Teenagers getting up for school - Mom is alarm clock

[Think About It....]

My 14 yr. old D has such issues with getting up in the morning for school.  Actually, this has been one of her lifelong problems.  She refuses to try using an alarm clock...she unplugs it or turns it off.  So, I am the one waking her up for school, which takes 5 or more attempts every morning to get her out of bed.  Does anyone else run into this problem?  Any advise would be appreciated.  Thanks.

[cleanandsober]

My 14 yr. old D has such issues with getting up in the morning for school.  Actually, this has been one of her lifelong problems.  She refuses to try using an alarm clock...she unplugs it or turns it off.  So, I am the one waking her up for school, which takes 5 or more attempts every morning to get her out of bed.  Does anyone else run into this problem?  Any advise would be appreciated.  Thanks.

[twojaybirds]

do you have other places to go in the morning?
What if you dont wake her.  What are the natural consequences?

[mom4jenna]

Cleaandsoner, I had this same problem for many, many years with my 14yo dd. I got so sick of doing it that I brought it up in our counseling session about a year ago. We all agreed that I would not wake her up and she suffered getting tardiness at school and detention. We also went out and bought a really cool iPod alarm clock for her room. She got to pick it out. At first we plugged it in across the room so she had to get up, now she has it on her nightstand and uses it appropriately. Now she hates it if I wake her up. Believe me, I know your pain, I dealt with this since she was 5 and had to get up for school. Another thing that has helped this year is that her school starts at 9:30am, so she doesn't have to wake up at the crack of dawn. I think ALL high schools should start late. 7: 30 am is way too early for kids especially pwBPD.

[jbmom]

We have tried multiple alarm clocks and "none of them work!"

My husband has the fun job of waking DD13. She is a bear in the morning. It used to be ugly. We would leave for school at 7:45 and she would wake at 7:30 -- you can imagine how wonderful she looked.

We switched her schools about 3 weeks ago. Well the bus now comes at 7:15.So she is up about an hour earlier than before. Its been a bit of change... but maybe only one bad day of her showing her teeth to DH.  With the change of school, no more uniform and make-up is allowed.  Her personal hygiene has improved a little bit though she still hates to shower (?).

The school switch removed a major trigger for her (an ex-bf who was very manipulative) so we have seen her a bit happier. She still has her BPD signs, but the depression is better and we see that effect in the morning. 


DD13 is also ADHD. We started giving her Concerta while she sleeps about 15 minutes before she needs to be up and it helps tremendously.

[Thursday]

When SD was in high school she didn't want to use an alarm clock, wanted her Dad to wake her up but she started being difficult to wake up and this required him to check in on her several times to assure she was up etc. It wasted a lot of his time in the morning. She was often late leaving the house to walk to school but she realized that if she dragged around he would drive her to school to get her there on time (he drove right past the school on his way to work)

So, we changed things. We gave her the choice to use an alarm clock and get herself out of the door on time...also he changed his route to work so there was no longer an option for getting a ride if she was late (and she would get natural consequences for being late which was after school detention) OR she could get up and get moving the first time her Dad came to her room to wake her. She was instructed to decide the night before which option she would exercise and to inform her Dad of her choice. We agreed that when he woke her up she was to move herself downstairs until I came down for coffee, then she would have to go back upstairs to get ready for school and present herself before he got into the shower to say goodbye etc. If she didn't move downstairs after a thirty second waiting period he would go into her room and turn on the alarm clock.  

She was pretty much late to school every day after we started this. She got so bad with tardies that she got  in school suspension a few times. When this happened it was no TV in her room until report cards came out, not even on the weekend. (tv in the bedroom was a great tool, better than taking away cell phone and she had to maintain a C in all of her classes to have the tv in her room)

But at least her poor choices didn't impact us in any significant way. Except that I work from home and having her lingering around in the morning, dragging her feet and leaving the house after school had already started, knowing she was walking the route to school without the safety of hundreds of other students, made life a little more difficult than it needed to  be. I would stay in the bedroom until she left . Later, when the benzo use started it was excruciating to listen to the alarm going off for hours while she slept and do nothing about it.

but I think we all make such sacrafices of doing things better for protecting ourselves from the BPD's chaos. And we opt for what might teach them to exercise better self control. With these changes her Dad was no longer late to work thus no longer compromising his job security and wages...

Notice the natural consequences didn't change her choices. But, when trapped at after school detention and in school suspension she was forced (by someone other than us) to address schoolwork. I believe that these natural consequences enabled her to graduate as she did no school work otherwise. By her junior and senior year she wasn't even handing in long term projects anymore...Florida's ever lowered standards allowed her to get her diploma, certainly no work she did and definately she didn't learn much in school.

Sad.

advice? Figure out what is best for YOU. Allow natural consequences. If what you are doing for her drives you crazy, hurts your peace of mind, causes you to be late, gives you stress...there might be another way that isn't so difficult. But that can be hard especially if your kid likes to be difficult, which my SD certainly did.

When my nonDD was little and her Dad was still alive he drove her to school. Elementary school. He was chronically late and for some really insane reason the school started giving my daughter consequences for being late to school. I had already pleaded with her Dad to get her there on time and it had become a conflict in our home so i called the school and told them they were giving the wrong person the consequences. I gave them my hubby's phone number at work and had them call him and explain why it was so important to get her to school on time. They told him it embarrased her to come in late. He was a person who was always late but he never got her to school late again.

Sometimes, someone else, someone not so close to the issues, can deliver the message so much better than we can.

That's all I know.

Thursday

[sharinghelps]

This was always a huge problem, and looking back it was one of the first indications of what was to come.  Even now, at 28, sleeping through responsibilities is her m.o. when it's time for a crisis.  That's how she just lost her good job.  She was living on her own and so we didn't know it was happening.  Now she's living at home, but not coming home, etc, etc, etc,!

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[j's friend]

We had the same problem with dd had this problem all the way through school. dd always relied on someone waking her up. I hoped that at some point dd's body clock would kick in over the years  to wake her up, but it never did  ?

Looking back now I can see that she has always struggled with routines for herself, yet in a funny way she likes to have them in place. dd's last year at school was actually the worse for getting her up and out of the house .She was either generally tired from being awake most of the night or lacked motivation to go to school as she had fallen out with most of her school friends and then finally when she would be up  she would spend way to too long in the bathroom, and then always running around looking for something or the other. Totally disorganised and no concept of time.
I used to even ring her on my way to work to wake her up, as she would always answer her phone because she slept with it, and if one of her friends rang her she would definatley get up then. Then she would be out the door in a flash. Other than that dd would sleep through all alarms if there was no-one telling her to get up and I used to joke with her that I would buy her one of the old fahioned bell alarm clocks. I never did because I thought that it might wake the neighbours before it woke dd
I woke dd for years because I didnt want to end up in court for dd not going to school, but towards the last year I started to let her sleep through and suffer the consequences of detention.

[heronbird]

If you cant beat them join them, give up.

Bring her in a nice cup of coffee or what ever she likes to drink and use the opportunity to have a nice chat with her, practice your validation techniques for 5 mins.

School is so hard for pwBPD at the best of times and if you can ease that pain then thats the best thing maybe.

Just my opinion, I didnt do it for my dd, she often didnt go to school in the end and was mostly late but she really tried so hard.

Sorry if its not helpful, just another idea, its good to have lots of ideas to chose from.

let us know how you get on

[mikmik]

  I LOVE Heron's idea of bringing a cup of coffee up to your pwBPD, chat and do the wake up gradually.  Maybe call the school, and get her free period first period, or at least work with a doc for a late arrival.  But, helping her start the day without stress, and with your compassion may work.  BPD stinks and all we have to do to accomodate it stinks too, so if you can make the morning a bit smoother, why not.  Give yourself and your kid some slack for what may be a better overall day.

I think if you dd gets out of the routine of school, she will keep sliding.  Anything to get her to school, and have some structure is paramount in my way of thinking.  I got my dd to school, and she ended up winning some awards in art, and wrote a killer paper in mythology.  She still loves both subjects, but would not have had that if I had not gotten her to school.

Not easy, and I don't think we need to make excuses for them, but we have to deal with the reality of BPD.  Dd18 still has major sleep issues.

mikmik

[MagentaOrchid]

Oddly our pwBPD is no trouble.  Its my non-PDed 6 year old who is hard to get out of bed.  (note to self: maybe he needs to get to bed earlier)

Lots of good advice in the thread.  I don't have much to add but I think it is an issue with a variety of kids for a variety of reasons.  I had an awful time waking up because I slept poorly.  So see if there is a reason behind it.