Importance of Sleep, Again

As I have already fessed up to needing a lot of sleep, I was pleased to see yet another article on the importance of sleep, this one focused onteens. The article reports that most teens are sleep-deprived and functioning on two hours less sleep per evening than is needed.

What is so important for teens that it trumps sleep for two hours each night? When I asked my teen this question she responded, "When teens go to school, they start school too early then they have a ton of homework. Plus, if they want to have any friends, have a job, or help their family, they have to do that at night too. I bet a lot of them feel pressured to study a lot to get into a good college and do other things to get into college. They are only free to do all that in the evening and on weekends."

Underlying this is a cultural lack of valuing sleep. The bumper sticker, "I'll sleep when I'm dead," comes to mind. Sleep is supposedly something for slackers and suckers. I'm not buying it! As parents we must provide for and protect our children's sleep. We can begin by setting an example of valuing sleep ourselves.