You Want to Do What?: Instant answers to your parenting dilemmas. Karen Sullivan

undertaken – and don’t be afraid to check. Obviously it makes sense to be fairly complimentary, no matter what the result, as negative feedback usually puts paid to future efforts; however, if your child is not living up to standards, you may wish to agree that you will share certain tasks or that you will help from time to time. Be draconian if required – a week with no clean clothes or a couple of weeks living in dust and debris will usually shock teenagers into action, particularly if they use their rooms for entertaining friends.

      How often do I need to change bedding in the teenage years?

      For health reasons, sheets should be changed every two weeks; ideally, pillowcases should be changed weekly. The reason for this is that bacteria and dust mites (among other things) can proliferate without regular laundering. It is important to implement certain standards of hygiene and to endorse them! Some teens (boys in particular) may be embarrassed by what appears on their sheets (nocturnal emissions, for example) or want to keep their rooms private from parents and the rest of the household. In this case, it’s worth teaching your teen how to use the washing machine, or setting a day where he or she bundles up their own sheets and put them in the washing machine, ready for washing by a parent. Keep a spare set of sheets within easy reach, so that they can change their own sheets when required (a word of warning, however; many teens, particularly boys, seem perfectly happy to sleep on a bed without a sheet, pillowcase or duvet cover – so make sure that the clean sheets actually make it on to the bed).

Bedtime

      What is an appropriate bedtime for a teenager?

      While sleep requirements fall fairly consistently between the ages of two and twelve, with the average 12-year-old getting about nine or ten hours of sleep a night, sleep needs for teenagers do not continue to fall – and, indeed, in some cases they require more sleep than a pre-teen. Studies show that most teenagers get somewhere between six and eight hours of sleep a night by the age of eighteen, which is, apparently, not enough.

      As kids enter the teenage years, physiological changes in the brain that regulate sleep and waking cause them to stay up longer and sleep later. Unfortunately, that’s precisely the time they must be at school. Add homework, sports activities, music lessons, TV and chatting with friends online, and most kids have little time to catch up on sleep. Not getting enough sleep can have serious consequences for learning, long-term memory and safety. REM (rapid eye movement) sleep is when the mind repairs itself, grows new connections, and ‘puts it all together’; this type of sleep occurs about every 90 minutes and gets longer as the night progresses. Between the seventh and eighth hour, we get almost an hour of REM sleep, so it’s critical that kids are getting at least this amount.

      How many hours of sleep does a teenager need?

      Research at the National Center on Sleep Disorders at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US, shows that children who regularly sleep nine hours perform better in school, are happier, suffer fewer accidents, and are less likely to develop weight or emotional problems later on than those who try to function on less.

      So count back. If your child has to be up at seven every morning, then aim for a 10 pm bedtime. It can be difficult to get some teens into bed; see page for a little advice.

      When can children set their own bedtime?

      Left to their own devices, many older children and teenagers would resist bedtime for as long as possible, which makes the concept of allowing them to set their own bedtimes potentially dangerous. We’ve established that teenagers need as much sleep, if not more, than a 12-year-old (see page). The importance of sleep needs to be made clear before any responsibility for setting bedtimes can be handed over to kids. If they understand their requirements, and are willing to act responsibly, then it is acceptable for them to choose when they go to sleep. In reality, it’s hard to enforce a bedtime after the age of about fifteen, so that’s probably a good point at which kids can be given the freedom to decide.

      It’s worth, however, laying down some ground rules, the first being that you expect your child to get an average of eight or nine hours of sleep a night. Short-term sleep deficit can normally be made up; however, research has consistently supported the proposition that ongoing sleep deprivation results in decreased academic achievement. For instance, studies have demonstrated that children with later school-night bedtimes, more irregular bedtimes and shorter total sleep time on school nights, have lower academic achievement than children with earlier, more regular bedtimes and longer total sleep time. A large study involving thousands of students whose school systems delayed start-times demonstrated that students in such systems who have longer sleep times have better attendance records, increased continuous enrolment and a slight increase in grades.

      Kids do need to learn how to manage their own time and energy, so you might like to institute ‘bedroom time’, which means that you expect them to be in their bedrooms by, say, 10 pm every evening. Reading, listening to music or other quiet pursuits can take place after this time, but TV, computers, phones and loud music – all of which disturb sleep patterns – are out. This is a compromise of sorts, with your child effectively setting his own sleep time, while you enforce the wind-down time.

      Can bedtimes be later on the weekend and, if so, by how much?

      As long as your child is getting the sleep he needs, there is no reason why a later bedtime on weekends isn’t possible. If he can make up the hours by sleeping in, he’ll get the sleep he needs. But beware! Many families find it irritating to have a teen sleeping till noon on weekends, after spending half the night watching TV or banging around the house. If your child has homework, household chores, a part-time job or activities on the weekend to fit in, midday wakenings are not conducive to a productive schedule. Once again, set a bedroom time (see above) of, say, 11 pm or midnight with the same limitations on activities in place. If your child has a TV in her room, make sure it’s not on all hours, and that a certain cut-off point is agreed (see page). Sleepovers, later evenings out and even one-off programmes on TV might call for the occasional later bedtime, and if you are flexible on these occasions, you are more likely to convince a teen that a reasonable bedtime on ordinary weekend nights is acceptable.

      Should my child be allowed to listen to music while he falls asleep?

      Many older children and teenagers find it difficult to settle (the result of a circadian of rhythms that goes awry with adolescent hormones), and tend to potter about doing the same things they enjoy throughout the day. Listening to music is often one of these. And while studies show that soft, soothing music has the ability to reduce stress hormones and encourage restful sleep, loud music does quite the opposite. Not only will it keep your child alert and awake for longer, but sleep itself will be disrupted by the impact on hormones and adrenaline. It’s a good idea to set some guidelines for when loud music is appropriate (stopping, say, an hour or so before lights out). Do, however, encourage soft music – if you can agree on what is genuinely ‘soft and soothing’ or simply your teen’s interpretation!

      My son often falls asleep in front of the TV in his bedroom – will this affect his sleep?

      Unfortunately, yes. Many experts frown upon TVs in bedrooms, and this is one of the main reasons why. In a recent US study, researchers found that some TV viewing habits were particularly strongly associated with sleep problems. These included: the presence of a television in a child’s bedroom; the child’s use of the TV as a sleep aid; and the amount of TV viewed daily. In fact, a television in the child’s room was the most powerful predictor of overall sleep disturbance and bedtime resistance in the analysis the researchers performed. The study also found that television viewing at bedtime and overall heavy television viewing caused children to resist going to bed, to have trouble falling asleep and to sleep less than the recommended eight or nine hours. TV viewing habits, such as falling asleep in front of the television, seemed to cause sleep disturbances in 25 per cent of children.

      ADOLESCENTS AND SLEEP

      Adolescent sleep has become a topic of great concern, spawning a number of world-wide conferences to address the problem. As a group, adolescents appear to be among the most sleep-deprived in our