What a Teenage Strike Taught Me About Sleep

This winter in Montreal has been something out of a survival movie. It started back in November and hasn’t let up: ice storms, snowstorms, and weeks of minus-30 cold. My 13-year-old son started high school this year, and for the first time in his life, he doesn’t have a school bus that magically shows up every morning.

Instead? A good 20-minute walk — in sub-zero temps.

If you had asked me in October how he’d respond, I’d have said: “He’ll bundle up, trek like a champ, and come home stronger.”

What actually happened was more… dramatic.

The school didn’t organize any bus service, so the boys either walk, take public transit, or get rides (sometimes crammed into a dad’s van like sardines). Naturally, the kids were outraged. They’ve been egging each other on like a medieval mob fueled by freezing toes: “Four walks a day? Unacceptable! We demand transportation!”

When I asked my son how many times he actually walked that week, he said three — the rest were hitches or transit. But once a group gets worked up, logic gets left on the ice with everyone’s mittens.

So they announced a strike.

Not kidding.

One evening last week, he came home and said: “Tonight we’re striking — no night learning!” My initial internal reaction was the classic parental gasp: “Absolutely not. ''Who do you think you are?”

But then I paused. I listened. I didn’t lecture, argue, or try to wrestle the outcome into something I thought was realistic. I asked him to explain. I asked more questions. He explained, I asked more, and I could see him thinking — really thinking. He was expecting a fight, expecting outrage from me, but instead… silence. It was like the balloon of rebellion had deflated, and he was quietly processing everything.

Then he asked, almost cautiously: “But what happens if I get into trouble, or even suspended? Will you bail me out?”

I said, “No. This is your plan; you decide if it’s worth it.”

An hour later, he told me he was going to meet his friends — the strike was on. I wished him luck, took a breath, and sent a little prayer to heaven.

An hour after that, he was back home. The strike had fizzled out, and now he was super worried: What would tomorrow look like? Would he get into trouble? Was it worth it? And on a deeper level, he was realizing the inconvenient truth: they still had no bus. Slowly, the reality sank in — some kids had gone to night learning, others had returned home, and his protest hadn’t changed the world. He experienced the consequences firsthand and went to bed, quietly reflecting on what had just happened.

The Sleep Parallel

Watching him process this, I couldn’t help but see a perfect metaphor for sleep. So many of us approach bedtime the way he approached the strike: we try to control, manipulate, negotiate, or force a specific outcome. We panic when we feel powerless, we argue with reality, and we double down on the very pressure that keeps us awake.

Here’s the interesting part: the more out of control we feel, the harder we try to control. The more we fixate on falling asleep, staying asleep, or getting enough hours, the further away sleep seems. You’ve probably been there — lying in bed, watching the minutes tick by, feeling your heart race, and thinking, “I must fall asleep now or tomorrow will be a disaster!” That exact pressure is what keeps you awake.

Like my son, who believed sheer will and protest would make the school act, we often think that pushing harder, planning more, or trying to force results will finally give us what we want. But the harder we push, the more resistance we create — and the more frustrated we become. It’s a paradox: control often produces the opposite of what we intend.

The shift comes when we step back and let go. Letting go doesn’t mean giving up. It doesn’t mean ignoring the problem or settling for sleepless nights. It means releasing the tension, the constant monitoring of results, and the self-criticism that comes with perceived failure. It’s the mental equivalent of taking a deep breath and saying, “I can’t make this happen, but I can allow it to happen naturally.”

When we do this, we create space for natural outcomes — just as my son created space to experience the consequences of the fizzled strike. He saw firsthand what worked, what didn’t, and what mattered. Sleep works in much the same way: it flows when we stop forcing it, when we stop battling it, and when we stop believing that controlling every moment will finally get us rest.

There’s a subtle freedom in surrender. It’s the realization that trying to control everything — our nights, our schedules, our kids, our outcomes — is exhausting, and often unnecessary. Sometimes, all we need to do is step back, breathe, and allow things to unfold. In doing so, we often find that the solution arrives without the fight, without the stress, and without the struggle we imagined.

Final Thought

So the next time you find yourself lying awake, telling your brain you must sleep, consider this: what if the sleep comes when you stop fighting it? What if letting go — instead of controlling, pressuring, or stressing — is the real path forward?

Just like sometimes you have to let go of trying to control a teenager’s protest, the same goes for sleep. The harder we push, the further away the result. Sometimes the most effective thing we can do is take a breath, release the need to control, and let life — or sleep — unfold on its own.

👉 If you’d like support shifting your relationship with wakefulness and resistance — whether in sleep or life — let’s talk:📅 Book a complimentary 30‑min call: https://calendly.com/chevymermelstein/30min

👉 Missed my previous blog? Check out Befriending Wakefulness: How to Stop Nighttime Panic and Finally Sleep for more insights.