Sorry for being off topic and not asking a budget question but I have read a lot of non budget related questions here in the past and so I thought I'd ask here for advise from you Parents out there of 12 yr olds(or older)of how things are going at your house with your preteen(12 yr old) Middle schoolers?
I'm wondering what time do your 12 yr olds usually go to bed or should I say usually fall asleep? my DS seems to think my ideas of bedtime are out dated and going to bed at 830/9pm(on a school night) is way too early and why can't he stay awake using his IPad until he falls asleep? are any other parents having issues with getting TV's, Ipads and phones away from their preteens? if so, how did you do it? And what is the bedtime you have given your 12 yr old?
Was also wondering what time of "time out" do you give your preteen/teen that seems to work well for your family? My preteen DS is my 3rd child but for some reason things that we have used in the past are not working well with this child and so I'm looking for some helpful and constructive ideas that have worked with other families.
Thanks for all the help
ctc917
DS 11 (soon to be 12, less than 2 months) 6th grade (not middle school here, still elementary)
Schoolnight routine:
Can play video games/watch tv until 8:50pm. Then he needs to brush teeth, and feed/water the pets.
At 9pm, he does his nightly reading for 30 minutes, then it's lights out.
On the weekends, unless we have something planned for the next day where he needs to be up early, he can stay up until midnight.
For discipline, it depends on what the situation is.
We have grounded him from going places, having people over, to his room. We take away electronics (tv/video games/kindle/etc). If he fails to do his chores, and I have to do them, he gets to do some of my housework instead (i.e. if he doesn't put away dishes/silverware/pots after I clean them, then he gets to wash them after the next meal AND put them away). If his clothes aren't in the dirty clothes basket, they don't get washed; if he needs them before I do laundry again, he can do it himself. (I will walk him through it if he asks nicely, but he needs to do the work himself.)
For attitude issues, we give him "time outs" on the couch, where he has to sit in the living room with us (instead of hiding away in his room). We don't engage with his negative attitude; if he wants to be part of the conversation we are having (and we make sure to have ones that peak his interest, like about Marvel movies or video games at some point), he needs to do so without the attitude. This one seems to change his attitude for the better much more quickly than anything else we've tried.
We make sure we talk to him and explain what is going on in our little world---he seems to cope with things better if he knows what's going on.