Is Your Teen Sleep Deprived?
Getting Serious About Sleep
By Keath Castelloe Low
Help your teen understand the purpose and benefits of sleep and the consequences of sleep restriction. Parent your teen. Discuss and agree upon limitations on the use of electronics at night. Establish an "electronics curfew." Limit the number of electronic devices available in your teen's room at night. 
Talk to your teen about her sleep restriction and help her schedule her time for homework, chores and wind-down relaxation time. Limit light exposure in the evening and exaggerate light exposure in the mornings. Limit weekend sleep-ins. A good working rule is that it is hard to keep your internal body clock aligned to a schedule if there is more than a two-hour difference between the weekend and the weekday wakeup time. It's particularly important to work on helping your teen get well rested over the summer time and then adjusting his sleep-wake schedule to accommodate the early wake-up time for school in the fall. Promote healthy eating and exercise. Don't let your teen drive if she has not gotten sufficient sleep. Encourage your teen to use evening alert time wisely, laying out clothes for the morning, packing the backpack, showering so that sleep time can be maximized. If your teen cannot fall asleep (because his internal body clock is set to a later time) provide him with music (MP3 player or CD player) so he can listen with the lights out in bed, or books on tape or CD. Realize that you can help him have the proper environment to promote sleep, but cannot force him to fall asleep. A frustrated teen who gets up out of bed to do things because he can't fall asleep is promoting evening wakefulness. Want to see more?
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