PIEDMONT — Sleep. Make sure your children get enough sleep so they can be happy, healthy, productive and safe.
That was one of the main messages Denise Pope, Ph.D., co-founder of Stanford University’s Challenge Success program, imparted to parents Jan. 19 at Piedmont High School’s Alan Harvey Theater. Recent studies have found that school-age children need 9.5 hours of sleep, but middle schoolers are getting 8.03 hours and high school students are getting only 6.84 hours.
“With that amount of sleep,” Pope said, “(high school students) should not be driving a vehicle.”
Also, when students aren’t getting a full 9.5 hours of sleep they are hurting themselves academically, she said. The brain processes the day’s information during sleep. And people who sleep less are said to be more likely to bully and be overweight.
Challenge Success is a program with a holistic focus on the student, not just grades and performance. Pope is the co-author of “Overloaded and Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy, Successful Kids” which is Challenge Success’ first book related to its mission.
Pope began the talk with the audience turning to one another and discussing what success means. When members of the audience repeated to Pope that their discussions yielded goals like happiness, fulfillment, engagement and health, Pope said those were intrinsic values. Students, on the other hand, tell her that success means extrinsic things like money, good grades, good test scores and the quality of college they get into.
“It’s about the grades, not the learning, to get you to the next level, to get you to the money to get you to the happiness,” she said.
But that drive for extrinsic values may be creating unhealthy and underprepared future adults, she said. Students sometimes call themselves “robo-students” and lack creativity and the ability to solve complex problems. They are not prepared with 21st century skills and cannot collaborate or communicate well. She says these issues are also taking a toll on students’ health.
“We are seeing a real lack of resilience where kids are afraid to make mistakes and parents are bubble-wrapping their kids so they don’t make mistakes,” she said. Students are suffering from anxiety and depression, drug abuse, cutting, eating disorders and suicidal ideation “in rates we haven’t seen before,” she added.
Balance is key. She had parents create a chart of how many hours their children spend in school, doing homework, doing chores, doing paid work (if any), participating in extracurricular activities, interacting with computers or tablets, having unstructured time, spending time with family and sleeping. Many of these estimates yielded more than 24 hours a day of activity.
The students need playtime, downtime and family time, which Pope likes to call “PDF.” With playtime, the students need to have an opportunity do things on their own free will, she said.
“It’s time in a child’s day where he or she is not engaged in a formally structured activity,” Pope said. “The more you can build in that playtime, the better they will be.”
Playtime should also include social activities with friends. Pope acknowledged that interacting on smartphones and computers often takes the place of face-to-face socializing, but students need to read facial expressions and hear voice tone to gather what people are feeling and really meaning when they speak.
“The number-one thing you want to encourage is face-to-face. You don’t want them to always be texting,” she said.
With downtime, students need to be permitted to “chill,” rest and rejuvenate, even if that just means lying in bed with ear buds in listening to music. Moderate screen time and allow for self-directed relaxation, she said.
Finally, family time is a way for kids to know that their siblings and parents “have their back” and love them. She suggests getting together for at least 25 minutes five days a week to eat, play games, take a walk or do anything that brings quality time.
“This is a place to have a safe space for everyone,” she said. When students have family time, they are less likely to do drugs, fail out of school or have an unwanted pregnancy.
“If you don’t have a home tradition or ritual, you can start one,” Pope said.
Pope ended the talk with strategies for parenting of well-balanced kids. Parents should define success on their own terms instead of comparing their kids or families to others. They should examine subtle messages from their children and avoid overscheduling their days. Finally, they should limit media and screen time and honor health and well-being.
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