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From: pking@uiucuxc.Uiuc.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Re: corporal punishment in schools
Message-ID: <104200008@uiucuxc>
Date: Mon, 16-Sep-85 09:47:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucuxc.104200008
Posted: Mon Sep 16 09:47:00 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Sep-85 04:04:53 EDT
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Nf-From: uiucuxc.Uiuc.ARPA!pking    Sep 16 08:47:00 1985


I've read all the responses to setting a bedtime for
your children with a strange sense of wonder, and my
one answer to people who adovcate letting them stay up
as long as they want is...are you nuts? 
(No flames please, I don't mean it in a nasty way)
I have three
children, 10, 8 and almost 4.  My youngest would stay up
until midnight or later every night if allowed, and I 
suppose this would be okay, except for one small detail,
she needs to be awake at 6:45 (the absolute latest) to
eat breakfast, get washed and dressed and get to 
day care by a reasonable time, so mom can go to work.  
(Most daycares of my acquaintance do not take sleeping
children, unless they are infants)
I've hassled so many times with an uncooperative child
who doesn't want to get up, (this morning included) she
doesn't want to eat, (I can't count the number of times
she's gone to day care without breakfast because she runs
out of time or we don't have what she wants
to eat, or she simply refuses to eat),
putting clothes on a still halfway sleeping 
child is the pits, especially when you have two other people
besides your self that you have to at least lend some 
assistance to in the morning.  And before I get the 
flames about organizing the night before, I do plan what
everyone will wear, etc. but when you have two daughters with
long hair, it's ten to fifteen minutes extra to fix their
hair before school, and other assorted "emergencies" that 
come up, (where's my library book, I need sneakers for gym,
I need lunch money, I need milk money, I want to bring a
sack lunch.....ad nauseam).  I don't always have the time
to deal with a sleepy child, when (and we've proven this)
if she would simply go to bed earlier she would wake up with
the rest of us and be in a cheerful mood to start her day.
Later bedtimes usually result in grumpy scenes both at home
and at drop off time at the day care.  It both hurts me
and angers me when she cries and throws herself on the floor
at daycare because she's being left.      

Well, anyway for me and my family a set bedtime on school/week  
nights works the best.  We still have fights with ouy youngest child,
about going to and staying in bed, our older childern accept the
bedtime, often preceeding it with a half an hour or so of reading
or quiet time in their rooms, both childern are asleep within ten
minutes of the nine o'clock bedtime  and don't complain.  The
bedtime is lifted during weekends, school holidays and during
the summer.  

I too, feel that after a long day at work, and an evening of
helping with the homework and other assorted chores, it's nice
to have the kids safely tucked in bed and have a little time
to myself to relax and unwind.

Pat King