to double bussing. The same bus is used twice, once for the high school kids and once for the elementary school kids. So the older kids get the first bus when ideally, I guess it should be reversed. But then the times are somewhat more suitable for the families of younger kids. It is a very imperfect situation, however.
ReplyDeleteThere is never a perfect solution. We don't have the school bus system generally. Children are either taken to school by their parents, walk, cycle or use public transport, including trains and buses. It's not perfect, and it's too early for teenagers, but it's an 'introduction' to adult life and we can't mollycoddle them all their lives and expect them suddenly to be able to cope with university and/or living away from home. Sorry, gone off on a tangent there. (Some things never change. 😉)
DeleteA handsome young man. Hope he can adapt to a better schedule
ReplyDeleteThank you, Ann. I'm sure he will.
DeleteAnd what a fine looking teenager he is too Janice. Looks to be such a lovely young man. I have just had 2 eleven/nearly twelve year old boys for the day & I am shattered 😉so I hope you can get him to adapt to his new schedule okay.
ReplyDeleteHandsome grand. All you say is true - preteen and teen years are so tough.
ReplyDeleteSome schools open much earlier than others. They are apparently not in the loop as to how teens operate.
ReplyDeleteYour grandson has good genes, me thinks.
ReplyDeleteMy parents were very insistent about us being in bed by 8pm until I was about fourteen, and I think I used to get up about 6.30 to get ready for school. It wasn't a hardship to get up as I had a decent sleep. But goodness knows what I would have been like with electronic devices. I am bad enough now. I would hope they would have been banned in our bedrooms.
I don't remember my own "developing" years at all so I guess it was smooth sailing like the rest of my life. Possibly I was too busy reading books or playing on the beach, being the loner I always was, which might have helped as I didn't get drawn into whatever angst groups of girls got into.
ReplyDeleteHere in Australia school starts at 9am, so teenagers get to sleep in to a reasonable hour and get to school by walking or riding bikes or pubic transport. We don't have dedicated school buses unless one is hired to arrive at a school to pick up kids going on an excursion to the zoo or museum.
Oh Dear!! "pubLic" transport, PUBLIC, PUBLIC, not pubic... so sorry.
ReplyDeleteAha! So that's what went awry. I never did outgrow the circadian rhythm of my youth. Your grand is one handsome fellow. ;-)
ReplyDeleteHe is such a handsome lad. I wish him only the very best in his life. Your description of youth was perfection.
ReplyDeleteI used to sleep till midday when I was a teenager. Now I'm lucky if I get 5 hours' sleep.
ReplyDeleteSuch a cutie. The youth brings out the youthfulness in us...or does it. They do have a way of reminding us when we were younger and had the energy they have. My bed time now days...9:00 pm...wake up at 7:00 am. I think I get plenty of sleep.
ReplyDeleteMy grandson is at the same stage. He managed the time transition, but I imagine it wasn't easy. He could sleep until 10 during the summer.
ReplyDeleteFrankie is a beautiful boy. It's always a difficult world to navigate, especially so at this tender age. I wouldn't return to my early teen years for all the tea in China. I hope Frankie has a good school year ahead of him.
ReplyDeleteThat is a tough age -- lots of demands from within and without! I was never a late sleeper, even as a teenager. That melatonin change never kicked in with me!
ReplyDeleteCarlos slept through Hurricane Katrina when we lived in Miami but if a cat jumps on a chair I hear it and am wide awake!
ReplyDeleteMy grandson is 13, he goes to sleep when we do around 10pm and he sleeps through the night most nights, thankfully.
ReplyDelete