When Should School Start For Teens
I wish the discussion about this topic had started at least 50 years earlier: Just when should school start for teens? Is there a guideline for how much a child/teen should sleep? What’s the difference? It can’t be that big a deal… can it?
Watch as Wendy Troxel explains to a TED audience how Teen’s brains and life-experience can actually be harmed by too little sleep and arising too early.
Dr. Troxel is the mother of a teen who she claims needs extraordinary measures to awaken for the early start times of their school district. And it’s not due to Snapchat, social life or hormones she says; but rather: public school policy!
School Start Times
When is too early and why it matters
Wendy Troxel is not only a mother of a teen but is a fairly renowned sleep researcher and explains that “teens don’t get enough sleep” and that “early school district start times deprive adolescents of sleep during the time of their lives when they need it most.”
Being a Senior Behavioral and Social Scientist at RAND and Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh she should know. Much of her research is funded by the National Heart-Lung institute, the NIH and the DOD and focuses on the interface between sleep, social environment and health as well as its implications for public policy.
The bottom line: “school start-times for teens should not be before 8:30 AM.” What time does your teen need to report to school?