News, Advice, and Tips for Parenting Teenagers

Staying up late and getting up early seems to be a rite of passage for teenagers. But most scientists and those in the medical community agree that adolescents actually need more sleep, not less. Ideally, teens should get eight to ten hours of sleep a night. But if they have to get up at 6:30am for school, that means they should be in bed by 9:30 or 10pm at the latest. Not likely, right?

"What can a parent do to help their teen stay rested? It seems the ideal scenario would be to allow your teen to do nothing - as if! Instead, help your teen take a look at his or her schedule and see how sleep can be fit in to cut down on incidence of sleep deprivation. Since energy levels usually dim in the afternoon, instead of coming home and plopping down on the computer for an hour to "chat" with friends, encourage your teenager to put up an away message and take a nap."

Though you may not set a strict bedtime for your teen, consider having a "room curfew" that requires your teen to be in his or her room at a certain time. Encourage quite activities (no TV, video games, or computers) after a certain time of night to help your teen begin to wind down.

Read more at TeenagersToday.com.

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Labels: teenagers, sleep_deprivation, curfews

Posted By: Aspen Education Group