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From day one, sleep can be a battleground, starting with desperately trying to get a newborn to sleep, then coaxing a toddler into bed, which feels like nothing compared to negotiating with a grade schooler about bedtime or doing battle with a teenager about staying up late for work and play. Each age has its developmental and situational reasons, but the adolescent years seem to embody a particularly gnarly tangle of sleep issues: access to social media, increased socializing (online and in person), heavier academic pressures, and changing circadian rhythms. Not to mention, adults lose their power to simply tell kids to go to bed when those kids are now often the ones tucking in the adults.
We don’t need any more data to prove the importance of sleep — there’s no study out there saying that sleep is unimportant and should be reclassified as low priority — so the question becomes: How do we communicate the importance of sleep in a way kids can hear? How can we convince them to go to sleep when every bone in their bodies is conditioned to push against our rules and advice?
Most adolescents become intensely focused on how tall they’re going to be. Not to gender the issue, but it’s a particular focus among boys. Some of that stems from the very real societal value placed on a man’s height, with the absolute goal varying from place to place and family to family. You can’t promise a kid that sleeping a certain number of hours each night will guarantee a precise stature, particularly if his parents hover several inches below the dream altitude. But you can tell kids — and this is the truth, not parenting BS — that getting enough sleep will help them grow as tall as their genetics will allow. This doesn’t have to be a long lecture, and in fact it’s better if it’s not. Just keep things short (sorry) and sweet, saying in a quiet moment when it crosses your mind (but not in the middle of an argument about getting into bed), I read this wild thing — apparently kids grow when they sleep — so if you want to grow as much as you can, you should probably start getting into bed earlier.
We hear from families all the time that the battle over reasonable bedtime goes hand-in-hand with intense academic pressure. The burden kids feel to get good grades weighs so heavily that they are staying up into the wee hours of the morning working on homework, studying for tests, churning out projects. The stress itself is bad for kids for so many reasons, emotional and physical, and now, on top of that, these stressed- out kids cannot clock the hours of z’s that they need. The big four benefits of sleep — mood reset, memory filing, metabolic rebalance, and growth — become unattainable if they’re regularly burning the midnight oil. We need to give them permission to go to sleep. Convince them with science (because your opinion certainly won’t sway them): You literally store memories while you sleep, so at a certain point you’re actually better off going to sleep and storing what you just learned rather than continuing to cram.
The push and pull of devices is real. On the one hand, adolescents socialize on their devices, with social media, video chat, and texting as important to them as the corded telephone was to some of us. Their devices connect them in ways we don’t understand, even if we think we do. And emerging from a pandemic that so deeply affected their ability to socialize and connect with other kids, many of us have become particularly sensitive about demonizing devices because we’ve seen how helpful they can be! On the other hand, the data tells us that kids should be off screens an hour (if not two) before they go to bed, giving their brains a break from stimulation and blue light, encouraging their melatonin to rise. What’s more, every one of these devices — not just phones but computers and iPads and gaming devices, too — should charge outside the bedroom because every person sleeps better without the dings and buzzes of notifications. (Fun fact: this advice is not just for kids.)
But good luck to everyone involved. These rules need constant monitoring and reinforcement because they will be broken more than they will be kept. It’s tough to finish grueling homework and forgo the fun part of the night in order to get more rest. And when something thrilling is going down, when a text volley picks up speed and turns intoxicating, putting that device down proves nearly impossible. While it’s a drag, it’s really worthwhile to repeat yourself on a weekly (or daily) basis, because kids need to be reminded (over and over) why you want them off devices: I know I sound like a broken record, but it’s my job to keep you healthy and make sure you get enough sleep, so time to get off your device and get ready for bed. And then, model the advice you give and do the same thing.
Adults know how crappy they feel when they don’t get enough sleep — irritable, short-tempered, unproductive — so when we notice those behaviors in kids, consider that they’re not getting enough sleep. Rather than call them out for acting like jerks, get curious as to what’s actually happening after you say goodnight. Some sneak onto screens, others grab a book, and many lie in bed unable to doze off, their minds spinning as they process their day. It might seem like a no-brainer to you (of course they’re moody, they’re sleep deprived!), but they may not have connected those dots. So help them: get granular, pointing out how lack of sleep affects moods. It works much better when you throw yourself under the bus and say something like Remember last week when I was so crabby and snappy with you? I stayed up late the night before binge-watching a new show on Netflix. I was in the worst mood the next day because I didn’t get enough sleep! Sometimes I can tell when you’re not getting enough sleep. Can you?
The sleep challenge never ends for some. But understanding the why of it all — why sleep is important, why it makes you feel better, why it changes your energy level and school or work performance — goes a long way toward self-awareness. Eventually this turns into a better nighttime routine for many kids and adults alike. Until then, brace yourself for a nightly mocking as you repeat yourself endlessly: It’s time for bed. It’s time for bed, honey. Hey, dude, time for bed. TIME FOR BED!
Excerpted from THIS IS SO AWKWARD copyright © 2023 by Vanessa Kroll Bennett and Cara Natterson, MD. Used by permission of Rodale Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Curious about bedtime routines celebrities follow for their kids? Read all about them here.
