Ha ha.
"Coronavirus Vampires" was the title of the article forwarded to me
today.
In the author's
scenario, his kids were glued to their cell phones all night and slept during
the day. For us, it is a combination of Xbox and phones that turned our sons into creatures of the night.
We could have
canceled their phone service. We could have locked down the wi-fi after 10 pm.
My wife and I could have stayed awake and listened all night for whispering in their
bedroom.
Ha!
I mean what adult
can stay up as long as a teenager night after night to make sure they are
"in" bed. At some point, something just has to give.
And just try to wake
up a teenager for any reason, like school, and it is usually a battle. And when
there is no reason? I laugh. Good luck.
The boys won that
battle as they did for the author's family.
Now when I go to
bed, I tell the boys good night, be quiet, and wash any dirty dishes you make
during the night.
With this nocturnal
schedule and no required schoolwork for the rest of the school year, our house
has been a beacon of peace and tranquility. (Not quite, but almost.)
We always see our
boys at breakfast and then at lunch or dinner depending on when they go to
sleep and wake up.
Dinner for
breakfast, breakfast for dinner.
Perhaps McDonald's
saw this phenomena happening months ago when they made their breakfast menu
available all day.
Conspiracy theories
abound.
My neighbors have a
toddler with a "regular" sleep schedule and have not had a sitter in
over in 2 months. Ouch.
When I tell them
that we have our days free to work, take walks, and enjoy the peace and quiet,
I see the envy in their eyes.
Occasionally, my
boys will try to get their sleep schedule back on track on their own for a day
or two, but inevitably, the 12-hour teenage sleep curse happens and their
schedule goes out the window.
When school starts
again in August, three months from now, we can battle. But for now we will
enjoy the peace.
Have your kids
become vampires too?
As a side note: I am
very curious to see how the health of teenagers of the coronavirus age who have
6 months of good sleep, low school stress, and more family time is affected in
the long run.
2 comments:
I have an almost vampire. I generally make sure he is up by 10 am but some nights I've woken up at 2 am and my almost 14-year-old is still awake reading. With his phone in my room most nights, it was me that was awaken in the wee hours by a text message from his group of friends. Even though it was set to do not ring, the loud vibrate and beam of light of the awoken phone was enough to wake me up. We haven't argued about it much since we both know he can outlast me. Returning to in-person school, whenever that is will be really interesting.
That is awesome that he is reading at night. Impressive that you were able to peel away his phone from his still warm fingers.
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