The lack of sleep of American school children

Children need sufficient sleep to grow and learn well. But every parent knows how difficult it is to get the children to get that sleep, especially sending them to bed while mom and dad are still up. And once children are in their teens, this becomes even more difficult, even though they still need that sleep time. In the United States it is even worse, as school starts earlier for older children and they sometimes have long school bus trips before that. So it is not uncommon for children to wake up at 6. With 10 hours of required sleep, calculate when they should have gone to bed...

Jay Stewart uses the American Time Use Survey to determine the factors of sleep time for children. First, when school is in session, and when it is a school day, they go to bed 38 minutes later and wake up 72 minutes earlier. This lost half hour accumulates quickly through the week and leads to sleepy heads by Friday. Second, while child development often depends on the mother, in this case sleep patterns during school are not influenced by maternal labor supply.

Then, who is to blame? It is certainly not school homework, of which American school children get little. Is it TV? For sure, it is difficult to drag the children away from the monkey box when the parents are glued to it. Is it over-emphasis on school sports? For many children and parents, sports have priority over academics (even in college). Maybe cutting down on those many hours of daily football training would do the children some good (and besides, there are still more academic scholarships for college that sports ones).