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Let Teenagers Sleep

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#101

Post by alienalp »

fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #17

As a teenager I was diagnosed with "ADD". Very intelligent, but unable to focus or complete assignments. My life habits were carb heavy unhealthy food (from the cafeteria), soda, lack of sleep due to long school commute, not much exercise As an adult, I eat no carbs, all meat and vegetables, I work from home and sleep in as far as I need every night. My thinking is laser sharp. They tried to medicate me with all sort…

This is the biggest issue with developing countries. Nobody really understand how important chronic diseases and a good diet is. In terms of this for majority of its population US is also just like an ordinary developing country. Very similar to Saudi Arabia. Majority of vegetables are also not very innocent. Maybe not comparable to processed junk food with tons of sugar but there is almost no developed country with high vegetable intake yet Vegetables are advertised as healthy and people in developing countries fall victim to it. Fortunately our body is very versatile but i don't think a sensitive organ like brain can keep its ideal condition over time.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#102

Post by [deleted] »

beebmam wrote: post #82
fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #17

As a teenager I was diagnosed with "ADD". Very intelligent, but unable to focus or complete assignments. My life habits were carb heavy unhealthy food (from the cafeteria), soda, lack of sleep due to long school commute, not much exercise As an adult, I eat no carbs, all meat and vegetables, I work from home and sleep in as far as I need every night. My thinking is laser sharp. They tried to medicate me with all sort…

> As an adult, I eat no carbs, all meat and vegetables This is contradictory. Vegetables are high in carbohydrates as a percentage of their calories.

[deleted]

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#103

Post by kyeb »

sologoub wrote: post #49
bmitc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This showcases other problems with American society. With poor social support structures and urban design, kids can't simply walk to and from school, take public transportation, or ride school provided transportation to remove parents being chauffeurs.

That would not fix the coordination problem - if the family includes one of each (elementary, middle and high school kids) you still have to make breakfast for them, get everyone ready and head out. Let’s say they all don’t have to leave at the same time, but most other activities have to be coordinated and the sheer noise in the household will wake people up, not to mention it’s a bit easier to feed all 3 kids toget…

It would have solved it completely for my family - we just ate cereal or a bagel in the morning for breakfast, no coordination necessary.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#104

Post by dragonwriter »

autoexec wrote: post #83
Merad wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's odd that parents consider broader considerations like their 9-5 schedule more important than the health and well-being of their own children. Why are you blaming the parents? Most people in the world don't have the benefit of flexible tech jobs that allow them to work 10-6 or to come and go as needed during the work day.

> Why are you blaming the parents? Because when Boston tried this, uproar from parents was sufficient to cause meaningful change, but that uproar was directed at their schools and not their workplaces. They used their collective power to defend their work schedules at the expense of their children. Why not insist on more flexibility in their work schedules, or for additional transportation solutions to assist in gett…

> Because when Boston tried this, uproar from parents was sufficient to cause meaningful change, but that uproar was directed at their schools and not their workplaces.

School officials are locally democratically accountable. Employers generally are not, and are often able to play workers in different localities (and even states and countries, in many cases) against each other to create a race-to-the-bottom effect.

Parents directed their force against the movable object, not the immovable one.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#105

Post by hgsgm »

jameshart wrote: post #58
tptacek wrote: post #7

One big reason this shift isn't happening is that it creates coordination problems: for many families, everyone leaves for school at the same time, so if you move grade 9 forward an hour, you have to do the same with grade 4 to get any benefit; the 9th grader is taking the 4th grader to school. That problem stopped this shift dead recently where I live.

The sequencing in districts where high schools start earliest, then middle schools, then elementary feels backwards to me though. Elementary school parents who have jobs to get to wind up needing preschool care to fill that gap between their departure time and school start - high school age siblings aren’t even available to cover. Late elementary school drop off times impact parents’ options for work and commuting. H…

The obvious solution is extdended day care at school, on both sides, not focing5 older kids to run parenting around their own school commute.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#106

Post by exfatloss »

juve1996 wrote: post #74
exfatloss wrote: post #2

Can't stress enough how important this is. People's circadian rhythms shift with age, and during teenage years, they are the latest (or most "night owl"-like). Current school times practically guarantee that teenagers will be too tired and sleep-deprived to learn much.

And yet many teenagers do just fine and end up learning a lot. How do they manage? Are they tired? Do they have magical circadian rhythms?

Chronotypes are a spectrum, probably roughly normal distribution. So ~25% are going to be in the left (early) quartile and will be fine.

And of course, even I as a pretty severe nightowl learned some things in school. It was just that I was constantly falling asleep and always sleep deprived and had to catch up on sleep every single weekend. I likely would've done much better had school started 2h later.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#107

Post by ginko »

sologoub wrote: post #49
bmitc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This showcases other problems with American society. With poor social support structures and urban design, kids can't simply walk to and from school, take public transportation, or ride school provided transportation to remove parents being chauffeurs.

That would not fix the coordination problem - if the family includes one of each (elementary, middle and high school kids) you still have to make breakfast for them, get everyone ready and head out. Let’s say they all don’t have to leave at the same time, but most other activities have to be coordinated and the sheer noise in the household will wake people up, not to mention it’s a bit easier to feed all 3 kids toget…

>if the family includes one of each (elementary, middle and high school kids) you still have to make breakfast for them, get everyone ready and head out.

Surely high school aged kids can make their own breakfast.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#108

Post by rcme »

bmitc wrote: post #76
sologoub wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would not fix the coordination problem - if the family includes one of each (elementary, middle and high school kids) you still have to make breakfast for them, get everyone ready and head out. Let’s say they all don’t have to leave at the same time, but most other activities have to be coordinated and the sheer noise in the household will wake people up, not to mention it’s a bit easier to feed all 3 kids toget…

That again relates to social support structures. In fact, many kids' parents can't afford breakfast or even lunch. It seems there are programs that exist already to help feed kids breakfast and lunch at schools. https://www.fns.usda.gov/programs https://www.projectbread.org/

> That again relates to social support structures. In fact, many kids' parents can't afford breakfast or even lunch.

That's not what the GP is talking about. They're saying that there is an overhead to people leaving at different times.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#109

Post by graycat »

Naw: Not all but much of the unwritten but standard rule of all of education from K-Ph.D. is (A) to exercise the standard drive people, the teachers and their bureaucracies, have to control and direct other people, the students, and (B) to make those under the control to knuckle down, put their nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel, burn the midnight oil, be disciplined, prove themselves, be obedient, stimulate the metabolism to be able to work while sleep deprived, ....

One way to see this -- as I did twice in grad school and once in high school -- is to take a filter, flunk out course when already know the material very well and easily and effortlessly make As and lead the class -- the prof can become really angry that he was not able to intimidate the student, lower the student's self-esteem, show the student that they, the prof, know more than the student could hope to know, etc.

In this case, the 3Rs, the STEM fields, the term papers, etc. are not really the preparation for life but merely the packaging while the real preparation is (B).

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#110

Post by HDThoreaun »

jameshart wrote: post #58
tptacek wrote: post #7

One big reason this shift isn't happening is that it creates coordination problems: for many families, everyone leaves for school at the same time, so if you move grade 9 forward an hour, you have to do the same with grade 4 to get any benefit; the 9th grader is taking the 4th grader to school. That problem stopped this shift dead recently where I live.

The sequencing in districts where high schools start earliest, then middle schools, then elementary feels backwards to me though. Elementary school parents who have jobs to get to wind up needing preschool care to fill that gap between their departure time and school start - high school age siblings aren’t even available to cover. Late elementary school drop off times impact parents’ options for work and commuting. H…

I think high school generally starts earliest so that sports/extracurriculars can practice after school for two hours before the sun sets. Elementary schoolers just go home.
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