Question
What type of responsibilities should a soon to be 8 year old have?
Is choosing the time they go to bed one of them?
What if he decides to go to bed really late?
Answer
An 8 year old can do any task that he can reach and handle with his gross and fine motor mobility. For example:
Sorting his laundry
Washing dishes
Making his bed
Packing his backpack for school
Deciding when to go to bed? NO.
Why?
Sleep is a practice of delaying pleasure.
He is still managing and learning to stop pleasure in order to be responsible.
So what do you do with this one?
Include him in the reasoning behind the planning of going to bed. Let him know that humans his age need 8-10 hours of sleep a night to keep their brain healthy and to give the body time to secrete the growth hormone that expels during sleeping hours. The less he sleeps the less he grows in his brain and his body.
Then do the math with him of why he has to go to bed at a certain time. If you have to wake up at 7am to get to school at 8:15am then count backwards with him.
8 hours of sleep means he has to go to bed at 11pm.
10 hours of sleep means he has to go to bed at 9pm.
SOOO bedtime is 9-11pm --- 11 being the latest he can go to bed.
When we give our children the REASON behind the rule it is easier for them to follow.
BTW, adults need 6-9 hours of sleep a night for the same benefits listed above, so model for him how you go to sleep to keep your brain healthy.