Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Kids need sleep

I once had CPS complain that I was setting my kids' alarm clock for 7:00 am to get ready for school at 8:30 am. The agent said that was not enough time, and the kids felt rushed in the morning.

Scientific American reports on a new study showing that kids do better in school if they get enough sleep:
The researchers evaluated 201 Rhode Island high school students whose school pushed back its start time from 8 to 8:30. The kids completed a sleep habits survey before and after the time change.

After the delayed start, the percentage of students who said they got at least eight hours of sleep a night jumped from about 16 to 55 percent. Class attendance improved, and there were fewer visits to the health center for fatigue-related complaints. Plus, the number of students who said they felt unhappy, depressed, annoyed or irritated dropped significantly.
Cmr. Irwin Joseph actually said that the alarm clock was "representative" of the accusations against me.

Update: This study got some publicity as showing that it is better for schools to start later in the day. But that does no good if the kids goto bed later. The study only shows that kids do worse with a sleep deficiency.

I could never get an explanation of just what was wrong with setting the alarm clock for 7:00.

4 comments:

Hughman said...

90 minutes to get ready?
How is that possible?

I can remember getting ready as kid within 30 minutes if I overslept. Less than 15 if I was late.

George said...

The 90 minutes includes time to drive to school. But yes, it was plenty of time. The CPS agent was way off base.

Anonymous said...

I thought the whole issue was that you were altering the kids clocks after they set them. They would wake up, be surprised at the time, and feel rushed.

How long was the commute?

George said...

The commute was about 25 minutes. We would usually leave about 7:55 am. Sometimes we carpooled. I would set the alarm for 7:00.