When should children go to bed?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2013/feb/12/when-should-children-go-to-bed

Good post and some interesting comments on the link. I agree with the poster who said different people, even children have a biological predisposition to need different amounts of sleep. In my personal anecdotal evidence, however; I have noticed that people who 'need' and get less sleep than 6 hours per night tend not to be the deepest thinkers, a little addled and or in less control of their emotions.


Again, that's only anecdotal evidence, but I think sleep is often very overlooked as a health requirement for kids and especially for adults.

lol lucky for you ....my children sometimes sleep before 12:00 midnight

i got 12 years old and 8 years old and theydont seems to care about sleeping..

to me her "should" sounds more like a suggestion, wonder why are upset with her suggestion.

Habits die hard, once a teacher always a teacher :-)

depends

if you give enough respect to ppl next door and consider their opinion might be beneficial to you then you wouldn't be asking this question.


but as we can people are becoming more self centered and easily agitated by simple suggestions forwarded by others, and it becomes more worrying when a teacher keeps this attitude.


we might overlook the "should" suggestion if it comes from a random stranger but still there is no need to agitated as you are appearing.


i have kids, i also read the comments above and i wasn't offended at all.

Cara,


Let's not get distracted from the topic, you always find the way to deviate from the subject and become emotional and rude.


Even teachers need lessons or to be corrected, if this was not the case, just let it go, no need to show your true colors to everybody and pls excuse my bad English I am not a teacher neither a native English speaker.


Back to the subject I think kids under 12 need at least 9-10 hours sleep time everyday.

But my kids start school at 8:20 if they were starting at 7:00 am and I was working I might still put them to bed at 8:30 even if that meant they wouldn't get the 9-10 hours.


Tired kids get cranky and irritated very easily and do not perform the same as a well rested kid, same applies to adults.

OMG firing squad much lol. I think maybe the negative response was not to the meaning of "should" but the fact that someone who does not know a families circumstances would dictate what time their child should go to bed.


When I was a kid I went to bed at 8:30pm but then my mother and father were home and cooking dinner before 6pm. I can honestly say I do not know one person who has the the luxury of finishing work this early.


I think the amount of hours a child gets is very important not necessarily the time they go to bed. As the mother/father common sense should tell you if your child needs to go to school early then send them to bed accordingly.


Also I don't think i'm self centred by not sending my children to bed early if they don't have a schedule the next day. My children work very hard at school (10,11,13,15) and they have a tutor mon-fri for 3 hours each night. They do know though to be repectful of the time and any noise they might make. I never sleep before my 3 youngest.


I liked the article and I think the writer was telling us to be careful of how much sleep our kids get. "I" don't think though that the writer has experienced work hours for the average Hong Kong family where coming home at 11pm/12pm or even later is not uncommon.


A couple of years back we returned to Australia to live for a short while and my husband was quite shocked with the dinner at 7, kids to bed at 8:30pm (just like I used to) and then the quiet.


Needless to say the Hong Kong lifestyle is sometimes hard to get used to what with the noise and ipads etc remember the post started as a helpful hint about our kids sleep not how to insult fellow posters.

Rah rah rah! As usual people on here have taken the context of this simple question and turned into a squabble by adding personal, cultural and philosophical differences into the mix. Boring!


At the end of the day, facts are our friends, and what I am about to quote below are SCIENTIFIC facts. People can choose to listen or to ignore as per their personal parenting preference:


Our bodies will do some minor tissue repair anytime you're not exerting yourself, so having a little 1/2 hour nap at your desk or sitting like a blob watching TV, but the real golden time is when you are in bed fast asleep.


The bulk of your muscle growth will occur only when you are in the deepest stages of sleep. Body repair is such an intense process that your body powers down all the non-essential processes so that it can devote most of its energy to the task. When you first enter true sleep, your body will flood the system with human growth hormone (HGH). If you continue to sleep deeply, this hormone will start synthesizing proteins and repairing broken up muscle tissue. The longer you sleep in one continual stint, the better.


The biology can get extremely complicated here and isn't key to understanding what's going on. Instead, use this image. Imagine that your body has a bunch of construction workers who only come out at night. They see that one of the bridges in town is broken (this is constantly happening as children grow and produce new cells and muscle fibers). They set to work repairing it.


The night-time workers make cables of protein and string them across the broken span to rebuild it. This can take several hours of uninterrupted deep sleep. Once the basic repair is done, the workers still have one more task. They don't want the bridge to fall down again so they string across some extra lines for insurance.


You can't overstate the importance of sleep for your child's physical and mental development and progress. Sleep is as important a part of growing up as running around in the playground (something also lacking for most HK kids). Sleep is training. And not just any old sleep. Your children need you to be helping them get long periods of uninterrupted deep sleep.


We all know how hard this can be to come by with family, job, and the need for a social life. You have to actively schedule time with your children that may affect YOU, but not them. Without it all of your effort in paying for extra gym class or piano lessons could be for nothing as the child is too tired to make the most of them. Plus, the more you add to their schedules, without the necessary sleep, will make them feel absolutely awful and worst case start affecting their basic sensual development i.e poor eye sight, poor reflexes and a poor ability to listen and innovate.



Now think about what kind of kids you want? 1) Weak, often grumpy and easily distracted? 2) Strong, alert and intellectually ready for new information?


I am going for option 2 and my kids go to bed at 7pm every night and wake up between 6:30 and 7am. My wife and I BOTH work full time, but we make time to be sure we see the children for as long as possible every morning and as many evening as we can. They are very happy little people with lots of energy to rock the weekends with Mum n Dad.


You're welcome.