I don’t have teenage kids yet, but I have always been an owl.  If I could do it, I would barely be up at noon as a teenager, and regularly went to bed at 2-3 am.  I had straight A’s through college… So I don’t know, these theories seem to change every 5 years which doesn’t make me inclined to give them much weight…Maybe I’ll feel differently about it when my kids are teenagers!

My 15yo son is a lark.  He goes to bed around 8:30-9:00 and is up anytime between 5 and 6 am.  He is usually up before me and I get up at 6.  My other 2 kids (11 & 5) are the same.  Although they go to bed at 8 usually.  I think they get this from their father.  Although he goes to bed at an average time (usually 10) he is an early riser.  He feels you are wasting the day if you sleep past 7.  I have become that way myself over the 20 years we have been married, but was not always like that.  I would go to bed by 9 and sleep until 11 or 12 (on weekends) in high school and college.  As far as my son’s grades, he is a solid A and B student.  He has to work really hard for those grades because school doesn’t come easy for him.  I have never had trouble getting the kids off to bed or getting them up in the morning.  At times I wish they would sleep later so I can be up before them once in a while.

My son goes to bed happily by 11 if I let him know I would like him to (otherwise he would stay up really late) and wakes on his own by 9:30. He gets pretty good grades 3.73 GPA. It would be interesting to see if the study would show the same result with homeschooled kids given the flexibility of hours.

My 16 year old goes to bed by 11 on school nights and is up at 6:30.  Now that school is out he is up late and gets up around noon.  His grades are good, he stays out of trouble and I remember when I was his age I used to sleep till 1 o’clock in the afternoon in the summer.  (Unless I had to work, and I was up at the crack of dawn!)  He works in a restaurant as a busboy, so he doesn’t start work till 4pm.  Yes, he has a cell phone but doesn’t text himself to sleep.

My children at this age are required to be up by 6 AM every morning.  We homeschool and find it is easier for the older children to be up before the little ones.  They enjoy the quiet and are better able to focus on things.  My oldest now wakes up by 5 AM to exercise with his dad before Dad leaves for work.  At 6 AM my two oldest take their dogs on a three mile walk.  It is nice and quiet in the morning and a great opportunity for them to talk.  I find at this age they seem to butt heads a little more often and so this one on one time is good for them.  Overall, I prefer they stay on a regular schedule for sleep year round and learn to appreciate the early morning hours.  It seems everyone’s moods are better when they get an early start to the day.

Reading the linked article my first inclination is to remember to recommend that my owl children try their best not to take early morning classes given a choice!  {it points out that the ‘owls’ generally had about 41mins less sleep a night and that this was partly due to having early morning classes} 

My children definately tend towards owls although this is encouraged by my husband’s current work hours (he works the 3:30 to midnight shift).  We homeschool, partly so that my husband can see the children during the week and thus have no particular need to wake the children early (in fact it works better if they don’t get up much before Dad).

I think that the important thing is to encourage a regular schedule which gives enough time for sleep and ensures that the regular waking time is early enoughfor the earliest of the normal obligations during the week (the earliest obligation for us is choir practice at 10 AM on Sunday, 5 mins drive from our home, so that’s what sets our regular waking time)

My children are going to bed later and getting up later now that school is out, mostly because of the soccer schedule.  We have 5 children and 3 of them are in competitive soccer, one is in recreational.  Everything is in the evenings.  We were already having a hard time getting them to bed at a decent time before school was out, since we often have to go out of town for games in the evening, and now that school is out, we are just much more relaxed, and they get to bed later.

There is also the part where I am more lazy and let them play longer before going to bed…

I don’t like it when they get up past 10 though.  The older ones are starting to do this.  My parents never let us sleep in past nine.  I’ve been poking mine and going in to wake them too.

My husband is definitely an owl.  My parents were (are still) larks.  I think I may just be a robin, although I once tried the “in bed by nine - up at five” for a weekend in a monastery and I never felt better.  I really love to get up early, as long as I have had enough sleep.  Which I would not have in this current household.  There is no way I will be able to get to bed by nine in any foreseeable future.

My oldest (14 girl) seems to need more sleep than anyone else in the house.  We all go to bed by 9 and I do require her to be up by 8 at the latest.  I find that if she sleeps beyond that she is groggy (and feels like she didn’t get enough sleep) all day.  Now that she has a morning babysitting job she wakes up on her own by 7 and seems more rested than ever.  I read about the jet lag effect years ago - sleeping in makes you feel tired/groggy so you try to sleep longer and it just keeps cycling.

My younger kids are all up before 7!