Students and sleep are not always compatible. College students have long expressed a tendency to be night owls, but even school-aged youngsters may be reluctant to go to bed on time during the school year.
Parents of school-aged children know that bedtime can be challenging, particularly when moms and dads want to ensure their youngsters get the recommended number of hours of sleep each night. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine advises school-aged children between the ages of six and 12 get nine to 12 hours of sleep per night, while teens are urged to sleep eight to 10 hours per night. Studies have found that when students don’t get enough sleep on school nights, their academic performance is likely to suffer. A 2023 study of first-year college students led by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that negative outcomes began to accumulate when students received less than six hours of sleep per night. Authors of the study noted that previous studies in animals showed that memories formed during the day were consolidated while animals slept but forgotten when those animals’ normal sleep patterns were interrupted. The researchers behind the study identified a notable decline in students’ grade point averages when they received less than six hours of sleep, suggesting humans’ ability to learn and remember what they’ve learned in a given day is compromised if they don’t get enough sleep that night.
• School-aged youngsters typically get more than six hours of sleep per night, but if they’re falling short of AASM recommendations, those students’ academic performance could be adversely affected. With that in mind, parents can try various strategies to get children to bed on time.
