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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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It turns out that it is up to parents to make sure their children are getting enough sleep at this age. Telling them it's time for bed at age 12 is still OK to do.

"It is the last age where we parents have enough control to set these limits, and it is very important that we do so," says Dr. Schoumacher. "Our children are not likely to learn good sleep habits as teenagers if we don't show that we take this matter seriously when they are preteens. We should set a reasonable bedtime for them and enforce it, we should prohibit activities that interfere with quality sleep right before bedtime, and we should make sure their sleep environment is restful."

The average 9- to 12-year-old child needs 10 hours of sleep per night. The amount of sleep that your child needs may be an hour or so more or less than that without being in any way abnormal. The correct amount of sleep for a given child is the amount that allows him to be maximally alert during the subsequent day.

"One good way to know that the amount of sleep is adequate is that the child gets out of bed easily and doesn't require any extra sleep time on the weekends," says Dr. Schoumacher.

The importance of an adequate amount of sleep is incalculable for your preteen. Sleep is just as important and integral to a healthy lifestyle as are diet and exercise.

"No child (or adult!) can be at their best when they are sleepy," says Dr. Schoumacher. "It is bound to affect school performance, social development and general health and happiness. So help them get more and better sleep."

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