Bronson And Merrryman's Nurture Shock

During the 2011-2012 school year, 72.5% of schools across the United States participated in the US Department of Education SASS. The results indicate that 17.7% of public schools being the school day at 8:30 am or later, as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP). One of the goals in Healthy People 2020 is to increase the number of adolescents in grades 9-12 that achieve 8 or more hours of sleep on school nights. The proportion of students achieving this goal has remained stagnant since 2007 at 31%. There is significant research data that indicates that

In Frank Bruni article, “Today’s Exhaust Superkids,” he talks about how children sacrifice their sleep to get a competitive edge. He talks about how parents push their kids to excel. Frank says how all of the helicopter parenting is crazy and how we need to stop it. I agree with Frank Bruni’s article, “Today’s Exhaust Superkids,” it goes into depth with kids stress and the reason why children do not get the recommended amount of sleep.

Everyone knows, or has heard, that on average teenagers should obtain at least 8 hours of sleep, and some even say the minimum should be 9 hours. However, “according to the National Sleep Foundation, only 14% achieve this goal, and approximately 70% of adolescents obtain less than 8 hours of sleep on a typical weeknight,” says Ph.D. holder Dr. Julie Boergers. Currently, only about 40% of US high schools start before 8:00 A.M. and many even start at 7:30 A.M. or earlier. To add on, many teens now days work part time jobs starting right after school, and some of them don’t return home until 11:00 or 12:00 p.m. Of course, this doesn’t take into consideration the homework a student has from school, so on average adding two hours, most teen would go to sleep at 1 or 2 at night. This only leaves about 4 to 5 hours of sleep for many teens. With only four to five hours of sleep in a student’s schedule there are many problems that can come. For short-term effects, lack of adequate sleep can affect the ability to learn and retain information, mood, judgment, and may increase the risk of injury, or a serious accident. In the long term, sleep deprivation may

“Chronic sleep loss in children and adolescents is one of the most common – and easily fixable – public health issues in the U.S. today. The research is clear that adolescents who get enough sleep have a reduced risk of being overweight or suffering depression, are less likely to be involved in automobile accidents, and have better grades, higher standardized test scores and an overall better quality of life. Studies have shown that delaying early school start times is one key factor that can help adolescents get the sleep they need to grow and learn.” (qtd. in Strauss)

Over the span of thirty year research has repeatedly shown that adolescents, between the ages thirteen and eighteen, are sleep deprived. With so much time, money, and research put forth to solve this problem, most would believe that a solution has been discovered and in mid stages of implementation. However, after reviewing statistics one can not help feeling disappointed by the gargantuan number of students who still are not getting enough sleep. Why are adolescents still being sleep deprived? Schools have refused to change their start times even though students have repeatedly stated that waking up at such an early time is physically and mentally strainful. Unreasonably early school start times cause various difficulties for students such

Our study produced numbers less than the recommended amount of sleep. Since this number is lower than recommended, the next step, beyond the scope of the project, is to find the actual true population average mean hours of sleep for all kids at Walton High School. If the data shows that students at Walton High School are being deprived of sleep, we should conduct the same study at other schools and take this to a national level. Sleep is necessary for all humans to survive. Why should teenagers be deprived of one of their essential, inalienable rights,

A child’s environmental factors also contribute to their need for sleep. Gerber (2014), states children in the United States have busy after school schedules, too many electronics, working parents, and heavy homework expectations. Therefore, teachers and school districts have to understand that not all children will receive the recommended amount of sleep a night. Kindergarten naps or short rest periods could be extremely beneficial. However, lack of sleep in children can affect behavior, impair cognitive processes, and negatively impact physical health (Cairns & Harsh, 2015; Kihm & Rolling, 2014).

Sleep is the body’s chance to repair and rejuvenate itself, and, without it, students can suffer immensely and become more susceptible to mental illnesses. As humans grow older, it naturally becomes more difficult to wake up at earlier times. It has been widely agreed that each person should get between eight and ten hours of sleep, but, according to a poll by the National Sleep Foundation in 2006, more than 87 percent of teens get considerably less than the recommended amount of sleep (Richter). Students are staying out later to participate in extracurricular activities and to work on homework in the hopes that they will be able to attain a slot in the college of their choice. For students with earlier wake up times, this also means a more compressed time for sleep. During sleep, we go through cycles of deeper and lighter sleeper. Not only are students getting less sleep, they are also not given the opportunity to go through the sleep cycles as they should. Oftentimes they are being ripped out of bed at times which deprive them of some of the deepest, most productive sleep time (Richter). Coincidently, this deep sleep stage is also when dreaming occurs. In essence, students are not being given the opportunity to

May 30, 2015, marked the end of my high school career, and as I walked the graduation line, two things kept ringing in my head, “No more waking at 5:00am, and I no longer have to catch the bus at 6:17am,” which made me really happy. Imagine how many high school students across the United States feel the same after high school or during twelfth grade. Over the years, early school start times has been attributed to some of the reasons why students have been unable to perform well because they have been deprived of sleep. Sleep is an essential part of our daily lives and without it, we will be unable to function, as it is known that sleep is needed for optimum performance. It is one of the factors that determines how much effort we put into our daily activities, and it has several health benefits on our minds asides from the obvious ones known to people; moreover, one might conclude that it determines a whole lot of things pertaining to our daily lives. Despite the fact that we are aware of the many effects and benefits of sleep, most students in the United States are denied these benefits through early school start times, and this has several adverse effects on students academically and mentally. Schools should start later in the morning as early school start times impairs the performance of students greatly, affects students’ cognitive abilities, and denies students an adequate amount of sleep. (Finley).

As stated before children especially need ample amount of sleep. According to Gerber, Lois in the article, “Sleep deprivation in children: A growing public health concern (2014)” “Children ages 5 to 10 years old need 10 to 11 hours of sleep; those ages 10 to 17 years old require 8.5 to 9.25 hours.” Lack of sleep in children can compromise physical and mental health and can disrupt standard growth and development. Children as well as adults can suffer from sleep loss for many determinants, some are from breathing difficulties like sleep disorder breathing (SDB) and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and others are from stress, anxiety and mood disorders. One contribution that can help children gain enough sleep is to have public school start at a later time. It is difficult for children to get the right amount of sleep when school starts around 7 am and they have to wake up at 6 or even 5 am to have enough time to get ready for school. For a child to get enough sleep and still wake up at 5 am would mean that they would have to be in bed and asleep by 7 – 7:30 pm. This does not leave the child a lot of time to do homework, play after school sports, and spend quality family time. Studies are currently being done to show

A community survey (Blader, Koplewicz, Abikoff, & Foley, 1997) of 987 parents of elementary school-aged children reported the following problems related to children's sleep behaviors: Bedtime resistance (27%), difficulty with morning wakening (17%), complaints of fatigue (17%), delayed sleep onset (11%), and nighttime wakenings (7%). Rates are even higher in studies examining clinical child populations, with restless sleep (43%) and night wakings (47%) affecting a substantial number of children (Simonds & Parraga,

An alarming issue that has garnered attention from the international community is sleep and the quality that most individuals receive (Colten & Altevogt, 2006). Sleep quality affects individuals of all ages, including the youth and the elderly. It has been reported that the quality and amount of sleep obtained during adolescence is significantly reduced, in comparison to other age groups, which can lead to improper function throughout the day as well as raise serious health concerns (Doane, Gress-Smith, & Breitenstein, 2015). This issue becomes more pressing when the youth enter college, where students have documented sleeping less and pulling more all-nighters (Lund, Reider, Whiting, & Prichard, 2010). In turn, poor sleep quality, which these

The research in this paper indicates that if a child’s sleep needs are met, then the child will likely increase positive behaviors, improve academic skills, and possess better physical health (Buckhait et al., 2015; Cairns & Harsh, 2015; Desrochers et al., 2016; Keefe-Cooperman & Brady-Amoon, 2012; Kurdziela et al., 2013; Mednick,

According to the National, Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, a consistent 9-10 hours of sleep a day is required in teenagers and adolescents to avoid health problems that come as a result of sleep deprivation. However, research collected by The National Sleep Foundation's Sleep in America Poll found that by the 12th grade, 75 percent of students self-reported sleep durations of less than 8 hours of sleep per night. Furthermore, although 30% to 41% of sixth through eighth graders were getting 9 or more hours of sleep, only 3% of 12th graders reported doing so. With this major gap in sleep needed and sleep acquired, students experience effects of sleep deprivation. Good sleep should be a priority for everyone as it takes up approximately 33 percent of our life, and by improving sleeping patterns students could experience a decrease in drowsiness and an increase in performance. In order to achieve this Schools should make sleep education a main focus and provide the right resources to improve the energy and mood of their students through proper sleeping

Unlike the studies mentioned in the introduction, our study specifically looked at the attitudes of the participants to see if that related to the amount of sleep they got. In general, this study is adding to the large amount of psychological research done on