Would you let your teenage daughter/son stay awake all night?

Question

As a habit I mean. What would you, as an anarchist, do about it?

PS - All answers welcome but I'm particularly interested in hearing from people with children

Comments

if pressed for a yes/no answer, i would say yes (i've never tried to force anyone to sleep, or even thought about how or why i would do that).

to describe what i'd do (if anything), it would depend on all kinds of details and particulars...so much so that i'd have to ask you for a much more detailed scenario before i could give an answer. i don't know if that's what you want.

i don't have children, but have lived with some nieces and nephews (of varying ages) for weeks or months consecutively.

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Yes. But humans are less efficient at adapting to that type of sleep cycle/life style, like sleeping during the day, compared to other animals. Prior to the introduction of electricity, staying up all night wasn't as common as it is today.

Your question is too vague.

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To make it a little less vague. Teenagers today like to stay up until very late, sometimes all night. Some say this began as a reaction to overschooling, overtesting and the many structured activities they have after school, which leave them no free time.

I kind of like it because I see it as a resistance to this stupid state of affairs. But the problem is that over time they may, and many have, develop health problems due to sleep deprivation. Because their heavy "schedule" leaves little time for day time naps.

"Experts" recommend stricter rules in relation to bedtime and use of smartphones. I.e., stricter control of their free time. I prefer another solution: less school and school crap, for eg., through home schooling.

I would like to know how other people who see themselves as anarchists deal with this kind of "domestic problems" :)

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i agree that the topic of children is a particularly thorny one for people who are trying not to fit in to The System ( ;) ). it shows in a ton of ways, and only gets more complicated as kids age and become (one hopes) more and more their own person.

one argument not to have kids (cough) is that parents don't raise kids, society raises kids (k, i'm simplifying to make a point). that is, parents are expected to, and might think that they do, have far more influence over their children than they actually have. so the idea that anarchist parents will raise anarchist, or anarchistically-inclined, children, is a misunderstanding of the situation.

i understand that i'm raising topics that are are not what you're talking about, whatever, but they're connected.

your question could be re-stated as, at what point do parent/responsible adults stop taking responsibility for the children in their life, and of course that would depend on the context/individuals/situation.

another significant metric in the topic of children is the question of raising children to be alternative and challenge the current paradigms (to the extent, again, that we even can), and how much they are raised to be  functioning people. functioning in a fucked up society frequently means not being alternative (or at least not enough to threaten anything/anybody).

to me these seem like unresolvable conundrums, and having children forces one in to choosing one fucked up side or another.

anyway, these are some of my thoughts. not entirely addressing the question, certainly not as it was asked.

(note: some of my best friends are parents... )

Answer 1

As a parent I have never done anything apart from provide. I allowed the kids to understand the world as it is.

So I'd ask them why they want to stay up all night, what is natural about pushing beyond a natural process, etc.

If they followed thru, I'd ask them how the feel, how they're functioning, how it affects others, etc.

Some people are honestly just too stupid for their own good, but with a bit of guidance, they'll come to understanding; failing that, an early death.