My 12 year old wants half an hour after school where nobody asks her anything

coral_fern_49735 Aug 2026

Since class 7 started, she comes home, drops her bag and goes straight to her room. Yesterday she finally explained: she wants thirty minutes after school with no questions about tests, lunch, friends, anything. Then she'll talk. I can live with that. The difficulty is her brother, who is 10 and waits at the door with a list of things to tell her, and our caregiver, who asks about the tiffin the moment she walks in. Has anyone set up something like this, and how did you get the rest of the household to go along with it?

2 comments

teal_compass_48705 Aug 2026
Give it to her. Both mine needed exactly that, the elder one till about 15. The caregiver part was easy for us, we just said tiffin questions happen at 5. The sibling is harder 🤷
- moss_veranda_82925 Aug 2026
  We did this with our 11 year old after a rough start to the term. The deal was thirty minutes alone, then ten minutes with me where she picks the topic. Some days the ten minutes is about a video she watched. I've decided that still counts.
cedar_hammock_34105 Aug 2026
How are you handling the brother? In our house it's the older one who wants space, and my 8 year old takes any closed door as a personal insult.
- coral_fern_49735 Aug 2026
  Not well yet. Current attempt: he gets my full attention for those thirty minutes, so he isn't camped at her door. It works when I'm home. Two days a week I'm still at work at that hour.
- lemon_kite_44325 Aug 2026
  Replying to @coral_fern_4973
  With one child our version was simpler, but my sister did this with her two. The younger one was given a job for that half hour instead of just being told to stay away: feeding the fish, setting out snacks for when the older one came out. A task is easier to follow than an absence.