In the book I'm reading, the mother wakes the teenagers every weekday morning, to various forms of sulky non-compliance - something I can't imagine putting up with more than once.

Now, I'm trying to remember exactly when I bought my kids their own alarm clocks and stopped being responsible for them getting up in the morning, but I think it was somewhere around age eleven or twelve. Maybe even earlier - it was around the time they started getting shy about being seen in the bath, etc.

My own mother had me getting myself up in the morning by the age of eight - she had a new baby and wanted to sleep in a bit. I used an alarm clock, and then rang the bell connected to my brother's room in the basement to wake him.

How about you? When did you start becoming responsible for getting yourself awake in the morning, and when did you stop waking your children?

I was definitely responsible for getting myself up by the age of around ten at the latest.

Probably around 11 or 12, but if for whatever reason I didn't get up and mom was home and knew I was supposed to be getting up, she'd come in and see what was going on. Saved me sleeping through whole weekend shifts at work a couple of times! When I was in high school though she had always left for work before it was time for me to get up, so that was totally my responsibility.

Mom always stopped by our bedroom door (I shared a room with my younger sister) on her way to the kitchen and told us to get up. This happened every morning Monday-Friday until the day I graduated High School. We had a one bathroom house and we had to wait until Dad was done anyway. I was, and still am, notorious for hitting the snooze button on my alarm without even realizing that the alarm went off. When I moved out on my own, I had to put the alarm across the room so that when it went off, I'd have to get out of bed to turn if off. There have been times that I will walk back to bed and go back to sleep and not remember having gotten up. I get up easier these days, but hubby usually wakes me when he gets up. And since I don't have children, I never had to worry about getting them up. Good thing too, since I couldn't wake even myself up most times.

You mean there is a way to wake up teenagers?

Yes, you send the dog in

Then what happens when the dog crawls into the bed next to the teen? Send in the cat?

Well, when I commuted between Hastings and London in my early twenties, we had a little cat who used to wake me up between 5:15 and 5:30 in the mornings. She also seemed to know the difference between weekdays and weekends. From Monday to Friday she would jump on my bed and lick my face till I couldn't try to sleep any more and had to get up. On Saturdays and Sundays she would push at my head with her face like a mole until she had pushed me off the pillow. Then she would curl up in the space I had vacated, leaving me to go back to sleep with my head dangling off the side of the bed.

When I was a teenager my mother yelled. Initially from the bottom of the stairs, then from the landing, and then about a foot from my ear. Eventually I would crawl out of bed, into the bathroom, down the stairs, round a cup of hot chocolate, and on to my bike. It was two miles to school, downhill most of the way so I didn't even have to pedal and the breeze on my face gradually woke me up enough to race through the playing fields to the bikesheds to the school assembly with two minutes to spare. In the sixth form I flashed my prefect's badge and would tell latecomers off; they deserved it - if I could get to school on time anyone could!

When I left home I took with me an alarm clock with the most strident ring I could find and a biscuit tin. If I balanced the lid across the corner of the tin and then placed the clock on that, and then put the whole shebang on the other side of the room when the alarm went off the vibration would make the clock fall into the tin and that noise might just wake me up. After two years of this I gave up getting up to go to work and went back to being a student so I could sleep. However, we had one particularly yummy lecturer who was so gorgeous every female student attended his lectures even if they weren't taking that subject so if, like me, you were taking it getting there early was essential as the place was packed. The only problem was that his lectures were at nine on Monday mornings! Who says student life is easy?

lol at Flopsy, that's very amusing.

TabbyTom: our cat woke us up for almost 15 years, using precisely the methods yours did, although she wouldn't crawl into one's warmed bedspace immediately - what she really wanted was BREAKFAST - not now but RIGHT NOW lol (such a "fuss" - then she'd go back to bed as if nothing was out of sorts at all).

I'm the oldest of my siblings, but as a teenager was the hardest to get up. Dad was first to work (sometimes I'd hear him yell, most times not), then Mom's screeching. Then the alarm. Then just before Mom went to work, she'd send my little sister in to jump on the bed. There was no sleeping after that. After I got married, the only way the hubby (mr. "morning person" - HIGHly annoying) could generally ensure I'd get up was to run my bathwater and put toothpaste on my toothbrush. He'd softly say "I'm going to work now, don't let the bathwater overflow". This was his way of awakening me without awakening the grumpy bear. These days he doesn't bother with the toothpaste, so I guess the honeymoon is finally over ~~~.

Odd thing is that now that I'm an old f.art I wake up no later than 5 a.m. without any "alarm system" of any sort. Apparently teens can "grow out of" almost anything : ) They may be over 50 when they finally do, but hey - "progress"!

I wasn't able to sleep past five for the last five years or so, but I've recently started doing a little yoga before bed, and am sleeping through the night and right until morning. Wish I'd thought of it years ago.

Agony, yoga is amazing. I took it up on the advice of a doctor when I was going through a bad bout of depression and also not sleeping too well. Keep it up. Advice to others, take it up. Even if you don't have a class nearby there are numberous dvd's and books you can get to do the basics.

I've been thinking about doing yoga for years... time to stop thinking and start doing, perhaps.

When I was at school, my father would bang the door down and shout at me to get up.
What's the time?
"Time to get up."

Could have been worse. My schoolfriend's father would walk into her bedroom and pull the bedclothes off her, right up until her last school year, when she was 18.

My son's last two years of school were ten miles away, starting at 8.30. For two years, I got up at seven, called him, made tea, called him, made him breakfast, called him, made him a packed lunch, called him... Each time I called, he answered.
"I'm getting up now."

At five to eight he would tumble out of bed, yelling "It's late! Look at the time! Why did you let me stay asleep? Why didn't you wake me?"
I did wake you.
"No you didn't."
I called you every five minutes for the last hour.
"No you didn't."
You answered me.
"No I didn't."

By the time we got in the car, he accepted that I had tried, and that I can't tell the difference between a conversation with someone who's awake and a conversation with Sleeping Beauty.

There is a school of thought that believes we're flogging a dead horse, trying to make adolescents conform to world timekeeping. They have a very powerful internal clock of their own.

Why do teenagers sleep late?

I got an alarm clock at around 13 but my dad would still stop by on his way out to see if I was awake. One of my cousins was still being woken by his mom at 18.
My sister would occasionally set the dogs to wake me up but that was a weekend thing for laughs.

For me it was just a fight I was not willing to have every morning of my life. I made it clear to them that if they slept in and missed school, well, they'd just have to flunk out and work at Walmart their whole lives - their choice, not my problem. I dunno what I'd have done if they'd called my bluff, but they never did!

The last few months have been hectic for me and I haven't been getting to bed as early as I should.I seem to turn off my alarm with no recollection of doing so. My son who is a Senior in High School. Came in last week and made me laugh. What he said woke me up and then made me laugh. He knocked and came into my room, switched my light on and said, "Listen young lady I'm not coming into the room one more time today, get up and go to work". (Hmm sounds familiar to what I use to say to him to get him up in the morning.

You are all fooling yourselves. With few exceptions, you don't wake the teenagers. No, not at all. For most of the ones in the school where I teach (10-12 grades), their alarm clock is the bell for 2nd period. The ones who are bright eyed and bushy tailed at 8:00 a.m. are the ones who never went to bed the night before. They take their repose after lunch. Their alarm clock is the final bell of the day.

And sometimes it's best to let sleeping teenagers lie. They lie enough when they're awake, anyway -- especially about missing homework, etc.

LOL.

I'm one of those highly irritating morning people. Like most old f.arts, I wake up before the alarm goes off. Bladders are notoriously impatient.

I began getting up myself around 8 or 9.