Vampire Children

Once kids reach adolescence, a strange phenomenon occurs: they start to resemble vampires. No, I don’t mean that they become fanged bloodsuckers (although the success of the Twilight series confirms their affinity with them). I mean that their schedules shift to staying up late and then having a tough time waking up in the morning. On the weekends, teens will often sleep until noon or later to make up for the sleep they are missing during the school week.

There are a bunch of physiological and developmental reasons why this is so, but the important thing is that it is fairly universal. As frustrating it can be to get your teen going in the morning, we can use this schedule shift to our advantage.

Parents of teenagers are familiar with the monosyllabic answers to the standard questions like, “How was your day?” or “What’s going on?” But miraculously, in the wee hours, teens tend to open up like night blooming flowers.

If you make yourself available sometime between 11:30 and 1:00 AM, you have a good chance of connecting with your teenager without the distraction of siblings, friends, or homework. Night is when your teen’s defenses are down and he or she will be more willing to talk.

Try a low-key approach with an open ended question and leave it to your child to talk, uninterrupted. Then just listen and make encouraging sounds interspersed with non-judgmental questions or comments. Restrain yourself from lecturing or giving advice because this will immediately stop the flow and shut your kid down like a hedgehog curling up into a ball at the approach of a predator.

My daughter Mia, although only nine and a half, has this sort of vampire schedule already. She falls asleep between 10:30 and midnight and then is in a deep sleep in the morning when it's time to get up. It is at this time that she is most vulnerable. When I'm not too tired, I sometimes talk with her about her day, and she is more reflective and communicative than usual.

You may miss out on some shut-eye, but it’s better than lying awake wondering what is going on with your child or being blindsided by moodiness caused by a problem that he or she had to navigate alone, and that you were unaware of.