AITA for teaching my daughter the importance of sleep?

A Redditor shares how they handled their 7-year-old daughter’s resistance to bedtime by allowing her to stay up as late as she wanted, knowing the consequences would teach her the importance of sleep. The daughter struggled through the next day, exhausted and overwhelmed, but by bedtime the following night, she willingly went to bed without protest.

While the parent views the lesson as a success, their spouse and others have criticized the approach as manipulative and possibly too harsh. Was this an effective teaching moment or an overstep? Read the full story below.

‘ AITA for teaching my daughter the importance of sleep?’

Just like any other kid, my (7 yo) daughter HATES bedtime. If it’s ever 9:59 and we tell her it’s bed time then she will make a huge court case about how we are depriving her of one minute of her life. I always let it go but this week when I told her it’s bed time at 10:05 she protested.

Essentially she didn’t understand why she had to go to bed while the rest of us adults stayed up later. It’s unfair that we get to enjoy the rest of our night while she has to go to bed early.

I mean she’s not wrong, it definitely makes more sense for me to go to bed early as well since all of us wake up roughly around the same time but I needed her to understand the consequence of the trade off between sleep and early mornings.

So I told her okay…she can stay up as long as she wants. Hell, if we go to bed she can keep watching tv all night till the next morning. Her eyes glimmered and she did her little victory dance before sitting on the sofa and enjoying her little win. My wife protested saying that she’ll be too tired for school tomorrow and I said “that’s the point”.

I went to bed and woke up at 7am, sure enough my daughter slept on the sofa probably about 2 hours before I woke up. Understandably, getting her to wake up and get ready for school was a battle that neither of us enjoyed. I dropped her off at school and picked her up again after work, she was DONE with the day and slept in the car on the way home.

Once we got home she tried to go to bed and I told her she can’t because her swimming lesson is in an hour so she needs to get ready for that. She cried but I still forced her to go with her mom. She came back just barely able to make it through the day and tried making her way up the stairs again. I told her she forgot about her homework and she started crying again.

My wife said we should let her sleep but I was firm on my stance that if we let her off the hook right now then she will never understand the consequences of her decision. Delaying responsibilities due to factors within your control isn’t okay and I don’t want her learning that it is.

I helped her with her homework and by the time it was 8 she was already in bed. The next night when it was 10 she didn’t even protest, just started walking up to her bedroom and declined when I asked her if she wanted to stay up with us.

I thought the mission was a success but my wife questioned my parenting technique and said it was border line neglectful & m**ipulative. I disagreed but after a few conversations with friends and family I’m slowly starting to doubt myself…so reddit AITA?

 

These are the responses from Reddit users:

Marmot_Mountain −  NTA at all…Although we have different parenting techniques, yours worked. I made my kids go to bed at 8. And yes, they had tantrums, but hey, that wore them out! As they got older (9, 10) I made them a deal: they could stay up until 9 ( to watch DragonBall Z) as long as there were NO PROBLEMS getting up and ready in the morning.

If one of them was late or not ready in time the next morning, that night they went to bed at 8. It was interesting that at 6:30 am I didn’t have to yell, they yelled at each other. Problem solved.

Halleaon −  NTA, but 10 is way too late for a 7 year old to be staying up. The national sleep association recommends a child of that age getting to bed by 8 at the latest, Hell, I think when I was that age my bedtime was 7:30, a child her age needs 9-11 hours of sleep per night.

ZealousidealHome4499 −  NTA. Better now than fighting for years. But your SEVEN year old goes to bed at 10? At that age my kids were in bed at 8, or else the whole house would be crabby.

Lex-tailonis −  “I thought the mission was a success but my wife questioned my parenting technique and said it was border line neglectful & m**ipulative.” You didn’t cut her finger off you just kept her awake. I say bravo! And I’m impressed it only too one cycle.. NTA.

twelvedayslate −  YTA for having a 10pm bedtime in the first place for a SEVEN year old. That’s too late. She’s overtired, which is why bedtime is such a fight.

Soaringsage −  NTA for teaching your daughter a lesson. She learned the consequences of her actions and why an earlier bedtime is important. However, YTA for two specific reasons. First off, as others have said 10pm is way too late a bedtime for a 7 yo.

Second, YTA for making your wife take her to her swim lesson or do anything else when your kid was grumpy and crying from lack of sleep. Your wife didn’t want to let your daughter stay up late because she knew your daughter would have a hard time of it the next day, making parenting her harder, yet you still made your wife deal with the consequences of YOUR actions by not dealing with your grumpy daughter yourself.

Next time you pull a decision like this over the protests of your wife, make sure YOU are the one dealing with the consequences, not your wife, by being the one to bring your daughter to her swim lesson or anything else that needs doing. That means next time you do something like this your wife won’t have to deal with a grumpy kid when she didn’t want to do the thing in the first place.

kkrolla −  NTA. I took a parenting class. One thing they said was to be thoughtful in your discipline, give a consequence for whatever infraction, then follow through. Don’t do the, if you don’t stop you won’t watch screen for a month, then give them screen time 2 days later.

Also, don’t give exaggerated consequences for small infractions. You tell kiddo that sleep and routine are important. They don’t get it until they experience it. It wasn’t cruel. She wasn’t tortured. She was tired and frustrated & that’s why she cried. Frustration does not equal n**lect or abuse. It did equal education on consequences of missing sleep.

StaringAtStarshine −  You didn’t start out this way, but YTA. I don’t think this is a bad idea necessarily, sometimes kids have to learn the hard way, especially when “because I said so” doesn’t cut it. But jesus christ man, you made your point. The first time she started crying should’ve been the end of it: she understood what you were trying to do.

That’s when you should’ve sat down and had the conversation to make sure she saw why it’s important she gets enough rest every night. This didn’t become cruel and unusual punishment until you kept it going past an unreasonable point.

FigBurn −  YTA 7 years old is way too late to start teaching your kid sleep hygiene and 10 pm is way too late for a 7 year old to be up. A child that age needs about 10 hours of sleep. Your plan of exhausting her so she sleeps sounds like a punishment rather than a strategy to encourage healthy habits.

justnotthatwitty −  You taught your daughter a lesson, which is fine, but I still say YTA because (1) you had her up til 10 to begin with, (2) you jump straight to “naughty kid won’t go to bed” and don’t stop to question why your daughter feels left out & wants more time with her parents at night, and (3) you left the hard follow through to your wife then act kind of smug that what “you” did worked.