With schools out for the summer, ask a high school student about his or her plans for the break, and chances are high that you will hear one word in the response: sleep. Summer is a great time for students to catch up on their rest, but it is also an opportune time for parents, teachers and administrators to reevaluate how their practices and policies may contribute to students’ lack of sleep during the school year. Sleep deprivation is a serious issue for many adolescents, as it affects emotional and behavioral functioning, overall safety, and learning and development.
My research with colleagues at Challenge Success, a research and intervention project based at Stanford University, has found that sleep deprivation is particularly acute at some schools. The National Sleep Foundation recommends that adolescents get eight to 10 hours of sleep each night. However, high school students in our sample, drawn from dozens of high-performing schools from across the country, report an average of 6.8 hours, with the averages in some schools falling as low as six hours during week nights. Furthermore, well over half of the students in our studies report experiencing frequent exhaustion or difficulty falling asleep due to stress. Other studies of nationally representative samples of high school students find that fewer than 10 percent obtain 9 or more hours of sleep a night, the guideline recommended for teens by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Ample research has documented the importance of sleep for healthy brain development and overall well-being. It is when one sleeps that the brain strengthens the neural pathways that cement the learning that took place that day. Our research finds that students who experience exhaustion are also more likely to report other mental and physical health problems, such as depression and headaches.
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So what can be done to help adolescents get the sleep they need during the school year? Here are three sets of suggestions for the adults in these teens’ lives, based on our 10 years of working with families and schools.
Parents should set boundaries around screen-time. Students tell us that they have social media sites, like YikYak and Tinder, open on their computers as they are doing their homework, and that their smart phones keep pinging with incoming texts, Instagrams and Snapchats throughout the night. The incessant interruptions can prove distracting, making homework take longer than it needs to and compromising any learning it may be designed to promote. And when left on a bedside table to buzz through the night, smart phones can also disrupt sleep.
In one family I know, the parents confiscate all technological devices after dinner, making it necessary for their children to complete any homework assignments that require Internet access or word processing before the family repast. Other parents have rules about where in the house their children can work on computers, and usually these designated spaces offer a vantage point from which parents can monitor the potential intrusions of social media as their children work.
Teachers should work together to assign manageable homework loads. Many students in our studies describe their homework as excessive, mind numbing and tedious. One national homework expert recommends multiplying the students’ grade level by 10 to get the optimal amount of time that should be spent on homework each night; this means that freshmen in high school should spend no more than 90 minutes and seniors no more than 120 minutes on homework each school night. Instead, students in our study report spending just over three hours a night on homework on average.
In some schools, rigor is mistaken as load. But as the students are quick to point out, a heavy homework load is not rigorous if completing it precludes thinking deeply about an issue, exploring new lines of inquiry or contemplating a problem from different perspectives. Some Challenge Success schools have successfully moved to modified block schedules, adopted test and project calendars, and implemented new homework policies to ensure more reasonable homework loads for students.
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School start times can be pushed back. It is important to recognize that teenagers are wired differently than either adults or young children. Their circadian rhythms program them to stay awake later at night. Even those who try turning the lights out at an early hour may find themselves unable to fall asleep quickly; however, as many parents know all too well, trying to rouse a teenager before dawn can sometimes take Herculean effort. Nonetheless, with some notable exceptions, the vast majority of high schools in this country start before 8:30 a.m., with 43 percent starting before 8 a.m. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends school start no earlier than 8:30 a.m.
Since 1998, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., has been trying to pass federal legislation that would encourage high schools to move their start times later; the latest iteration of her bill calls for research into effects of later school start times on student performance and wellbeing. Similar legislation in New Jersey has been approved by the General Assembly.
As much as I value research, the evidence is already pretty clear. Teenagers need sleep. And current practices and policies in most school districts countervail this need. What is really needed is the public pressure, political will, professional courage and personal commitments to change our approaches and do what we know is truly in the best interest of students’ learning and healthy development.
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Teens Need More Sleep to Succeed in School originally appeared on usnews.com
