It was interesting the discussion that followed with parents. The community data also indicated the need for students to be getting exercise and participating in sports and many discussed how it was this participation in organized sports that often cut into sleep time – really a no-win situation. We want our kids to be active and to get 8 or 9 hours of sleep – but soccer practices can go to 9:00 at night and school often starts by just after 8:00 in the morning. Of course there is also persuasive data that indicates later start-times for school would be helpful but very few jurisdictions have built this into the systems. Clearly we have structures in our lives that make it hard to adhere to the recommendations.
We put our kids to bed between 7:00 and 7:30. One daughter is out in no time. The other kids stay up later. There is a handy chart in the article above and some great tips.
