Since the concept of boarding our students has been brought up, something that we certainly need to consider is the amount of sleep our students will need. I would also emphasize this point even if we opt not to have any or all students board on campus.
http://nymag.com/news/features/38951/ This article by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman (which is also in their WONDERFUL book, NurtureShock) talks about the critical importance of getting enough sleep. Not just a matter of it being a "good idea" or "helpful", but truly critical. The article hints strongly at the notion that a large portion of our population may even be functionally brain damaged due to our chronic sleep loss. An hour a day taken from the needed hours of sleep for a child can be so debilitating that it sets them back functionally an average of about 2 years of age. That's a huge distinction.
So, my proposal here is that whatever schedule we plan for the program, whatever we or the parents do as far as getting children to bed, we ensure that they are given the proper amount of sleep in a 24 hour period as often as is possible.
As a parent of a toddler, I am all too familiar with how easy it is to allow a child to stay up later than he ought. But everyone loses that way. Children (even tweens and teens) are no fun to deal with and are functionally depressed by even the loss of an hour's sleep a night for 3 nights consecutively. With Jackson, he is often incredibly cranky and even violent and excessively willful and prone to anger if he is woken even half an hour too early from his nap. When we had loud neighbors move in upstairs, Jackson became chronically sleep-deprived for 6 months. It was a living hell for our entire household, which has still not fully recovered.
Sleep is vital, so I want to be sure that we consider it well as part of our key elements of the project.
Sleep, or lack of it, is also one of the major factors in schoolyear headaches, as discussed in the NYTimes today. (Righthand link: NY Times on Health: Returning to Classrooms, and to Severe Headaches)
ReplyDeleteThat, and enough water. I got to thinking about how headachey I was as a student and realized I never, ever drank anything during the day except a bit of something fizzy and full of HFCS (and probably alcohol, during high school) at lunch. These days I'd fall over in my chair without coffee and water.
You're right about that. I did hear before that some people have luck curing headaches (or preventing them) by eating bananas, so I would assume that there may be a relationship with potassium.
ReplyDeleteSleep loss is just so unhealthy, I've gained 20 pounds in the past year due to chronic sleep loss, with few other changes besides being MORE active. I think it's all in my "trunk" and neck.