Video games, mobile phones and TV are keeping children up at night, answers to a BBC questionnaire suggest.
Newsround sent a questionnaire to 1,000 children aged between nine and 11 at schools across the UK.
Most said they went to bed at 2130, but a quarter said bedtime was 2200 or later and half said they were not getting enough sleep and wanted more.
Health experts have linked a lack of sleep to problems with concentration, behaviour and school work. About half the children asked said they were staying up to play on computer games or their mobile phones or to watch television.
and in another report:
According to researchers, teenagers are suffering from what they call “night owl syndrome” because they do not get enough sunlight.
A study by the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lighting Research Centre in the USA concluded that teenagers were missing out on exposure to light, especially in the morning, and that this was upsetting their body-clocks.
The research was led by Mariana Figueiro, who said: “As teenagers spend more time indoors, they miss out on essential morning light needed to stimulate the body’s 24-hour biological system, which regulates the sleep/wake cycle.
“These morning-light-deprived teenagers are going to bed later, getting less sleep and possibly under-performing on standardised tests.”
The study was published in the journal Neuroendocrinology Letters.
So what is the answer?
OK, here we go again, criticising the technology. How on earth can it be the technology’s fault and not the parents? If this stuff is keeping your child awake, remove it from their room. Surely it is that simple!
But I want to add something here about sleep, too…
Most parents find the sleeping habits of teenagers bizarre. They appear to become nocturnal in their activities. In Barbara Strauch’s book, “Why are they so Weird?” she explains in great detail.
The reason for such strange behaviour, from the change in melatonin levels to the fact that in the past adolescents, as the most agile, had to stay up and be alert to defend the pack. She believes that these in-built environmental qualities have lingered on and our teenagers find it difficult to go to sleep in the evenings because of this biological factor. She also stresses that research has shown that teenagers need nine hours sleep; hence, they have an inability to go to sleep and an inability to get up, which is bound to lead to problems. Some schools in America have taken note of this and have started school days later, and I belive one school in Britain has changed it’s start time.
So maybe our teenagers are not lazy, just biologically impaired!
So sometimes, leaving them in bed on none school days can be the best option, letting them catch up with their sleep can actually be a good thing. Teenagers need three hours of sleep more per night than we do and if they are not sleeping well throughout the week then this accumulates. So if you can bare it, leave them in bed. What you need to figure out yourself, as a parent, is what is acceptable to you and what the guidelines are around them staying in bed.
Do you mind at all?
Do you not mind as long as they get up at a certain time?
Do you not mind as long as they spend some time with you or do you not mind as long as you don’t have to force them out of bed on school days?
Get very clear with yourself what the guidelines are and share them with your teenager. Say something like, “I know you need a lot of sleep and I want you to catch up on it. That is OK with us and we will leave you in bed. All I ask is…..”
Be clear what you want and will accept as a family.
You might also want to look at ways you can coax them from their cave. Cooking food they love or doing something they find exciting may be other ways that you can also beat this one. Shouting at them, telling them they are lazy and forcing them out of bed is just not going to cut it.
