What are the sleep needs of high school age teens? What are the side effects of lack of sleep? And what are some pointers for parents?
Teens need from 8 1/2 and 9 1/4 hours of sleep each night. Most adolescents DO NOT get enough sleep. Only 15% reported sleeping 8 1/2 hours on school nights.
Side effects of lack of sleep:
Teens tend to have irregular sleep patterns across the week – they typically stay up late and sleep in late on weekends. This irregularity affects their biological clocks and hurts the quality of their sleep. Some side effects include: Limits ability to learn, listen, concentrate and solve problems; Contributes to acne and other skin problems; Leads to inappropriate or aggressive behavior (e.g. yelling, impatience with family members and teachers); Eat unhealthy foods (e.g. sweets, fried foods) that lead to weight gain; Performs poorly in sports (e.g. reduced endurance and cardiovascular performance, delayed visual and auditory reaction time).
Pointers for parents:
1. Be a good role model. Practice good sleep hygiene yourself.
2. Enforce regular sleep schedules for all children and teens. Establish a quiet relaxing time in the evening before bedtime when music and television are not permitted.
3. Talk with your kids about their sleep/wake schedules. Assess time in extracurricular activities and outsides jobs, and make adjustments, if appropriate.
4. Consider having each teen keep a sleep diary for 1 or 2 weeks. Review it for poor sleep hygiene, and make an effort to change patterns, if necessary.
5. During vacations, help your teen adjust for a smooth transition to the upcoming school schedule. Go to sleep and awaken 15 minutes earlier each day until teen reaches desired sleep and wake times.
6. Always be on the look out for signs of sleep deprivation—difficulty waking in the morning, falling asleep during quiet times in the day, irritability in late day, and sleeping super-long on weekends.
7. Avoid use of caffeine and other substances that can affect sleep.
Dr. Susan Smith Kuczmarski has taught at 8 universities, now at Northwestern University and Loyola University in Chicago. She is an award-winning author of 6 books, 3 on families and 3 on leadership, including her newest, Becoming A Happy Family: Pathways to the Family Soul (2015), and her best-selling, The Sacred Flight of the Teenager: A Parent’s Guide to Stepping Back and Letting Go, which was released (2019) in Egypt in Arabic. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, she has researched extensively how children learn social skills and teens become leaders. A frequent radio and television guest, she has appeared on "The Today Show" and speaks regularly to parents and educators. Listed in Who's Who in the World for 12 years and an International Fellow of Columbia University, her 35 years of college teaching and research have made her an expert on issues devoted to the contemporary family.
