Last week in clinic, I had a spunky, petite 12-year-old — I will call her Lucy — and her mom. When I brought up tech and sleep (which I nearly always do), Lucy said she does sleep with her phone in her bedroom. (She had on a smartwatch, and I imagine if the phone is allowed in the room, that is likely to be allowed as well.)
When I discussed why and how to ensure great sleep and mentioned keeping devices out of the bedroom at night, Lucy said, “How about I keep it in my closet?”
I smiled.
Good problem-solving, but these devices are too attention-grabbing and cause a lot of brain drain to try and resist.
I am sure you’ve heard the familiar rally cry of the kid who doesn’t want to get off a screen and go to bed, “Mom, just five more minutes.” It’s easy to say ok when they don’t have to get up early for school the next day. The lazy days of summer are coming to a close.
Understanding just how much insufficient sleep affects our children is a motivator to help them get the best sleep possible. As kids return to school, resetting sleep habits and rules around tech in the bedroom is hard but imperative.
Let's start with the latest research on youth sleep and brain development. Lauren Hale, PhD, discusses how poor sleep impacts brain development in our latest film, Screenagers: Elementary School Age Edition, which is coming out in two weeks.
“Researchers followed nine and ten-year-olds and, at baseline, collected data from the kids, from the parents, and the brain scan and followed up with them two years later,” Lauren says.
“The kids who were insufficient sleepers compared to the kids who were sufficient sleepers had changes in their brain development, especially in areas like the basal ganglia and temporal lobe. This corresponded with worse mental health outcomes, worse behavioral outcomes, and lower intelligence measurements.”
“My team and I analyzed numerous studies in which we included youth aged six to 17, and we showed that just having a mobile device, which includes a phone or a tablet, in the bedroom, even if they didn’t use it, was associated with almost a twofold risk of insufficient sleep duration,” Hale says in Screenagers: Elementary School Age Edition.
Some of my favorite ways to set and maintain rules
1. Often, you read recommendations about having a charging station in a neutral room like the kitchen or living room. But this puts a lot of strain on kids’ ability to control themselves through the night when tiredness strains willpower. Instead, keep devices in your bedroom. If they are worried that you will be looking at their devices, the same issue would happen if they are in the shared space.
2. When deciding to put devices away with your kids, start by suggesting a very early time, knowing you will allow it later. This gives some leeway when they do indeed suggest a later time.
3. Another important guideline — and believe me, parents, this takes all sorts of self-regulation strategies, on OUR PART, to do this — but let kids and teens know that devices will go away at a specific time, EVEN IF HOMEWORK IS NOT DONE. You are setting the stage early on. There can be some wiggle room at finals times, and you can say how well they have done for all those prior weeks. Thus, having leeway when school is more demanding can show you are realistic about how life works.
4. Provide alternatives to the phone or tablet. Books, journaling, coloring, crocheting, or knitting are healthy substitutions for scrolling and texting, especially in bed. For younger kids, a pre-bedtime dance-off is a fun way to get them to put away the screens.
Pulling the plug on tech, especially in the bedroom, is painful initially. But stay strong and trust your kids will start to welcome the tech reprieve as they feel better during the day.
Engaging your kids in conversation will help them understand and accept the changing rules. Here are some questions to discuss together.
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Last week in clinic, I had a spunky, petite 12-year-old — I will call her Lucy — and her mom. When I brought up tech and sleep (which I nearly always do), Lucy said she does sleep with her phone in her bedroom. (She had on a smartwatch, and I imagine if the phone is allowed in the room, that is likely to be allowed as well.)
When I discussed why and how to ensure great sleep and mentioned keeping devices out of the bedroom at night, Lucy said, “How about I keep it in my closet?”
I smiled.
Good problem-solving, but these devices are too attention-grabbing and cause a lot of brain drain to try and resist.
I am sure you’ve heard the familiar rally cry of the kid who doesn’t want to get off a screen and go to bed, “Mom, just five more minutes.” It’s easy to say ok when they don’t have to get up early for school the next day. The lazy days of summer are coming to a close.
Understanding just how much insufficient sleep affects our children is a motivator to help them get the best sleep possible. As kids return to school, resetting sleep habits and rules around tech in the bedroom is hard but imperative.
Let's start with the latest research on youth sleep and brain development. Lauren Hale, PhD, discusses how poor sleep impacts brain development in our latest film, Screenagers: Elementary School Age Edition, which is coming out in two weeks.
“Researchers followed nine and ten-year-olds and, at baseline, collected data from the kids, from the parents, and the brain scan and followed up with them two years later,” Lauren says.
“The kids who were insufficient sleepers compared to the kids who were sufficient sleepers had changes in their brain development, especially in areas like the basal ganglia and temporal lobe. This corresponded with worse mental health outcomes, worse behavioral outcomes, and lower intelligence measurements.”
Have you ever read a magazine in a dentist's chair, and it made you want to jump out of the chair? That is what happened to me when I saw an ad, which is the photo of today’s blog. I was completely shocked that people in the industry would have the nerve to imply that taking a drug is how a small child “sleeps naturally.”
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Today I discuss powerful research regarding how sleep deficiency can impact brain development. Having a calm conversation about the latest science of sleep and brain development before even broaching the ideas of new sleep rules can be effective.
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Before I put on my clinical hat and tell you lots of things I have found interesting about sleep research these days, I want to mention what some parents I have spoken with have told me. They tell me that their kids have devices in their bedrooms and their children are getting good about not using them by a certain hour. And my response is YES! AND … although this is probably true, once they hit the preteen and teen years and perhaps a boyfriend or girlfriend comes into the picture, or say another drama has really hit the road, or… – resisting devices can become impossible. (Not to mention they are tired so executive function, i.e. willpower and self-control goes down exponentially).
READ MORE >for more like this, DR. DELANEY RUSTON'S NEW BOOK, PARENTING IN THE SCREEN AGE, IS THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE FOR TODAY’S PARENTS. WITH INSIGHTS ON SCREEN TIME FROM RESEARCHERS, INPUT FROM KIDS & TEENS, THIS BOOK IS PACKED WITH SOLUTIONS FOR HOW TO START AND SUSTAIN PRODUCTIVE FAMILY TALKS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY AND IT’S IMPACT ON OUR MENTAL WELLBEING.
