My daughter Meredith is a night owl. It isn’t a new development; she was the child we had to lock IN her room at night once she learned to walk and turn a doorknob.
Some people may think we were cruel for doing that. We weren’t. It was troubleshooting at its best, actually. Meredith’s room was next to ours, we could hear her clearly through a monitor, and the lock protected her from the dangers of roaming the house while the rest of us slept.
Fast forward 13 years, and she still stays up past the time the rest of us are sleeping. That is unless I’m working late.
Although I wouldn’t call Meredith a true insomniac, she does not get tired until 2:00-ish a.m. Not even when she works out in the yard all day with us. We’ve tested that theory a lot lately.
When she turned 11, Jeff and I agreed she could stay up until she could fall asleep so long as she was in her room, not disturbing anyone else.
When the kids “bedtime” came around in the evening, she’d head to her room with a couple of textbooks and subject notebooks.
When I woke in the morning, Meredith would have half of her school completed. I’d wake her around 10:00 to complete the work we needed to do together, and it worked well for both of us.
Since we’ve moved to the lake house seven months ago, she doesn’t have a bedroom where she can work late into the night. And it may be another year or two before we have the cash to extend the back of the house to create private bedrooms.
So, when we all head to bed, Meredith stays up in the living area and does all of her homeschool. She usually begins around 10:00 p.m. and wraps up around 2:00 or 3:00 a.m.
Depending on what time she goes to bed, she sets her alarm to get up at 10:00 or 11:00 a.m.
Respecting My Kids’ Internal Clocks
It used to bother me when friends dropped by the house, and Meredith would still be asleep. That was my issue, not Meredith’s.
She’s not lazy, and I’m a homeschooling parent who chooses to work “with” my kids internal time clocks instead of against them.
If people are saying “Wow, did you know that Heather lets her kids sleep until all hours of the day?” behind my back, so be it.
That’d be pretty pathetic, but hey, I’m not discounting it could happen.
What I don’t want others to do is criticize Meredith. She works diligently during those 4-5 hours, and often, she will work an additional hour with me when she wakes up in the late morning.
Besides, Meredith wants to be an ER nurse one day. We both figure this is good practice for her.
Though none of Meredith’s friends, certainly not her public school friends, maintain the same schedule she does, we were pretty sure that there are others in the blogosphere who do.
We decided a quick Insomniac’s Guide to Homeschooling at Night was in order. It also might help other parents come to terms with their kids’ need to study on a different time frame than the rest of the family.
How to Homeschool When Everyone Else Is Asleep
1. Devise a Switch. In order for railway trains to move from one track to another at a junction or spur, they require a railroad switch. A switch, also called a turnout, is a pair of tapering rails that move laterally between two different sets of tracks.
Photo Credit: Wikipedia
Meredith’s “switch” between whatever family entertainment was going on to her schoolwork is taking a long, uninterrupted shower.
The act of taking a shower serves as her brain’s cue. Whatever she was doing before the “switch” (watching Netflix, taking a boat ride, reading a novel, washing dishes, etc… ), ends when she hops in that shower. When she steps out, she has successfully switched to the new homeschool track.
2. Avoid Sweets or Caffeine. It seems counterintuitive; I know. But, high-sugar snacks and caffeine do not give the extra “oomph” necessary for a productive school day in the wee hours of the night.
They also don’t help productivity in the morning, middle of the day, early evening, …you get the point.
Here’s the abbreviated version of sugar’s effect on our body: sugar goes in, body releases insulin, tryptophan gets set free in the brain, you get very, very sleepy.
Ditch the coffee too. It jolts you awake for about an hour-and-a-half, and then, you’ll crash and burn.
Hard.
If you keep drinking it, you’ll have a restless energy that doesn’t bode well when trying to focus on new information or applying old information to new problems.
And then, when you need to nestle in for a good night’s rest, your brain remains in super-active overdrive.
Meredith likes to have a hot drink at night when she’s working on her schoolwork, so she drinks a caffeine-free hot tea with a bit of cream and honey, but not too much honey.
And, since we eat dinner as a family, she isn’t hungry during those hours.
3. Remove distractions. It is true there are fewer external distractions in the middle of the night.
Most of your kids’ friends are asleep and if not, hopefully not texting them.
Older and younger siblings are asleep too.
Dogs don’t bark, UPS doesn’t knock on the door, neighbors don’t stop in, and the phone doesn’t ring.
It is quiet at midnight in most homes, right?
Right.
The problem is we are our worst enemy. Our minds wander, we get up to go to the bathroom, get a drink of water, and we pull our phones out and check social media, watch a video, or play a game.
Distractions.
In our home, Meredith limits distractions in a few ways. If it gets too quiet – so quiet that the silence itself distracts her, she listens to piano music via iTunes on her computer. It helps her stay focused.
When Jeff and I go to bed, she puts her phone on the charger, which means her phone is next to her bed, not on her desk. It can’t distract her if it’s nowhere near her.
4. Go to bed when you get tired. I know this may seem ridiculous to mention because it seems like common sense. Who wouldn’t go to bed when they’re tired?
Task-oriented people, for one.
Don’t ignore your body’s messages. When it tells you to go to bed, do it. That thing that you like to call a “second wind” can rob you of quality rest.
There were many nights when Meredith felt the need to go to bed at midnight after only working a couple of hours. She prefers 9-10 hours of sleep a night, so she’d just go to bed and get up at 9:00 or 10:00 a.m., and finish up the last of that day’s coursework.
Algebra is always the last subject she tackles at night for this same reason. It’s a subject we work on together, and on the days where her eyes stop focusing and her yawns set in prematurely, she will save Algebra for the morning.
5. Be mindful of others. I probably shouldn’t have to add this to the list except that it is important for the sanity of the household.
You are awake, but everyone else in the house is asleep.
It’s not the time to pull out the blender to make a smoothie.
Walk lightly, close doors gently, be attentive to noises and light, and respect the sleeping residents in the house.
Meredith is respectful of the rest of us while she works through her curriculum at night. In return, we offer the same courtesy when we wake up, and she’s still asleep.
To each their own.
Throughout our homeschooling years, all three of our kids have marched to a different internal time clock.
Emelie, our oldest liked doing her coursework from 4:30 or 5:00 a.m. to 9:00 or 10:00 a.m., and then, she’d go down for a nap. She also went to bed around 8:30 p.m.
Meredith, as you know, focuses best in the middle of the night.
Kenny has more of a traditional schedule, choosing to start his coursework between 8:00 and 9:00 and wrapping up about four hours later.
I used to designate when they worked. I had to because so much of their work I did with them, and I needed a reasonable amount of one-on-one time with each child to do it.
At that time, they fit more to my schedule.
But, now that they are more independent and can complete their schoolwork on their own, I can’t justify restricting them to my schedule.
I used to worry that when the kids moved into “real world” positions, they wouldn’t be able to cope. Like somehow there was some magic in the standard 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. school day, but I don’t have that concern any longer.
There’s no magic.
And when there is somewhere we must be – planned field trips, doctor’s appointments, etc. – Meredith sets her alarm, wakes, and dresses in a timely manner.
Just like the rest of us.
About the Author: Heather Sanders is a work at home mom who homeschools her three children. If you’d like to learn how to pursue your passions and earn an income while staying home with your kids, subscribe today.