My parents just stood bedside until I got up. There wasn't any leeway or discussion about the matter.

Reader - Thanks for sharing your personal experience. What's the longest they stood bedside waiting?

We didn't ever have any real problems with getting them to sleep earlier in readiness of the school year - in fact keeping them awake long enough to eat dinner, bath and story was more of a problem as all of ours gave up napping at around their 2nd birthdays.

What is more of a problem is when the clocks spring forward or fall back. It takes them about a week to adjust to the new time.

@Cheryl Bac:

Never no more than two minutes.

Mother of 4 - Yes, daylight savings can be a challenge. I think our son will be confused about it getting dark so early.

Reader - Sounds like their system worked well

@Cheryl Bac:

It worked great for our family. I had a great attendance record as a student, never a problem with tardiness. No namby-pamby, molly-coddling parenting from my folks. I thought of them as very strict growing up, but hey, as an adult I appreciate their discipline from the life lessons learned early on.

Ultimately, this punctuality spills over to other parts of life. The simplest observation is taking public transit. If the subway/train/bus arrives at 7:02am and you habitually are two minutes late, well, you will miss a *LOT* of connections.

At almost every single Caltrain stop, I see train riders frantically buying tickets at the vending machine, despite the fact that the train is already several minutes late, and then miss the train because Caltrain doesn't wait for every last straggler. They look up at the departing train as if some great injustice has occurred. No, you're already late.

Reader - You are right, trains are great for teaching punctuality. Our son enjoys seeing trains go by before and after some of our outings. Our son knows that the trains are on a schedule and won't wait for him. If we are late, we will miss seeing the train(s) go by.

Ok to wake alarm clock works great for us. Kid stays in bed till light goes on. We also stick to a rigid sleep schedule as much as possible. Of course, if you have a small baby in the house, there is only so much you can control.

Another mom - Thanks for commenting. I've heard great things about the color changing alarm clocks, especially for kids who tend to wake up very early.

Prepare them for what?

Our alarm go off at 6:15am and have for over 25 years. The kids got up when they heard "wakey wakey". All through elementary, middle and high school. Never any problems. And they didn't have any problems in college nor at their jobs today.

Never had any problems going to sleep, waking up, getting to school on time. I'm not clear what your issue is.

/marc

Marc - Thanks for commenting. Our son used to go to sleep later and wake up later. His old routine wouldn't work for school. I wanted to shift his schedule earlier rather than wake him up early on school mornings (and cut into his sleep). Right now I'm enjoying letting our kids wake up on their own rather than me waking them up in the morning. I think it is more enjoyable for all of us.

It's worthwhile to get your kids to become accustomed to waking up to an alarm clock and not by being dragged out of bed by another human. You can't always rely on another human being to start you off on your day, because that's not how it will be for long stretches of your adult life.

My parents got me on the alarm clock thing pretty early and rarely would have to rouse me. Most of us as adults are on a daily schedule that starts with an alarm clock, so this early indoctrination will be useful to their adult lives in general.

Reader - Thanks for sharing your experience. Right now I'm happy that our kids wake up on their own (or another human wakes them up). We want them to get as much sleep as they need and I would worry that a real alarm clock could cut into their sleep at such a young age.