Sleepy Children?

Battling Parents Keep Kids Awake

Pete's Points

Well that's the headline anyway.

"Researchers at Auburn University in Alabama and Brown University in Rhode Island looked at a group of 54 healthy eight-year-olds and nine-year-olds. None of the children had a history of sleep disorders. The investigators asked the parents and the children how much the parents fought and how they resolved their conflicts. Then, for the next seven nights, the children wore an Actigraph—a watch-like sensor that measures movement and uses that information to determine how well the children slept."

Surprise surprise the children slept badly when their parents had been fighting.

What's the advice?

"Settle things quickly, do so quietly and make up conspicuously. The more the kids see you getting along, the better they—and you—will sleep."

I wonder if the researchers actually considered what the effect is on the parents?

Perhaps if they got some more sleep they would be less likely to fight and so we would have fewer children sleeping less and so on.

Then of course we get to ask the question what is enough sleep anyway? Each person is likely to have a different sleep requirement and each person's sleep requirement will changes depending on their age and their state of health.

The verdict?

Sounds like common sense but you may want to think about it a bit and not believe everything you read in the newspapers!