Temporarily disable WLAN internet access for children, but allow it for adults

Solution 1:

There are features in some routers that allow you to set up multiple SSID's and a wifi schedule. If your router has these features, you can set up 2 wifi networks with different SSID's and different passwords, and schedule one of them to be on and off at certain hours.

Solution 2:

Oh yes. The ability to provide a second or "guest" network is a feature of many home WiFi routers. If you ever go into a business and you see two WiFi networks:

  JPS-Private
  Joes Pizza Shack Free WiFi

That's exactly what that is. It simply has an internal firewall between the "guest" WiFi and the private network.

And many of these routers also have the feature to only enable the guest network at certain hours (e.g. Their business hours).

This is an easy feature to add to routers, and I see it in many. So just shop around (this stack is not a shopping help site) and you should find those features in a good number of routers.

Solution 3:

I appreciate this is a tech questions site, and you’ve asked an appropriately on-topic question. However, I believe you’ve asked an XY question and this is actually a parenting problem, not a tech one.

Disabling or blocking your WiFi does not address the root cause of your problem which, reading between the lines, is that you’ve told your kids no internet after 10, but they disregard you. Confiscating devices, banning devices from bedrooms, and just making sure your kids respect you enough to follow your wishes/commands might all be better solutions. You might want to look for similar questions (or ask a new one) on Parenting SE.

Solution 4:

If your current router does not support two wifi networks / passwords, then it might be cheaper & easier to just use a second router with a different password for it's wifi.

Sometimes old used routers are practically a dime a dozen, definitely much cheaper than buying an new one. An old router that supports OpenWRT / DD-WRT / Tomato would be ideal (but a little more effort to set up).

If you don't want the networks to communicate with each other, then it could be as simple as attaching the new router's WAN port to one of your main router's LAN ports.

Then you could have the children's internet access, or wifi network, or entire router (if it's not the main router) turned off after X o'clock, leaving yours on.