Child-centric evening events

I know some American parents who put their children to bed at around 6:30pm, and if the kids are up past 7pm, that is considered a very late night. Here in Iceland, especially in the summer time, it is not unusual for a kid-friendly event to begin at 7pm, 8pm, or even 9pm.  And even if it is perhaps not a kid-centric event, Icelanders still take the kids to things in the evenings, like the jazz concert I went to the other night.

So I am wondering when Palmer gets here whether to try to be American or Icelandic about his bedtime. For the first week or two obviously, he'll be rather more on California time, so he will naturally want to stay up pretty late. That might be a good time therefore to do things the Icelandic way. Like take a 4 year old to a classical concert at 8pm.

Comments

Villi said…
Mín reynsla er sú að yfirleitt þarf ekki að berjast mikið við börnin til að fá þau til að vaka frameftir. Frekar er erfiðara að fá þau til að sofna snemma :-)
February 25, 2010 at 7:03 PM
Anonymous said…
Finnur fór með okkur á tónleika sem systur hans voru að syngja á um daginn, með Sinfóníunni, byrjuðu hálfátta og voru til um klukkan tíu. Ekkert vandamál - þegar hann varð þreyttur lagði hann bara kollinn á öxlina á mér og lokaði augunum. Hann er auðvitað níu ára, ekki fjögurra en þetta er svo sem ekki í fyrsta skiptið.

Mér dettur ekki í hug að láta krakkana fara svona hroðalega snemma að sofa, ekki vil ég að þau vakni klukkan fimm á morgnana! (tekur þau bara 10 mínútur að labba í skólann). Finnur þarf meiri svefn en stelpurnar, hann verður að vera kominn í ró klukkan hálftíu þegar er skóli daginn eftir, stelpurnar þoldu alveg til tíu eða svo.

Er þessi snemmbúni háttatími úti kannski eitthvað í sambandi við að það er iðulega lengra ferðalag í skólann og þau þurfa þess vegna að vakna fyrr?
February 25, 2010 at 9:54 PM
Heiða said…
ef börnin sofna fyrir sjö á kvöldin og voru í skóla/leikskóla til 4-5 þegar foreldrarnir voru í vinnu, þá hittast foreldrar og börn í 2 tíma á dag. Sorry, mér finnst það rugl!
February 26, 2010 at 10:35 AM
Lissy said…
Absolutely, Heida, it leaves very little time for the kids to interact with their parents. And it might have something to do with longer commute times to preschool, Hildigunnur, since this kind of early bedtime is of course for the youngest kids, 2-6 years old or so, and preschools often are further from the house than elementary schools. But then elementary schools in the US do not serve breakfast, so the kids have to get up at least a half hour before school to eat.

The early bed times do adjust with age, of course, creeping up maybe a half hour a year. But still, the idea is that everyone stays home after dinner, rather than going to an event of some sort in the evenings.
February 26, 2010 at 11:05 AM
HT said…
Ég held að þetta sé einstaklingsbundið. Sum börn vilja fara snemma í rúmið en önnur eru nátthrafnar. Ég á tvö og þau hafa verið frekar ólík hvað þetta varðar.
February 26, 2010 at 11:12 AM
Ko-Leen said…
I got an email from the school reminding me, and all the other parents, that children need 11-12 hours of sleep a night.
My oldest is 9, this means he has to go to bed at 8 to get the min. sleep requirement.
February 27, 2010 at 4:54 PM
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