Teen Son Sleeps Very Late, Should I Let This Go?

My 14 year old son is exactly like this! He will happily sleep till noon every day if he can. One of the best things we did this summer was sign him up for a few things. Right now he is doing a high school PE credit which is 3 weeks of sporty things from 8 to noon each week day. On the weekends he's sleeping till noon unless we make him get up bc we are doing something as a family. The other things he did that were productive this summer was 1. help teach a video making camp for a couple weeks and 2. he did a 5 day backpacking camp. Besides these things he has been sleeping in and we have been letting him. It's summer. I'm hoping the self motivation gene will kick in one day.

my teens slept as late as they could. they'd stay up until the wee hours and sleep until early afternoon any time they could.

when i was a teen and in my early 20s i loved to do it too.

and since we homeschooled, they got to do it a lot.

yeah, i heard 'omg they'll never learn how to get up if you don't teach them to.' nonsense. i had to get up early for school and then work my whole life, but i never 'learned' how to do it. i did it when i had to and slept in when i could.

my boys handled college and now work just the same. my older, who is 31, still likes to stay up and game until the wee hours and sleep the next day when he can get away with it.

functional adults, which is what we want our teens to become, can handle weird circadian rhythms without being 'trained' out of it.

i miss my teen zombies.
khairete
S.

My girls are the same way during down time. My 15 yo goes to a theatre camp so she has to get up in the morning. The weekends are another story.

Our son is home from college and will be going back mid August.
We joke that he's become a vampire - but he loves garlic!
He stays up till 2 or 3 am and gets up at 2pm.

I can remember when he was tiny and got up at 6am whether I wanted him to or not!

Sleep is good.
It's important for brain development and not enough people place enough importance on it.
During the school year many kids are very sleep deprived.
It's summer!
Let him sleep when ever and however long he wants.
Waking up for school will be a rude awakening come September but he'll adjust.

I don't think it's abnormal for your son to sleep so much. Kids these days are generally sleep deprived! Let him sleep -- his growing mind and body probably needs it.

I remember when I was in high school, I woke up at 3 p.m. on the weekends a few times! I also remember that one weekday in high school, I was so tired I decided to take a quick catnap around 5 p.m. (I usually didn't take naps) and ended up waking up the next morning at 7 a.m.! My parents never made an issue of it and sleeping a lot did not make me lazy or underachieve in school -- I have a graduate degree.

So long as he does what he's supposed to, I wouldn't worry.

I think it's pretty typical, but whether it's okay depends on what else he's doing. If he enjoys staying up late and sleeping late, and if that's not interfering with your family life, maybe it's okay. If you're all tiptoeing and unable to do anything until 1:30, that's a problem. He's engaged with friends, and if he's talking rather than just texting, that's social interaction which is good. If you have no suspicion that he's hanging out in his room, either isolated or depressed, or involved with drugs/drinking after you all go to bed and he's up until 4 or 5, that's okay if you can stand it. It he's stuck at home because he and his friends are too young to drive, and if there's no one home during the week to chauffeur him around, then what are you going to do about it? If he's not cooperating at all with the family or if he's balking at the chores you give him, let him know that those are signs of selfishness and immaturity, and you'll take that into consideration when he wants privileges. Overall, keep an eye on his nutrition and his activity level, and don't let him regress too far.

I don't really think there's a problem with him sleeping late. It is summer, and one of the best things about summer (according to most tweens & teens) is getting to sleep late.

I would try to give him other things to do and not let him just play on his phone lal day or play video games all day. My boys would do that if I let them. I think many kids would. I do let them play more video games in the summer, and there are a few days here and there where I give them more time for that. But I try to give them plenty of other things to do so that they are not spending most of their summer staring at a screen.

I do give them more chores to do, though I'm not great about being consistent. I also involved them in activities. They have both been fairly busy this summer, so when they get a couple of days with nothing scheduled, I sometimes let them be and let them play.

I had two sons, now adults and I also remember that brief time in my life when I was able to sleep like that and wish I could have that back sometimes.
This is so normal. I have worked in a middle school, a high school previously and so many teenagers are like this. Then the very same ones show up at 6:30 or 7:00 for band practice and swimming and possibly go back to sleeping long hours on the weekends or holidays. We are all young only once. Enjoy the quiet while he sleeps. Don't worry - enjoy him. Now one of my sons lives on the other side of the country and what I wouldn't give sometimes to peak into his room and stare at those feet hanging out from under the covers and a couple of puffy snores. Whatever the time it was.

I think the sleeping pattern isn't out of the ordinary for his age. But he should have something better to do during the weekdays than being on his electronics and just hanging out. A job, an activity, camp, volunteering, time with a grandparent or relative doing something together, traveling, or anything that gets him out of the house to be someplace.

My 16 year old has for the past several years had trouble with her sleep cycle in the summer. She gets insomnia, and its worse in the summer. One year she actually got the point she was totally reversed, up all night, sleeping all day. This summer she starting taking a small dose of melatonin (over the counter) at bedtime (under her pediatrician's direction and supervision) and she falls asleep hard in about 30 minutes, and she reports getting a much better sleep than previous summers. And amazingly, she is naturally waking up earlier as well. She usually wakes some time between 8am-10am, and isn't even very groggy. I'm pretty sure once she starts having to be at school again at 7:30 am, she won't need it.

My kids have different sleep patterns. One is like this. However, he's now working so he's out of it. When not working - he does this. Very normal/typical.

I just make sure they do 'something' (mow grass, socialize, etc.). They tend to get bored and need to do something anyhow - so I don't concern myself too much.

Sounds like the teen years.

Once they start working part time or get involved in stuff, it's either a whirlwind or total downtime.

I loved my lazy downtime days as a teen (still do when you get them) :)

Your teen "zombie" is up on the video game! My son loves to play on his Playstation also but he has to b in bed by a certain time. If you check on him, you'll see that's what's going on. I realize he's out for the summer but you should reel him in and start setting some ground rules cause school is getting ready to start.If you don't, he'll continue throughout the school year and he'll be SLEEP/GROGGY IN CLASS!!!!