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Home › Articles › Health › I'm Just Tired

I'm Just Tired

How Sleep Affects Your Preteen

By Teri Brown

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What is happening to your preteen? Your once active child has suddenly become as much of a couch fixture as the cushions are. They ooze around the house as slow as pudding, yawning and stretching, as if they hadn't just woke from a marathon snooze an hour ago. Everyone knows that teenagers are famous sleepers, but preteens?

Too Much Too Soon Too Early
Oftentimes the culprit is their schedule. Candice Haaga's 12-year-old son has become more and more sluggish as the school year wore on.

"I think the ridiculously early start time for school is partly to blame," says Haaga, mother of two from Rockville, Md. "He has to get up at 6:20 a.m. daily to catch his 7:15 a.m. bus to start school at 8 a.m. Sometimes I think he's upset or mad about something, and it turns out he's just tired."

Being over-tired can cause attitude problems as well as difficulties with focus and concentration at school. "When overtired from too little sleep, my 12-year-old son acts apathetic, doesn't smile and speaks more slowly," says Haaga. "He is more cranky, gets upset more easily, talks less and is generally less responsive."

Haaga's son is not alone in having a tight schedule that doesn't allow a preteenager to get the sleep they need. It seems as if it is almost epidemic. According to a national study conducted by the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan, from 1981 to 1997, children's free time declined by 12 hours per week. Free time is often down time, helping your child unwind, which in turn leads to better quality sleep.

Early Puberty May Be to Blame
While early school mornings and over-scheduling can lead to a sleepy preteen, oftentimes there are very real physiological reasons your 9- to 13-year-old seems to be exhausted. Dr. Kyle Johnson, associate director of the Oregon Health & Science University's Sleep Medicine Program, believes that while the vast majority of preteens are not getting enough sleep because of increasing social and academic pressures, there are those who seem to be at the mercy of an early adolescence.

"Research demonstrates that children delay their sleep schedules as they proceed through puberty," says Dr. Johnson. "This delay in sleep schedules seems to be biologically driven and influenced by sociocultural changes. Some preteens mature sooner than others, and these kids may be proceeding through puberty at this age."

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