Source: Telegraph >> Read full article and comment
A new survey finds that half of the children asked about their sleeping habits admit that they could do with more sleep.
This is what happens in my household at bedtime. My two-year-old daughter has a bath at about 6pm. This is supposed to be her quiet time – the point at which after a long day, a fractious little girl gets to relax and switch off. However, on most nights, her warm, fragrant bath is invaded by two of her three brothers, Leonard, seven, and Jerry, five. They rush in, spot their sister and then strip off, get into the bath and proceed to deluge her with a variety of army toys that they have brought with them.
“Bomber number one GO!” Leonard will yell as he lets off a flurry of pretend explosives. Jerry will then convert the bath into a tsunami. My daughter will cry. The water will slop over the edges and start seeping through the ceiling into the electric light fixture below. It will then short circuit and fuse everything in the house. My eldest son, Raymond, 13, will shout because the game he is playing on his Xbox has been cut off. He will storm upstairs and scream at everyone, making at least one other child weep. And that is just the beginning.
So I am not at all surprised that a recent report showed that British children are not getting enough sleep, because they don’t go to bed on time and are distracted by TV, computers and, often, their siblings.
The BBC children’s programme Newsround asked more than a thousand nine- to 11-year-olds about their sleeping habits. Half agreed that they could do with more sleep, and a quarter answered that their bedtime is 10pm or later. A third of the children said they have access to the internet in their bedrooms, and more than half have televisions, videos and mobile phones in there. Bedrooms have become late-night playrooms.
What has happened to bedtime? When I was a child, it was supper, bath time, a story and then lights out. Which really meant lights out. My mother would have held no truck with any deviation from this routine – and certainly no television was allowed…. Continue reading
