Clement
Clark Moore’s famous poem, ‘Twas the
Night Before Christmas, was a tale of how the speaker and his wife had just
settled in for a long winter’s nap before he was startled out of his bed by
Santa Claus. Even though Christmas and the Winter Solstice have both passed and
nights are therefore getting shorter, your body is still hunkering in for the
winter. For teenagers, this can be doubly as difficult.
Parents typically have the same schedule with the exception
of a few weeks’ vacation every year. During the work/school week, the entire
family likely shares this schedule -- you get up, get ready, help your kids get
ready, and then everyone goes about their day.
Weekends are a different story. Parents still tend to get
up -- they have things to attend to that didn’t get done during the week and
still have a family to take care of. Kids on the other hand, especially
teenagers, tend to view the weekend as prime time for a long winter’s nap.
That’s true whether it is January or June.
This can be quite frustrating for parents who want the family
to do things together. It’s equally bothersome when weekend chores aren’t being
done, homework is left waiting, and everyone else’s schedule is pushed aside
for the hibernating bear.
Not a bad analogy, is it? Try waking a teenager on a
Saturday morning if they aren’t ready. Once awake, the bear is famished as if
their sleep could’ve been counted in days rather than hours.
As a parent, this can put you in a difficult position. If you
force you teen awake before the hibernation period is over, you’re likely to
have a Grizzly on your hands rather than a cute Panda or Koala. On the other
hand, should you let the bear sleep as long as they want? You’ve probably been
told that children should stick to a consistent schedule. You might also have
been told that your children are short on sleep. So what do you do?
According to scientists and health practitioners, teenagers
are indeed short on sleep.
“Adolescents
are notorious for not getting enough sleep. The average amount of sleep
that teenagers get is between 7 and 7 ¼ hours. However, they need
between 9 and 9 ½ hours (studies show that most teenagers need exactly 9
¼ hours of sleep).”
~ Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Hopefully this information will allay the
fear you might have over your teen sleeping their lives away. If your teen is sluggish
every morning, then it’s possible they aren’t getting enough sleep. The
weekends may be a critical time for their growing body to get much-needed rest.
On the other hand, it might be that your teen
isn’t scheduling their time well enough to get the appropriate amount of sleep.
You might want to look into what’s causing this lack of sleep.
Is your teen up late doing homework? Do they
have a part-time job that’s impacting their schedule? Or do they participate in
sports or other extra-curricular activities that keep them out late? If this is
a temporary scheduling issue, it might not be a major concern, but it might be
healthy to consider whether or not your teen is trying to take on too much.
There may be another culprit at play
here. Most teens today spend a
significant part of their time with their electronics. They use their phones,
tablets, and computers for homework, as a way to connect socially, and for
distraction. Rather than be forced to have phone conversations tethered to a
wall phone, today kids take their phones everywhere with them. That means they’re
staring at those little screens and the light they project for hours at a time.
The human body is designed to respond to
light. Originally, this was the light of the sun. A rhythm based on when the
sun rises and sets was developed. The advent of artificial lights allowed humanity
to extend daytime activities later into the evening. The result was that people
began to get less sleep, but those lights could be turned off easily. Now your
teen isn’t just using electronic devices in the evening, but is using them for
extended periods of time right before going to bed.
“… Careful studies have shown that even our small electronic
devices emit sufficient light to miscue the brain and promote wakefulness. As
adults, we are subject to these influences and our children are particularly
susceptible. “
~ National Sleep Foundation
This means that even if your teen is reading
before bed, the electronic device they might be reading it on isn’t preparing
them for sleep. Just as your parents used to admonish you to turn the lights
out, you may need to remind your teen to turn off their electronic devices in
order to get a good night’s rest.
The bottom line is that there’s no need to panic if your
teenager takes an occasional long winter’s nap, but if sleeping long hours on
the weekends is a constant occurrence or is impacting the family schedule, it
might be time to check into the cause of their hibernation.
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