In my 20 years of school nursing I can honestly say that the most frequent request I get is “ Can I lay down?” Looking back at this phenomenon I realize that it recently has become an epidemic. I ask myself why? I talk to the students. It seems they have very few if any boundaries. What ever happened to boundaries anyway? When I teach family life I can’t believe what these students say out loud. I would have never even shared those comments with my closest friend in High School. I see students making out in the hallways and when I say something they look at me like I’m an idiot. I see student lap dancing in the cafeteria, tell them to stop, write them up and they make me look like I’m the bad guy.

To get back to the topic of sleeping in school- it seems that most students no longer have a curfew. They stay up until the wee hours of the night on the computer, phone, or watching TV. When I call and speak to parents they tell me –well Tom went to his room at 10pm but I can’t control what time he goes to sleep. I tell them that they can. Remove the TV, computer and phone.
Studies have revealed that most adults can function on 7-8 hours of sleep but adolescents need around nine hours. No wonder most of our teens look like walking zombies. They are so tired that they can’t learn, they can’t remember anything they did learn and they become moody and cantankerous.

I never had a problem with my three boys sleeping. We had a few rules.

1. Depending on their age, there was always a preset bedtime. (age3-7pm, age 8-8pm, age 15-10pm, etc.)
2. No TV or computers in their rooms
3. No phone calls after 9pm

We never had difficulty enforcing the rules and our children were always well rested for the next day.