The "Late Girl" at school.

Does every school have a child who is always late? Every one I've ever known has.

At my junior school, it was Mark Robinson - the obligatory child whose parents are older than everyone else's, and who has a jumper a slightly different colour from the regulation. Sometimes, he wouldn't turn up until just before lunch - his mother, who was, now I look back, clearly out of her mind on tranquilisers - hovering in the doorway, glassy-eyed and a hundred miles away. At my husband's school, it was Pardeep Kohli Singh - who also had the additional misfortune to be dropped off, after the gates had been locked, with his six other siblings, as well. No sneaky, low-key entry late-entry for them.

Now, at my childrens' school there is - as if it were compulsory - an harrassed-looking eight-year-old who is always, reliably, regularly, infalliably, fifteen minutes later than all the other children. It can set my clock by her. As I loop back onto my road, after dropping off the kids - around 9.08am - she comes bombing round the corner; hair unbrushed, soaked to the bone if it's raining, trailing behind her mother like a broken shopping trolley.

Over the last three years, I've become intrigued to the point of obsession with Late Girl. It's the reliability of her lateness that occupies me. The school-gates close at 9am, meaning she's always 15 minutes late. I've checked to see if there's an odd train or a bus that would necessitate her schedule being this delayed - but there isn't. I wondered if it might be a child-minding issue - but her lateness doesn't seem to vary whether it's her mother, her wild-eyed father or her deeply unhappy-looking brother that's taking her.

I sometimes walk the rest of the way home dwelling on what an awful start to the day she has, five days a week. That awful, jarring feeling you have, walking towards a school, when everyone else is walking away. I've almost asked the school secretary what the story with the family is, before reminding myself not to be so nosey.

Still, the story has a happy post-script. This Thursday must have been Late Girl's birthday - because, looking joyful, she turned up at school on a brand-new scooter.

Still late, of course.

Comments

[KM]

(snort) It's not that you're late, LM, you're just on a different time-zone from the rest of us, which maybe chronically late people are too, but America is a better excuse!

[Lucy (without kids. Yet)]

(Not exactly an excuse for being late, but earlier I had a negative pregnancy test, and though it would probably have been a bad time, a bit of me is really quite disappointed. Must pop over to Mary Beard's blog ... the academics tolerate lateness so much better, I find.)

[Lucy (without kids. Yet)]

*Giggles*

Yes, I think I always come in a bit late and end up with the polite conversation, when really I yearn to be in the garden with the cool kids pretending I'm old enough to smoke ...

[LM]

Ha! Did you notice how the chronically late girl was late to the blog party here? Gipsy, Whimsey & KM are already onto the "sitting in the back garden giggling about others' clothes over a bottle of Sauv Blanc" phase while JJ & Lucy are making polite conversation in the drawing room when LM finally rushes in, cheeks flushed, saying "Sorry" and handing over extra-expensive bottle of something as compensation and making her excuses (which this week are really, really good but can't be alluded to in case acquaintances of LM ever read the AM archives).

[LM]

I am like Gipsy in my Owlishness but waking at Dawn (a nightmare in winter as I have such a hard time waking up before daylight & it's so grey/dark here in winter). I am also like Whimsey & someone else in that I am a CLP. I do NOT consider it a power thing; I am a permanently stressed CLP and it is ALWAYS because I'm trying to squeeze in one more thing that wouldn't otherwise happen. My husband is always 15 mins early taking my daughter to school; I'm always right at the last minute, and stressed out. But on the days I do morning shift, we come home to an empty dishwasher & a shifted-around load of laundry.

(I am sometimes on time but I find it challenging and if people keep me waiting, it's usually for huge periods of time, like 45 mins, whereas I'm only ever 5 mins late).

[KM]

Gipsy is DEFINITELY Margaret Thatcher. I have the photos to prove it.

[whimsey]

I think Maggie Thatcher was one of those people who physiologically could do with very little sleep - I believe it's a trait that's often found in 'power people' and one can understand why. If they can function at full throttle for more hours of the day than the rest of us, they are more likely to get things done that we cannot as their days are simply longer than ours.

I believe there are rare cases of individuals who do not sleep at all. It must be horrible, but then for them I suppose it's normal.

We tend to be very hung up on sleep, I think - perhaps it's all that Shakepearian stuff about villains not being able to sleep, like Richard III, Claudius and Macbeth, as they are haunted by their evil deeds and fear their victims' ghosts that will come in their dreams.

I know that personally I'm paranoid about not getting enough sleep. If I have a bad night, or am forced to get up at the crack of dawn (horrors!), I'm terrified that at some point during the day I'll simply keel over and fall asleep. Or, worse, be somewhere where that is impossible, eg work, driving, etc.

[Jean Jones]

Oh dear, the old antics-with-semantics problem. I'm afraid I long ago got to the stage where terminology doesn't bother me in the slightest, so that I cheerfully describe myself as fat and do not throw hairy fits if people describe my son as mentally handicapped, autistic as opposed to 'has autism', etc. I might bridle slightly at 'imbecile', it's true. But I really can't get too excited about terminology for my own part. If others do, then I didn't intend to offend.

[Lucy (without kids. Yet)]

I hate to say this to such a nice lady, Gipsy, but aren't you basically just Maggie Thatcher? She did everything off short naps and strange waking hours.

;-)

[Gipsy]

What if you're both a lark and an owl? Is that possible? My body clock seems set to make me wake up at dawn, regardless of when that might be (so nightmare in the summer). But I function best at night - I just concentrate much better after 10, can accomplish more, and my thought processes seem to be much faster.

I've learnt to get myself back to sleep, but sometimes that can take quite a while, and there are occaisions where I simply have to get up, potter about for an hour or so and then go back to sleep, or simply give up entirely. Leaves me feeling exhausted by 3pm, but then ready to go again at 11pm.

[MM]

For the vast majority of people it's not practical to go home at midday for a couple of hours, so you just trundle on! It was probably more frequent when people worked in their own towns. I have to say, though, that long lunches are fabulous! Dinner tends to happen around 9 (sooner if children are involved)(if you go out it does tend to be a lot later), usually a light-ish affair since lunch is the big one (my son is having sole a la heavens knows what for lunch today as part of a proper 3 course meal), bed at around 11 for grown ups, up for 7... no worries... except for me... since I discovered blogs... the ruination of my family...! I think I have a bad case of TMBNES syndrome (Too much blog, not enough sleep)!

[whimsey]

Mm, but surely, if the siesta is actually no more in Spain, ie, no one sleeps for a couple of hours, then surely the whole population must be sleep deprived! I mean, no one eats dinner in Spain before around 10 pm etc, do they? And I know that some folk leave the office for a few hours mid-day ish, and go home, and then have to go back to work from say 4 till 8. So surely, overall, the Spanish are getting less sleep than the northern europeans? How do they cope? I don't mind being an owl, providing I don't have to function first thing early in the morning!

It's an interesting point about natural light, as presumably before artificial light was invented, humans did adjust their waking hours to the amount of daylight, as they had no other choice??

I have a feeling a read years ago about experiments on circadian rhythms, whereby the subjects were kept in isolation, watch free (no TV etc), and over time they developed their own 'day and night' which wasn't necessarily when anyone else had theirs, or, indeed, wasn't necessarily 24 hours either.

[mumoftwo]

Anne, I don't know why you are offended by Jean's use of the word 'normal', it's a relational term, and you are clearly telling us that your circadian rhythms are different (i.e. abnormal) in our society, for cultural reasons about how our day is set up. I actually feel a lot of sympathy for people with sleep disorders, I know one guy with sleep apnoea who was ill and exhausted for years until he got a CPAP machine which has transformed his life. But with millions suffering from insomnia, many more with chronic illness (try getting out of bed at 5am to play with two toddlers like my friend with rheumatoid arthritis) and many more with 'challenging' children (everything from severely disabled/learning difficulties/all children who play up in the mornings!), or single mums working nights like the one I meet every morning who goes straight from work to the school gate, the school run isn't easy for probably half the population. It's not whether you've got a disorder that counts in our society (most of my family have a 'disorder' of one type or another), it's what you do about it. Do you find a job that allows you to take daytime naps, set up your own company so you can work the hours you please, get treatment for depression/other side effects, go through the discomfort like so many others, or do you use your disorder as a rationale for being out of step with others and then feel victimised as a result (the claim that there is some type of genetic social engineering against owls is hilarious- if it's true, I'd move to Denmark, quick!)

[C]

Re this circadian malarkey, surely all non nocturnal mammals are programmed to - in an ideal world - go to bed at sunset and get up at dawn. On that basis - unless you live in the Highlands of Scotland - there can't be a biological excuse for not showing up to school on time. Also, I'm sure that the permanently embarassed and upset child involved isn't going to be mollified by the 'Mummy's carcadian rythm's are to balme' excuse.

Get a grip. Really.

[MM]

I tried the Caroline trick but it doesn't work for me because I know that the clocks are fast and so in my head I compensate and think, 'well, I know it's fast so I'll just empty the dishwasher - It'll only take a couple of minutes' and there we go again! For me it would only work if I had Clouseau's Cato sabotaging all my clocks without me knowing so I could never rely on them.

[MM]

While I do agree with you Whimsey on virtually everything about being a CLP, having struggled with it all my life (I'm sure genetics does play a part, my mother would load the washing machine 5 minutes after we were supposed to have left the house) I have to put to bed the siesta myth (pardon the pun!). The day is split in half in Spain, with many people working from 8 or 9 in the morning, until 8 in the evening, with a 1-2 hour break at midday, mainly because for so much of the year it's too hot at midday, and in years gone by there was no air conditioning. Nowadays, it's really only small children (under 5s) who have a nap at midday, at school, since their day is 9-5. A lot of schools in Spain are now considering the 'intensive' day - 8-14:30. 9 o'clock is challenging enough. 8 o'clock is just plain mean!

[caroline]

I'm late for everything unless I make a superhuman effort not to be. Got a fab wheeze to make sure I'm on time.. all clocks in my house are 10 mins fast ( with exception of my alarm which is a full 20 mins fast).
Why is this? I'm a responsible citizen, a good wife/mother and a Uni lecturer..
My friend explained that I am in NLP terms "IN TIME" - ie I live in the NOW and cant look ahead unlike those who are "THROUGH TIME" who plan everything.. er, like my husband who drives me MAD of course as I do him!
It's just not our fault - time means nothing to us..we are true to our pre-mechanised selves and our pre-industrial agri-economy pasts.

[whimsey]

Sorry, Freudian error - teenagers are, of course, naturally owls, and unnaturally larks!!

[whimsey]

I think there may be a problem in the way we use the word 'normal'. If we imply 'normal' means 'what should be' instead of the 'statistically most likely', which is what I would take it to mean, then it can be taken to be judgemental. ie, a 'normal' person is the kind of person we all 'should be'.

If we keep to the statistical use of the term then that error doesn't occur.

As to the question of the 'medical status' of a disorder, rather than a disease (or possibly even syndrome) then it presumably has some kind of definition a medic would use (and I have to say I don't know what it is - maybe, again, it's nothing more than a 'statistical abnormality' - ie, not many in the population present with it, ie, the disorder).

The term does come into flak, I appreciate. There's one school of thought that holds 'a disorder is a distinct medically-defined condition that is not the fault of the afflicted any more than a physical disability is' and another that holds 'it's a load of self-justifying old codswallop'!!

Probably it depends just what the disorder is as to whether it's likely to get one or the other. I can definitely remember being in the 'codswallop!' camp when I read in a magazine about a disorder that claimed that some people have a medical condition that makes them impelled to get up in the middle of the night and raid the fridge for fattening food. I just thought 'codswallop!' - that's not a disorder, that's low blood sugar in the night and someone who has not learnt to control their appetite the way the rest of us just have to damn well do!!!!!!

However, when it comes to whether circadian rythmns can be disordered, well, I guess I was the one here who first talked about larks and owls, so I can hardly deny that! Nevertheless, whether circadian rythms are learned or inherent I have absolutely no idea. I am an owl like my mother, but whether that's genetic, or because I was brought up to be like that, and see that as normal, I don't know. Luckily, I'm not an extreme owl, so I can still fit in to the way society currently runs, and I CAN do early mornings, but I really, really don't like to!

I did read a while back that teenagers GENUINELY find it difficult to be owls (ie, they are not just being lazy little sods who were up to 3 am partying or on the Internet!), and that when classes are held back till 10 am, they perform much better than if they are forced into school at 8 am.

I suspect a lot of it is definitely cultural to some extent, or why would an entire nation like the Spanish not have a problem with splitting the 24 hours into two lots of twelve, with two sleep cycles, nighttime and siesta time, etc? It would drive me nuts, but I assume gradually one adapts??

[MM]

There's a watch which wakes the wearer at an optimal time during their sleep cycle. Unfortunately, though, I'll probably still need those '10 minutes more, pleeeeaaase!' I remember reading about someone who for whatever reason wasn't able to get her children to school on time from her home, and then make it to work on time. She got herself a campervan, and I think she and the children would sleep in the school carpark in the campervan. She'd send them off to school and then drive to work in it. I think she was taken to court for it, but some mornings, it does seem like a fantastic idea.

[Gipsy]

Anne, you've got a drum to bang and clearly you're going to bang it. You actually managed to find a post from someone talking about their physically handicapped child, and portray the post, and by extension the poster, as being offensive and insenstive.

When you have to wipe the drool from your child's mouth, and know that you'll have to do this for the rest of your life, then please come and tell me how tough it is to have a different 'circadian rhythm' to everyone else. I might be able to rummage up some sympathy then.

[anne]

Jean Jones -I find your assumption that I am not indeed talking about 'normal people' quite offensive and it exactly illustrates my point.

Perhaps 'normal people' have different genetically based circadian systems that make fitting into a particular social structure detrimental to both their health and experience of society, and consequently, that of their children. If a large proportion of the population have this disposition to some extent, who is to say what is 'normal'? In Denmark they have schools and jobs set up exactly to counter this issue, with 10am starts and flexible working hours. If people's circadian cycles are on a spectrum from 'larks to 'night owls' and society is set up according to larks hours, night owls lose out. Especially if they have to act to put anothers needs before their own, as you do with your children, and you cannot therefore live according to you own physiological needs.
And by this I mean living with constant sleep deprivation akin to jetlag, which can result in depression, personality changes, a lowered immune system, obesity, and cancer amongst other issues.

Perhaps that parent whose child is always in late is making themselves very ill on a daily basis by managing to get them there 10 minutes late at all, as they never fully complete their sleep cycle.

And if schools function as any sort of community, it doesn't take much to offer support to a family in these circumstances, perhaps taking on some of the responsibility of the school run for them. It can work wonders.

Sleep disorders of this nature are on just beginning to be recognised by society and it can take many years of struggle to achieve diagnosis at all. Your argument assumes that these people actually have their problems recognised fully as a medical condition, and that the school are being sufficiently supportive.
(And it is also important to add here that these are only sleep 'disorders' because there is a mismatch between societies demands and people's genetic nature, there is nothing actually 'wrong' with them in a medical sense, although it needs to be managed in a medical way. And it can only be managed not cured. People with Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder cannot shift their sleep patterns around in the normal manner.)

Clearly it is not good for the child to be late or for lessons to be disrupted. However, if someone has a 'normal' genetic disposition to a particular sleep cycle which makes them constantly 'late' or out of sync with the social norm, the constant denaturing effect and the lack of understanding they recieve from others can have truly devastating effects on their lives, personality and prospects in life.

Perhaps the minor disruption they present and that people so take up against, is just a small glimpse of the constant disruption they face themselves in trying to fit into a social structure which does not suit them. Imagine always being accused of being lazy when you are struggling to be there at all. The ongoing effects on your self-esteem might be such that you end up being late all the time as you are labelled as such, and come to believe that this is the 'kind' of person you are. Particularly if you are a teenager/young adult learning to find your way in the world, and finding that you don't 'fit'. DSPS is more common in this age group. Or it could also be the result of the compounded effects over time of the whole picture, putting ever increasing aspects of your life out, making it harder to be on time in all circumstances.

People are not all the same, and if we want a society where social darwinism rules and those who do not fit into a particular genetic set will be disadvantaged and selected out, there you have it. Sparks of social engineering if you draw that argument out to its logical conclusion.

http://www.b-society.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_syndrome

[Lucy (without kids. Yet)]

(What d'you teach, btw? I feel sure I should know, but don't.)

[Lucy (without kids. Yet)]

'Lucy W/O kids' ... oh dear. Sorry, it's only a mouthful because I wanted it to be clear I was the same Lucy who's been posting for a while ...

Jean, I really think you are overlooking serious extotion possibilities. At my old uni you had to pay a fine if you missed a supervision without notice, but surely it would be even better to operate a sliding scale of penalties for degrees of lateness. They are adults: you should prepare them for the real world with a little gentle fleecing of their money. ;-)

[whimsey]

Oh, Jo - I feel your childhood pain in what you wrote. It's so rotten how miserable our parents can make us, and be blithely unaware (or uncaring) of it. It's like when parents dress you in utterly inappropriate and grossly embarrassing clothes, and you just KNOW everyone is laughing at you and your mum just doesn't see why and thinks you're making a ridiculous fuss anyway, and probably tells you bracingly to stop being a wimp and caring what your peers think of you (yes, good advice on the whole, but not when you are wearing completely the wrong clothes for something...)

I think it's one of the arts of parenthood to be aware of what children think is important to them, and to try, on a 'fair's-fair' basis to accommodate them, especially when it means little to you and so much to your children.

Ming - good point about task oriented and time oriented. I'm definitely the former. I HATE having to abandon something I haven't finished just so I can arrive somewhere on time!