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Let Teenagers Sleep In

nytimes.com

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Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#61

Post by stephen_g »

lordnacho wrote: post #53

This teenager sleep cycle thing is a bit of a revelation to me. I thought I just had bad habits, but when I was that age, I'd play games most of the evening, maybe do one or two bits of homework at 10om, and then possibly stay up to 1am with some essay that I'd procrastinate on for ages. I'd wake up at something like 7am and sleep on the train until I got into school, and then sleep after getting home at about 4pm fo…

Same thing when I was having massive sleep issues with years of constantly having symptoms of chronic sleep deprivation. Turned out I just had a condition called ‘delayed sleep phase disorder’. Being diagnosed and reading about sleep cycles was also a bit of a revelation to me. DSPD pretty much just means that as an adult I have a similar circadian rhythm to an adeloscent. As soon as I started regularly getting up at around 10am instead of 7-8am and just going to bed when I felt tired, all the symptoms disappeared, with no meds or anything.

It’s lucky that I have a flexible workplace and a supervisor who has a kid with a sleep disorder, because the hardest thing about having this disorder is that it’s so hard for anybody with a normal cycle to understand how inflexible circadian rhythms are. You hear all sorts of BS about “you just need to be more disciplined”, etc. which just doesn’t work.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#62

Post by kasey_junk »

lordnacho wrote: post #53

This teenager sleep cycle thing is a bit of a revelation to me. I thought I just had bad habits, but when I was that age, I'd play games most of the evening, maybe do one or two bits of homework at 10om, and then possibly stay up to 1am with some essay that I'd procrastinate on for ages. I'd wake up at something like 7am and sleep on the train until I got into school, and then sleep after getting home at about 4pm fo…

Block scheduling has been common for years and “balanced” schedules where you don’t have large summer breaks are becoming common as well.

The latter is harder because of how many societal conventions we’ve built up. There are lots of systems in place for childcare in the summer. Less so for longer fall/winter/spring breaks. This largely isn’t a huge deal for teenagers but having school systems operating on 2 major calendars is a challenge.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#63

Post by emodendroket »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #49
emodendroket wrote: post #31

> Changing the operating hours of an institution so central to the community is far from easy. It requires strong leadership and adjustments by school bus companies and businesses offering services like child care and extracurricular clubs. Here's the elephant in the room. High schools start and end earlier with the idea that older kids can watch their siblings. I'd say a lack of public commitment to child care is al…

>Here's the elephant in the room. High schools start and end earlier with the idea that older kids can watch their siblings. I've always been under the impression that start times were staggered for transportation reasons, as you can't drop everyone off at the same time. My experiences are limited to small towns, so I could be way off, but the differences seemed too small for sibling care to be the motive

That means you have to do some kind of staggering. But the order is always older-younger, although younger kids are naturally awake earlier.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#64

Post by YokoZar »

mysterydip wrote: post #51
hrzn wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they meant is that we evolved in a way that made teenagers having shifted cycles, going to sleep later and waking up later. We're not living in tribes anymore, but evolution is slow and we still cary these biological traits. It therefore hurts teenagers to wake up as early as adults. The point here is not about leaving them more time to socialize in the evening.

Wouldn't accommodating them make evolution slower? Those that have traits making them able to wake up earlier should be "rewarded" if you want to bring change.

Well, I didn't come to this thread expecting a eugenics-based argument in favor of medically unsound school start times, but here we are.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#65

Post by vinay427 »

baxtr wrote: post #26

That’s probably a good reason to stick to wintertime in winter and not summertime (the EU decided to drop time ch ages 2x a year)

There isn't even a definite proposition yet for eliminating DST shifts. There is still a long way ahead for something like this to happen.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#66

Post by deytempo »

rerx wrote: post #18

One of the many fascinating facts I learnt from Matthew Walker's "Why We Sleep" is that the biorhythms of teenagers are shifted to later hours compared to those of adults in all human cultures of the globe, even in those rare societies hardly affected by technology. In evolution this was likely beneficial to make it easier for teenagers to socialize among themselves without adult disturbance, which was necessary to d…

I would argue that this ultimately has to do with one survival trait: who has more sex. I’m guessing that far more teen pregnancy occurs when teens are hanging out without adults around. The ability to shift to different sleep patterns than adults would be among other things, a procreational advantage.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#67

Post by YokoZar »

anticensor wrote: post #38
YokoZar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wouldn't the average teenager just stay up even longer? It's not like they are hardcoded to wake up at a certain clock time. They literally are. And that time is later than adults. That's what circadean rhythms are.

If this difference exceeds two hours, they have a problem.

That difference may be delayed sleep phase syndrome, which affects about 1 in 7 teens. You can mitigate it around the edges with sleep hygiene, but even doing everything correctly they're still going to behind adults with earlier chronotypes.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#68

Post by rerx »

RustySpottedCat wrote: post #41
rerx wrote: post #18

One of the many fascinating facts I learnt from Matthew Walker's "Why We Sleep" is that the biorhythms of teenagers are shifted to later hours compared to those of adults in all human cultures of the globe, even in those rare societies hardly affected by technology. In evolution this was likely beneficial to make it easier for teenagers to socialize among themselves without adult disturbance, which was necessary to d…

yea but we're not in tribes, are we? People take this evolutionary bullshit way too seriously, like we still run around with sticks and stones. None of that crap matters when we live in a modern society. Teenages are going to "socialize with themselves" whether they sleep in or not, no matter what, because, guess what, that's what people do in modern times. They can choose.

Depriving people (especially, but not only, adolescents) off their sleep is disastrous for their mental health. For instance ADHD may be linked to lack of sleep (Walker suggests this in his book, I don't know how strongly this is backed by studies). Since by now we know that sleep times are driven by physiological factors to a large degree, I find it inhumane to not take these factors into account in scheduling.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#69

Post by Shacklz »

fiblye wrote: post #12
shawn wrote: post #2

Or better yet, bring back apprenticeship and give them something to do other than worthless high school. I almost didn't get my first programming job because I had to be paid under the table at 17 due to child labor laws. If you want to enrich teenagers' lives, offering them something other than a prison sentence where kids ruthlessly torment each other seems a decent way. It worked for most of history.

School's purpose is to introduce kids to things they otherwise wouldn't have a chance to learn. Coming from a poor, working class family, an apprenticeship-driven society like those of centuries ago would've resulted in me being trapped doing back-breaking labor and having no chance to escape. But I got a chance to study tech and other languages, got interested in things my family could never understand, and moved to…

While I agree to your general sentiment, there are countries where apprenticeship systems work fairly well - Switzerland (full disclosure, I'm Swiss) is in my opinion one of those examples. At the age of around 14, you can choose to either proceed further with school or to get an apprenticeship. About 20% stay in school, 80% go the apprenticeship route. You still have usually two days of school during apprenticeship (with about 50-50 general education and education with focus on the kind of job you have chosen), and plenty of options to switch back to routes for higher education at any time.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#70

Post by Broken_Hippo »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #49
emodendroket wrote: post #31

> Changing the operating hours of an institution so central to the community is far from easy. It requires strong leadership and adjustments by school bus companies and businesses offering services like child care and extracurricular clubs. Here's the elephant in the room. High schools start and end earlier with the idea that older kids can watch their siblings. I'd say a lack of public commitment to child care is al…

>Here's the elephant in the room. High schools start and end earlier with the idea that older kids can watch their siblings. I've always been under the impression that start times were staggered for transportation reasons, as you can't drop everyone off at the same time. My experiences are limited to small towns, so I could be way off, but the differences seemed too small for sibling care to be the motive

This is some of it, true, but this is possible to do with older children getting out latest. The reason they are first to leave is younger siblings.

edited for spelling: it seems typing with one hand (broken elbow) makes for worse typing even though i must look at the keyboard.

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