Sometimes your child stays up late not because they want to but because it delays the heaviness of tomorrow’s demands.
This week in therapy, a parent said: “She keeps staying up late, even when she’s exhausted. And when I ask why, she says, ‘I know I’ll be tired anyway, so I might as well enjoy my time now.’”
This is what revenge bedtime procrastination can look like in a neurodivergent brain, especially when the day feels full of demands, expectations, or things that feel hard to face. Staying up becomes the only time they feel in control. The only part of the day that feels like theirs.
But the cost is high. By morning, they’re more tired, more dysregulated, and often more ashamed which then makes tomorrow feel even heavier than today. And the cycle continues.
What they’re saying isn’t “I don’t care about sleep.” What they’re really saying is, “I haven’t had space to breathe all day and I’m scared and avoidant of what tomorrow will demand of me.”
In our session, we didn’t start with enforcing earlier bedtimes. We started with understanding the why. Then we added what we call “wind-down time” which is a set time where your child chooses how to decompress, without screens, and with no pressure to be productive e.g. drawing and listening to favorite playlists. They learned that rest isn’t something that has to be earned. It’s something their body deserves.
If your child resists sleep, it’s not always about the sleep itself. It’s often about reclaiming agency in a day that felt overwhelming.
