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Kids and Teens Really Need to Sleep In
Waking too early for school or otherwise messes with their brains, bodies and emotional health
Our three children never appreciated my well-intentioned early morning interventions into their sound sleep. My sing-song “wakey wakey time” suggestion—which invariably led to serious demands and ultimately lots of yelling and arguing before a frantic breakfast and a mad dash to get to school on time—no doubt still haunts their adult dreams.
Now I know better. And with most U.S. schools starting back up this month, parents with kids still in school need to know this, too:
Among the stupidest rituals of modern American society is early school start times that force parents to roust kids out of bed in the predawn. Right behind that on the idiocy scale is waking children on weekends because we, as adults, deem sleeping in to be a sign of laziness. Combined with other challenges to a good night’s sleep, these ingrained inanities cause three-fourths of high schoolers and a third of younger kids to sleep much less than what’s good for them.
Let the kids sleep, science says emphatically. Their body health, brain functioning and overall happiness—even their ability to dream—depends on it.
