CHILDREN SLEEP BETTER WHEN PARENTS SET THEIR BEDTIMES
Thursday, June 16th, 2011
Getting adolescents to get the sleep they need can be a hard task to accomplish. Today’s world is filled with distractions that keep kids and teenagers awake. But a new study released in the latest issue of the journal SLEEP suggests that parents that take the hard line when it comes to bedtimes are truly helping their children’s futures.
The study looked at 385 children from different schools in South Australia. Researchers found that 17.5% of the those studied reported a parent-set bedtime. That group demonstrated earlier bedtimes, more sleep, and improved daytime functioning compared to their peers without parent enforced bedtimes. This is significant because especially in children sufficient sleep time is essential for cognitive and physical development. Lack of sleep has been linked to lower school test scores, depression, increased traffic accidents, and childhood obesity.
Teens may not like it when their parents make them go to bed, but in the long run the benefits of sufficient sleep may far outweigh the costs of struggling over bedtimes.
