Best Wake-Up Call

How do we keep kids awake in class? Maybe we should let them sleep in.

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• Parenting Teens
• Great Ideas
• Sleep
• Sleep Solutions
• America's Schools

More than a quarter of American teenagers nod off in class at least once a week, according to the National Sleep Foundation.

Says its CEO, Darrel Drobnich, "The average teen needs about nine and a half hours of sleep but gets only about six or seven." Blame an early bell, which at most high schools rings before 8 a.m. That's way too early for teen brains, which produce sleep-inducing melatonin later at night, making it hard for them to fall asleep before 11 p.m. The solution: Start school later. High schools in 19 states now start at least an hour later than before, opening around 8:30 a.m. Others are discussing it. Minneapolis and suburban Edina public schools were first in the country to move to later start times; educators say attendance is up and discipline problems down. Even coaches note an upswing in player performance.

The later students slept on school days, the higher their GPA, says the University of California, San Diego.

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From Reader's Digest - May 2008

 

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