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from the and-teachers-can-work-later... dept.
American teenagers, rejoice ! The American Academy of Pediatrics wants all US schools attended by children aged 10 to 18 to delay their opening times to 8.30 am or later. Currently, only 15 per cent start after this time.
The aim is to tackle widespread sleep deprivation by helping teenagers manage the shift in their body clocks that coincides with puberty. This turns them into "night owls" who favour going to bed and rising 2 hours later than when they were younger. Research has shown that this results in more car accidents, increased late arrivals at school as well as lower grades, and higher risks of depression, moodiness and obesity.
A poll published in 2006 ( http://sleepfoundation.org/sites/default/files/2006_summary_of_findings.pdf [PDF] ) by the US National Sleep Foundation found that 59 per cent of middle school students and 87 per cent of high school students were failing to get the recommended 8.5 to 9.5 hours sleep on school nights.
[Additional Research] http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/11299/162769/1/Impact%20of%20Later%20Start%20Time%20Final%20Report.pdf [PDF]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by compro01 on Wednesday August 27 2014, @02:40AM
Setting a curfew doesn't mean they're actually going to be getting to sleep rather than just lying in bed.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Dachannien on Wednesday August 27 2014, @03:17AM
Setting a curfew doesn't mean they're actually going to be getting to sleep rather than just lying in bed.
This. I haven't been a teenager for about 20 years, but back when I was, it was pretty common that I would stay up until 4am reading a book in bed because I just couldn't get to sleep. I was probably worse off in that respect than most of my classmates, as I've continued to have sleep problems all my life, but if their natural clock is tuned that way, their schedules should be tuned to match it. Teenagers are old enough to walk/bus/drive themselves to school (as applicable) without adult supervision, so we should stop putting them on a schedule that's more convenient for their parents than it is for them.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday August 27 2014, @03:47AM
Maybe it's time to do it again? (being a teenager, I mean).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by tftp on Wednesday August 27 2014, @03:18AM
Indeed. Per Wikipedia:
Or, rephrasing a well known wisdom, you can put the child to bed, but you cannot make him sleep. Not until his own clock tells him. And that clock is out of alignment, as the TFA points out.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday August 27 2014, @03:03PM
That is a fair observation. And, in fact, one of my sons always had that problem - he can't just turn his lights out, and go to sleep. His mind continues whatever, and he can't just turn it off.
But, I will argue that lying in bed is still more conducive to rest and/or sleep than being out in the living room, watching television, or banging away on the keyboard, or going down the road to visit his buddy. Sleeping or not, being stretched out on your own bed is generally restful. Having looked at the boy morning after morning, I believe that his state of mind in the morning proves my opinion. With curfew, his main frustration was an unreasonable father. Without curfew, he may have stayed up all night long rebuilding a motorcycle engine, or skateboarding, or just anything at all.
(Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday August 27 2014, @03:40PM
I have to disagree. I was a night owl when I was a teen, but since my 20s I've been a morning person. That said, I still have nights where I've been working on a problem and just can't shut my brain off. Often lying in bed is *worse* for me than just staying up to finish what I was working on because:
1) All I do is toss and turn in bed thinking of the problem
2) I'm extremely tired the next day, which makes it hard to focus
3) When I can't focus I stress out, which makes it hard to sleep
It was pretty much the same when I was a teen. So just lying in bed, IMHO, can be worse than actually doing something "productive" to at least take my mind off what I was thinking about when I couldn't sleep. Sometimes just 10-15 minutes of TV or reading is enough to get me off whatever train my thoughts were on. Other times a problem just has to be solved before I can sleep. I'd definitely discourage video games, that's more of an amping up activity rather than a winding down.
Although I don't like the idea of forcing people to go to bed if they're not ready, making allowances for them to sleep in so they *can* stay up later because they don't have to get up as early is just as bad. So I still don't think school should be based around teens sleeping habits. I, along with a lot of teens I knew, could easily sleep until 1:00-2:00 in the afternoon. If we moved starting time to 8:30 today, then tomorrow the optimal time will be 9:30, then it'll be 10:30 and so on. Eventually teens ill prepared to cope with the "real world" where their schedule is dictated by a boss who wants them up and at work for 7:00 AM.
"Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 28 2014, @05:09AM
Actually the research suggests night owls handle shift work better than early birds
That's the trend, more shift work, less regular hours