Children that do not get enough sleep for one reason or another tend to be tenser, irritable, depressed, show low results at school and act in irresponsible ways such as driving when the only thing they want is to crawl under a warm blanket. If you really love your kid and want the best for him, do not believe him when he says that he is sleeping enough, with excuses like “I’m just going through a phase” explaining why he is getting lower grades than his classmates. A child needs to get at least eight hours of sleep every day, including during the weekend, in order to function properly.
Cure your child sleep problems and introduce him to outside activities
The young body and brain of a teenager needs a lot of energy during the day and enough hours at night to fill up the batteries and work properly the next day. Many teenagers simply refuse to do some exercise because they don’t have the strength, time and feel too tired. To cure your child sleep problems encourage your child to introduce outside activities more often instead of spending so much time in front of dead objects that numb the mind and body such as TV or the computer. Subscribe him to an activity he likes such as football, tennis or dancing class. Encourage him to use the car and walk or ride a bicycle instead, and so on. A bit of exercise every day can enormously improve your child’s health and help him sleep deeper and longer.
This can even be a good opportunity to show him a good example
Statistics show that over thirty percent of teenagers drink more than two cups of coffee or other beverages containing caffeine every day. Those beverages are very bad for him and you should make him stop at once! This can even be a good opportunity to show him a good example and stop yourself, or at least diminish the daily ration. Caffeine does not only affects the body and brain in a bad way, up to the point that the child develops a dependency on the beverage, sometimes only psychological but nonetheless harmful. Caffeine beverages also affect the sleep in a negative way. Caffeine is a stimulant, making the body is less relaxed and thus difficult for the teenager to fall asleep causing most of your child sleep problems.
The endless occupations in his room gives him no reason to go to sleep
One of the major reasons for your child’s sleep problem are all the new cool gadgets you’ve bought them for Christmas. The new technology offers endless ways of entertainment and appears to be useful but in fact it prevents greatly your child to get all the sleep he needs. The endless occupations in his room gives him no reason to go to sleep and waste this joyful opportunity to “have fun”, unless he’s about to collapse or if his eyes stopped seeing good enough to keep on being awake. playing video games, watching TV or movies in the DVD, talking on the phone or surfing in the internet for hours, for the typical teenager is much more interesting than doing homework or sleeping in order to get to class on time the next day.
You wonder why you have to use force to wake him up every morning
You might be thinking he’s going to sleep by nine but in fact, thanks to your generosity and lack of parental responsibility, he’s having sleepless nights chatting with his buddies on the internet or by phone and watching movies till that bores him also. And then you wonder why you have to use force to wake him up every morning to get to school, wondering why he claims to be so tired and not feeling well after what seemed like a good night sleep. If you want your child to stop with this bad habit, get rid of all these gadgets and leave them in a place where you can have control over your child.
Your child is probably going out with friends without resting properly
With all those bad habits, too many teenagers have sleep problems and miss school, or get to school while they are completely unfocused and get bad grades when they have all the potential to succeed. Even beyond all that, your child is probably going out with friends without resting properly, often taking the car and driving while feeling drowsy. On a good day they will come back home safely; unaware of the fright they’ve given to other drivers.
Give him boundaries and introduce a good night sleep in his lifestyle
Other times, he will experience a close encounter with an accident, but statistics show that most of the accidents and causes of death on the road are occurring with young people or people driving while being too tired or under the influence of alcohol. You can stop this from happening to you kid! Give him boundaries and introduce a good night sleep in his lifestyle at an early age, so that when he grows up there won’t be any question about it. Be a responsible parent by making him have the rest he needs to live a long healthy life.