Published On: March 9th, 2016|
Education Week – Marva Hinton:
Sleep. We all know kids need it, and without it, they don’t perform as well in school…In honor of Sleep Awareness Week, we spoke to an expert in adolescent sleep. Lisa J. Meltzer is an associate professor of pediatrics at the National Jewish Health in Denver. She was the lead researcher on a groundbreaking study on the differing sleep patterns between home-schooled students and students who attend public or private school. The study, which was first published in October 2014 in the journal Behavioral Sleep Medicine, found that home-schooled students wake nearly 90 minutes later than their peers in traditional school settings. It was the first study to compare the groups in order to research their sleep patterns…The biggest difference you find is what time they wake up. Homeschool students are waking up—the average time was almost 8 o’clock—which is about the same time that public and private school students are starting school…We need to change school start times, and in the meantime, it starts in the home. You have to make sleep a priority. Sleep is a pillar of health. (more)